Celebration - Sunday at 5

Hey Everyone. Celebration of the Faithful time once again. We will be meeting at Zack and my house (2598 Indianola Ave. Columbus, 43202) at 5:00pm Sunday, Mar. 1st. The theme is prayer so come ready to set aside your ideas about whether or not prayer works and give this prayer thing a shot. For the meal to follow the theme is creative sandwiches. Zack and I will provide bread (marble and 7 grain). We ask that others bring things to put between bread, also some cold sides would be appreciated. Let's build amazing works of the culinary arts. Post what you will bring, try to think outside the bun. Detailed directions in comment. Eve

Next Week's Celebration of the Faithful Ideas

Here are some ideas I threw out at the meeting that we could possible do for our "Celebration of the Faithful" next week, Sun. Aug. 31. Please offer your comments, ideas and suggestions.

1. Visit a "prayer labyrinth" - see wikipedia article for more info - This website lists several in the Columbus area. Adam and Kara mentioned the OSU arboreteum, which looks to have beautiful gardens and a very nice outdoor labyrinth. We could either do the meal aspect of the gathering at someone's house, or we could try a picnic.
   
2. Do some sort of prayer stations. I think at the last "Celebration of the Faithful" Nick and Jane facilitated something very similar (but I wasn't able to make it). Prayer stations are based upon the ancient practice of the Stations of the Cross, which is essentially using visual cues to direct prayer. "Stations" (or a spot to stand and look at a picture) are set up around the room and people move from station to station, being led in prayer. It would be tough for one person to set up many prayer stations, so perhaps different people could design and bring a prayer station, and then we could set them up as one experience. The stations could be interactive in some way, for example having a place to write, a picture to color in or draw, an image to look at, a physical element to touch, something to take away - this would be an opportunity to be very creative. The prayer stations wouldn't necessarily have to have any set theme, although we could agree on a theme, perhaps something general like "Peace" or more specific like praying for those suffering from natural disasters.
   

OK - as Nick said, "Blog it out"

2 Opportunities

1) 30 Days of Prayer for Muslim Countries, during the month of Ramadan - Zack first told me about this last year, and it was a challenging time - not only in prayer, but also fasting to identify with Ramadan practices. It's a pretty awesome way to show love to millions of people.

2) "The Shack" discussion. Not sure if anyone else has read this book, but it's really good. My dad's church is hosting a discussion night, and everyone is welcome. Fri. Sept. 5th, 7pm.

Creative Prayer

Check out this cool sampling of prayer station ideas.  Two of my favorites are To Be Broken and Deathbed Conversions.  At the U2Charist a few weeks ago, several prayer stations were set up outside of Skully's in order to focus awareness on issues of consumerism and poverty.  The tangible interaction required by these simple activities made them profoundly powerful.

Also of interest is a video that the originator of the site posted describing a Sojourners Evening at their church.  Observing the way in which the sanctuary was transformed reminded me of McLaren's thoughts regarding certain church denominations more readily able to incorporate "fresh expressions."