The Dock Walk Continues!

What an exciting week; a blog every day, my goodness!  And despite such prolific outpourings, I realise that I still haven’t updated you all on the first Dock Walk last Sunday.

First of all I need to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to the true and trusty souls who braved the torrential rain to be there for Take One.  And, since the last thing I want to do on this blog is try to pull the wool over your eyes, I have to admit that it was a bit of a rough first attempt! – some aspects of it definitely needed to be changed, but I guess that’s the entire point of the experiment…

So – for those of you interested in such things – these are the things we reflected on when we sat down for coffee a few days later:

Good Stuff
Being outdoors – even in the rain – is a Good Thing.
Conversation can flow more easily when walking outdoors than when seated in a room – and silence is less awkward
Listening to worship music while looking out on God’s creation is quite profound

Needs-some-work Stuff
Standing in very public places listening to music/scripture/reflections made us feel a bit like we were on a Rev Willie McCrea Old-Time Gospel Salvation Crusade…
…which might look very odd and off-putting
to passers-by
…and makes us feel very self-conscious
Also it rained the whole flipping time – until we finished, when the sun promptly came out.

So!  All good feedback, and loads of great ideas for the continuing experiment.  Next time the idea is to stop for our focussed scripture/worship/reflection bits in quiet corners and secluded spaces, rather than blast them out to whole open street.  We’ll also carry little leaflets explaining who we are and what we’re up to, in case anybody wonders what’s going on (although on current evidence, the TQ is pretty deserted on a Sunday afternoon!).  And we’re continuing to look into ways to use the miracles of modern technology to avoid the need to use the little portable speaker too much.

So the invite is out again!  3:33pm on Sunday afternoon at the Odyssey Streat; if you’re up for trying church in a brand-new way, if you don’t mind being part of the process of figuring out what it looks like, if you own a brolly… be there!

PS one other idea we’re thinking about is to use the WordLive readings each week to lead into our themes and conversations for the Dock Walk on Sundays.  Of course we’ll do it in such a way that you can turn up without any preparation and not feel awkward or out-of-the-loop, but for those of us engaging (even occasionally!) in the WordLive stuff it will add an extra dimension.  This week there’s been a fantastic series of sessions looking at the life of Samson, so if you’re feeling very keen, you could check out some of them:

Monday: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?navigate=14%2f06%2f2010

Tuesday: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?navigate=15%2f06%2f2010

Wednesday: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?navigate=16%2f06%2f2010

Thursday: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?navigate=17%2f06%2f2010

Friday: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?navigate=18%2f06%2f2010

– or (usually my preferred option) the reading and main reflection for each day is also broadcast in a beautifully-produced podcast that you can pop on your mobile to listen to on the train or in the garden.  (The podcasts can be found on the WordLive website itself – eg http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14880&activityid=80096 – but the handiest way to get them is to download a whole load of them at once from iTunes – just search for Wordlive in the podcast directory).

But if you haven’t WordLived at all before Sunday, don’t worry in the slightest!

PPS – ever the encourager, Minion has suggested that I adopt a new theme tune in light of yesterday’s misadventures – what do you think?!

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