To-day saw me battling with a cold, moving the horse to pastures new (very sadly, the yard where we've kept the ponies for several years has had to close as the landlord is selling up...) and attempting the interesting feat of writing two sermons at once.
Fortunately one of them was almost complete before the cold hit...It was specially fortunate, because this was the one I needed this evening for the Inclusive Church Eucharist.
The congregation was on the miniscule side, and, alarmingly, included rather more people whose opinions I respect hugely than might make for comfort...However, the liturgy was beautiful, the hymns just right, and I survived the preaching experience. If you want it, you'll find the sermon here.
The very best thing, though, was that when I went to prepare the Table at the Offertory I was thinking sadly "Now we'll be so far away from those people...it would be so much better if we'd only thought to invite them to come and stand round the Table"....and then the hymn started and their voices sounded so close, and I looked round and, lo, they had moved of their own accord!
That's twice in a fortnight that we've been able to subvert the architecture of St M's to stand as family together and it is wonderful.
Inclusive Church? Yes, really!
2 comments:
How lovely that they came close! I love thinking of you all there around the table.
it was lovely - I was there and I think we felt emboldened to move by the preaching, by the smallness of our number and by the welcome which made me feel that here 'we really are included' despite the humourousness of the building's hopeless design!
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