My weekend in rainy old England. The countryside was great - rolling hills, sheep and lambs, green grass, and a beautiful stone mansion to have the conference in (yes that picture on your left is Rydal Hall, the actual place we stayed in - impressed???). This is Beatrix Potter country - we stopped in at her town down the road.
The conference was the annual meeting of the European Church Growth Association. People were there from all over Europe (and some Americans). Not a large number, but a good size. I led an all-afternoon question-and-answer time regarding worship and spirituality and church structure in the emerging culture. It moved quickly, due to the interest, but I was not able to get around to all the things I wanted to say.
In the evening, I and Lammert Vrieling (A very cool Dutch church planter with Christian Associates, who is becoming a good friend) led everyone in a "postmodern worship experience". Since my focus on postmodernity has a lot to do with time and space, history and geography, moment and ground, I wanted to do something that was connected to the land we were on and to the day - So I went out in the morning and took images of signposts at the conference center.
These images are unedited - they looked different when i mixed them, but here they are:
I put the images together in my VJ program, Arkaos, which allows me to add real time effects and layer them at the same time. The result was really good. With music freshly made by Andy Marshall (who burned a looped version of some ambient music that he created) participants were able to enter into a time of confession, intercession, and prophetic imagination through images found around them. Andy and Bea, who have matching nose rings (very cute!!) are now blogging at Moogaloo.com
The 30 minute experience looked like this:
1. Intro was the "Majesty" from Highway Video, courtesy of Travis - the track had Martin Smith singing a hymn with images from nature - I thought it appropriate, given the rocky terrain, and because the English would rather hear one of their own people singing. We had wanted to project it on the ceiling but decided on the wall.
2. Lammert, whose name carries absolutely no similarity to "Lamer", played a morphing Jesus video piece from his Titanium G4 (I used my pathetic little G3 ibook) while I read from Psalm 56 and 57.
3. The prayer time using the prophetic images from the property - this was the main piece. People were really getting into the prayer.
4. "I will not forget you" video from 100portraits. The Europeans were really moved by this video, in a MAJOR way, and saw a vision of what could happen in Europe if God broke through. Reinhold led people in prayer and others prayed and then it finished up. It was a really good experience.
Why didn't I do the "Tree By The River" experience?
Because it was a movement and i did not feel it would be an easy step for these mission leaders, and because they asked for a postmodern worship experience, which means that i really cant take something that worked in Japan and do it in another context in the same way. instead, I wanted to create something that was for them, for them ONLY, and for that DAY, and connected to the piece of real estate that we were occupying at the moment.
That, to me, is more postmodern than importing something foreign, just because it is cool.
I think they all felt honored that we did something just for them, and using found objects from under their noses was a way to teach them how to see. It was also low tech - ie, they could probably do the same thing in their countries if they wanted to reproduce a similar experience.
I like reproducability. But how the heck do you spell it?
RESPONSE:
Karen Ward: hey andrew,
blessed eastertide. i was surfing your blog this am and saw you mentioned using a 100 potraits "i will not forget you video"
this is one of my favorite songs... where can i get this video?
Andrew: Hi Karen. I met Ben and Robin of 100 Portraits in Seattle - same time i met you - they are a great couple and i have a lot of respect for them. the info on the back of this one track video is:
"Retailers call 1-800-578-3278 or surf to GMusicD.com"
