What Makes subMERGe different to other church services?

By: Mike Frost on: 09.07.05

subMERGe is Communal: We have tried to break down the separation between the experts (on the platform) and the rest of us, making subMERGe a truly communal worship experience. Direction proceeds by invitation, with no obligation to take part or to all do the same thing at the same time. The elements of the service are usually all built carefully around a theme, so teaching occurs through everything that happens, rather than being concentrated in a sermon given by a single authoritative voice. There is room for discussion and sharing, in small groups or with the whole congregation.

subMERGe is Contextual: Contextualising worship will involve more than choosing to play pop music in church instead of classical hymns. It will involve a serious attempt to enter, know, love and enjoy the culture you have been sent into. We have sought to do that within the arty, bohemian, cultural-creatives of Manly. So that whatever worship style subMERGe uses naturally reflects the lifestyles, rhythms and interests of our culture.

subMERGe is Ambient: People today, particularly young people, are multisensory in their engagement with their world and highly sensitive to the ambience of a particular environment. Restaurants, coffee shops, shopping malls and even workplaces have taken seriously the impact for good and ill that a certain ambience can have. This is not a trivial matter of interior decoration. To take the ambience of a worship space seriously is to take seriously that God can be worshipped with all our senses. At subMERGe this involves the use of visual arts, rediscovered Christian traditions and live DJ-ing.

subMERGe is Ritualised: At small boat, big sea we regularly install a labyrinth prayer walk in our gallery space. A labyrinth is a geometrical pattern that has one well defined path leading into the centre and back out again. Unlike a maze, there are no tricks to the pattern, no intersecting paths or dead ends. The most famous, and most often used design, measures over 20 feet in diameter and is modelled after the pattern of inlaid stone built into the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France in the early 1200s. As participants walk the path they encounter a series of worship experiences where they pause, listen to a piece of music and a meditation. They also undertake some symbolic action or ritual. At the centre of the labyrinth is a communion table, with bread and wine, allowing a time for silent reconnection with Christ before beginning the journey back out and past more worship stations.

subMERGe is Spirit-filled: But not in the ‘praise-and-worship’ way most church speak about being Sprit-filled. For us the Spirit speaks to us in affective ways via the symbols, activities, stations, and the music.

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