Gants Hill: Vortex

Vortex by Wolfgang Buttress can be found at Gants Hill and has been described as an “abstracted egg” which is designed to represent regeneration and new life. Together with Fr Benjamin Wallis (St Georges Barkingside), I undertook an art project documenting the regeneration of the area. This piece of public art was originally intended as part of the regeneration work but as a result of delays was only installed some time after the completion of the project.

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Bobby West Trio & Dwight Trible - In the Beginning God.

Easter Garden at St George's Barkingside

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Switchfoot - Who We Are.

OPEN again

Photos from last Sunday's OPEN session at St George's Barkingside which included some magical music making by Simon and Edna plus projected meditations. The next session will be in four weeks time - Sunday 10th February, 4.00 - 5.30pm.

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Paul Johnson - Every Kind Of People.

OPEN for music

OPEN is a fresh expression of church in Gants Hill (St George’s Barkingside). Today's OPEN session featured Tom and Simon on lead guitar and bass playing rock and blues, ably supplemented on a couple of tunes by our resident jazz pianist Keith. OPEN sessions regularly feature art, conversation, games, meditations (projected), music, poetry, photography and refreshments. They are generally as interactive as we can make them, although with the fine music Tom and Simon were making this session was more of an extended and intimate jam session.

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Cream - Sunshine Of Your Love.

An attitude of openness

Jesus said that he had come that we may have life, and have it to the full (John 10. 10). Jesus is able to give fullness of life because “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him” (Colossians 1. 19). It is out of that fullness that we receive grace upon grace” (John 1. 16).

This is why we are told to pray that we might “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge,” so that we may be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3. 18 & 19). We receive this fullness when, out of love, we don’t judge and don’t condemn but do forgive and give to others. As Jesus said in the Sermon of the Mount:

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Luke 6. 37 & 38)

In other words, fullness comes from openness. Think for a moment of a cup or a glass or a chalice or any other container or receptacle that can hold a fluid. Each of these are specifically made to be open. They are designed to be open to receive.

If we place a lid on the container – if it is closed rather than open - then it cannot receive the water. The bottle can only be filled when it is open. Jesus’ image of “a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over” is of more than simply being filled. When we forgive and are forgiven, when we give and are given to, then we are receiving a constant flow of love which not only fills us but constantly spills over to others around us. That is what is promised to us, through Jesus, in scripture but it only occurs as we are open.

OPEN is the name of the fresh expression of church that you have begun here on Sunday afternoons. It is about the church being open for all who wish to come and open to a wide range of activities and creativity. The openness that OPEN is supposed to signify, though, is not simply about the practicalities of opening the church doors. Instead, it is much more about an attitude of mind; an attitude of openness to God, to others, to change and difference and newness.

It is an attitude of mind that, as Jesus said, we will not and cannot experience when we are judgemental, when we are condemning, when we are unforgiving or when we are not giving. Openness is demonstrated, Jesus said, through welcome, through acceptance, through forgiveness, and through giving. It is when we are open in these ways that we receive the fullness that God has been pleased to give to Jesus and that fullness spills over from us to those we meet.

We might think about OPEN as something for others – as a way of opening the church to connect with people who haven’t ordinarily come. If we are thinking that way, then we are saying it is not for me. We might even have already tried OPEN and decided that it isn’t for us. If so, we are closed rather than open. OPEN is not just an event or activities or outreach or a fresh expression, more importantly it is an opportunity to be open; to cultivate that attitude of openness through which we are able to receive God’s fullness and share it with others.

OPEN is an opportunity to be open to church looking and feeling different, open to those who don’t come to the usual church services, open to the creativity or conversation of those that we wouldn’t otherwise meet, and by meeting and greeting, welcoming and accepting all this, cultivating that attitude of openness through which we are able to receive God’s fullness and share it with others.

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Eric Bibb - Forgiveness Is Gold.

John Hutton windows

St Georges Barkingside has an etched glass window of The Good Samaritan by John Hutton plus an modern abstract stained glass window in their baptistry. Hutton, who created the Great West Screen of Coventry Cathedral known as the "Screen of Saints and Angels", also made etched glass windows for St Erkenwalds Barking.

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Jeff Buckley - So Real.

OPEN meditation

For today's OPEN session I wrote a new meditation and put together a multi-media presentation using photographs I had taken at St George's Barkingside and around Gants Hill. Here are stills of the multi-media meditation:

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Tim Buckley - I Must Have Been Blind.

OPEN (2)

The first OPEN session at St George's Barkingside had spaces for art, conversation, meditation, music, refreshments, snooker and table tennis. After its successful start, OPEN will happen on a fortnightly basis (4.00 - 5.30pm).

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Elbow - One Day Like This.

OPEN

All are welcome to the first OPEN session at St George's Barkingside, from 4pm on Sunday 30 October.

  

OPEN is a fresh expression for Gants Hill and beyond which aims to OPEN the church space, welcoming people into that space to engage with a range of social and creative activities such as art, conversation, dance, games, meditations, music, photography, prayer and refreshments.

In this way, not simply to OPEN the doors of the church to all who come but also to be OPEN and responsive to the interests and abilities of people in what happens within the space. OPEN will be an opportunity to welcome people in Christ’s name and with his free undirecting Spirit, into sacred space but on an OPEN basis without making specific demands or holding specific agendas.

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Elbow - Open Arms.

Our Community Art Exhibition (2)

I've been preparing the Windows on the world photographs that I will be exhibiting in the Our Community Art Exhibition at St Paul's Goodmayes next week. The photographs were all taken in and around Gants Hill as part of the monthly painting and photography session that I have with Benjamin Wallis, Vicar of St George's Barkingside, to document the current regeneration of Gants Hill.

I will be exhibiting these photographs in old church noticeboards which are suggestive of the former things which are being removed in order that regeneration can come but are also an indication that redundant objects can be recycled to acquire a different existence. The photographs are pinned like notices within the boards but, instead of providing factual, written information, offer the ambiguity of visual images seen through a variety of frames.

Each photograph in the Windows on the world series features a foreground object providing a frame for what can be viewed beyond. By framing what is beyond, the photograph acts as a window on a part of our world and at the same time signals the presence of the beyond, thereby also acting as a window onto the divine in a way the way similar to that achieved by icons. Exhibiting the photographs in noticeboards adds an additional window through which they are to be viewed.

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Victoria Williams - This Moment.

Confirmation & camping

Here are the candidates from St Johns Seven Kings who were confirmed by the Bishop of Barking at St Andrews Great Ilford last Sunday, together with candidates from St Andrews and St Georges Barkingside.

Bishop David preached another memorable confirmation sermon based around a tent (which symbolised Jesus' pitching his tent among us through his incarnation) and camping equipment; a calor gaz stove symbolising the fire of Spirit and a pump for a lilo symbolising the wind of the Spirit. Those present will not forget the Bishop with the lit stove balanced on his head or the nap he took on the lilo once inflated. These moments of visual humour remain in the memory together with the points being made.

Bishop David's sermons are sometimes criticised for their 'gimmicks' but I can remember both the main illustrations and the point of those illustrations for all of his confirmation sermons that I have heard since my ordination. Of how many preachers would it be possible to say that!

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Howard Goodall - Love Divine.

Gants Hill Art Project (1)

This post is the first in a new series undertaken in collaboration with Fr. Benjamin Wallis, Vicar of St Georges Barkingside. Our project involves photographing and painting the Gants Hill area on a roughly monthly basis during the period of its current regeneration. My photographs will be posted here and our work will also be displayed at St Georges.

There is an open invitation to others to join us and our approach involves conversations with any local people known to us or showing interest in what we are doing while out and about photographing and painting the area.

Today was our first sortie into the area and took in the contrasts of the Gants Hill roundabout and Valentines Park.

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Energy Orchard - Hard Street.