We talked a lot about reverence in April; during weekend services and in our E-Groups. If you haven’t joined an E-group yet, you missed out on a special project which wrapped up the Reverence series. Groups were given the following task:
Imagine and design 3 new rituals. The purpose of all three is simple but weighty: To express reverence for God. One of the rituals should be personal and daily; something that a disciple of Jesus could do on their own in the course of a normal day. The second should be corporate and doable in the AC3 building on, say a weekly or maybe monthly or quarterly basis. It should be inclusive of everyone who is a follower of Jesus. The third should be an annual ritual, again, corporate, but it might include people from other churches or people who are not Christians.
The groups did some GREAT work. Here’s juts a sample of some of their ideas:
- Making art. Draw a picture, write a poem or build a collection where you add to your piece each day.
- A “Ponder Walk” in which you take 15 minutes and purposefully walk while noticing everything around you and letting your thoughts shift into prayer and thanks for all you see.
- “Memento Moments”: have group members collect an item that represents their thoughts about God and then “show and tell” with the group.
- Making a work of art together; a collage, sculpture or story.
- Worship gatherings centered on a theme.
There were more, but this gives you a good idea of what group members discussed. We will be looking for ways to support events like these for individuals and groups, and we’ll be hosting our first All-Church Reverence-inspired ritual on Wednesday June 16th at 7:00PM. We’re calling it:
Covid 1900 IRL
We will be integrating our usual on-line prayer time at 7:00PM (Covid 1900) with an in-person worship and reflection event. You can join us on Facebook, YouTube, Twitch or IRL (In Real Life) in the AC3 Auditorium (masks still required).
