Never pray in a room without windows...

I once challenged some of my students to get a bit creative for their trial services (this is a service where a student preaches and receives feedback and critique).  When I arrived in the Church one Sunday I found that this enterprising student had turned all of the chairs around in the sanctuary (to face the main doors of the Church).  He preached a fairly short sermon, had some prayers, songs, and then led the community out into the streets.  He encougared them to give their offering to people they met on the streets!  Can you imagine!

That act of creative has stuck with me for years.  The Church is supposed to be incarnated into society (not the other way around).  We go into the world, and in so doing we are light in dark places and salt in places of decay.  Don't you find it strange that when you go into most Churches you go through the doors and turn your back on the world?

This quote challenged me!

The Talmud reads, "Never pray in a room without windows." Never pray without the world in mind, in other words. The purpose of the spiritual life is not to save us from reality. It is to enable us to go on co-creating it. - Joan Chittister

I will confess that I am loving being a minister 'in the marketplace'!  I feel a part of the action!

Comments

[Steve Hayes]

Dion,

I was once fired by the Anglican bishop of Natal for organising a service with feathures similar to the ones you describe -- full story here: http://methodius.blogspot.com/2008/01/psychedelic-christian-worship-thecages.html#links" REL="nofollow">Notes from underground: Psychedelic Christian Worship -- thecages.

And in many black congregations, especially Zionist ones, I think, it is common to pray in a room with no doors and windows. People shut the door of the hut (which makes it completely dark inside), turn the chairs around and kneel on them, and everyone prays at once, very loudly. That happened once at a Liberal Party meeting and made the Security Police watching the meeting distinctly nervous.