‘ascension’ aka (re)meeting with god an ascensiontide service [14.04.02]
the worship space was set out around a pile of sand above which hung a long white banner from the ceiling. onto the banner was projected a slide image of christ (taken from a painting). a series of candles (unlit) in an expanding spiral extended out from the sand.

the service purposely had two-halves with coffee and biccys servce in the break. this was intended the emthasis the structure of the service: first half ‘with christ’, second half ‘after the ascension’. the seconf half of the service deliberately mirrored some of the content of the first.

The Service:

Luke 24 : 13-35

break bread and share

hymn: i want to see your face (by abbess)

presence prayer/meditation
an extempore meditation focussing on being aware of christ’s presence, then prayer of thanksgiving

Psalm 16
a contemporary re-write of the psalm brought by one of the HOST group

strengths ritual
strips of paper were handed out with pencils and all were invited to write down what or how they felt they gained strength from their faith

Acts 1 : 6-3

B R E A K

during the break the image of christ had been switched off and the banner removed. the pile of sand now contained two human footprints.

Acts 1 : 3-11

Visual meditation
a series of images of everyday scenes from life (work, leisure, family life, hospital, gay lovers, riots etc.). one person in each scene had a bold red outline around them.
with each image was the question ‘where is christ now’?

originally intended to be projected, but ended up being printed out postcard size in several sets like packs of cards.

Prayer
this was a prayer we found in a book, but we’ve lost it again…

Intercessory prayer/ritual
similar to the ’strengths’ prayer, but this time the prayers were put in our pockets to be taken with us out into the world.

Psalm 16

‘Come Holy Spirit’ chant
sung taize chant

prayer
spoken prayer acknowldeging christ’s constant presence with us

outro
the candles spanning out from the sand were lit one by one so the light grdually spread out into the darkened worship area. congregation were invited to stand in the footprints and then follow the spiral out into the world. if the wished they could take the last candle them came to with them as they left.

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