bluegrass eucharist

one of the very best things at greenbelt this year was the bluegrass eucharist service by house for all sinners and saints. they were scheduled up against headline act royksopp, so i had to make a choice of solidarity - i feared they wouldn't get many takers. how wrong i was! they filled the venue and turned 100 away.

and the service was marvellous. singing's a funny thing. so often it's no more than half-hearted mumbling, and some alt worship groups have given up altogether rather than drag an unwilling congregation through the motions. and yet - if you get the style and the songs and the mood right, the results are astounding and transcendent. why did hundreds of people sing so lustily songs that they barely knew printed in that stave-with-words-below format that's so hard to follow? i guess it's one of those things where numbers really do make a difference - the more voices there are, the better it sounds and the more people want to join in. and the style of the music is so cheerfully singable - large chunks of the liturgy were also sung, but what a contrast to the classicising formality of the standard church of england version!

oh, and the sermon was great too. some people at grace feigned shock that i should praise a sermon, but as with singing, what works, works!

i captured as much footage as my camera would hold. first up, pastor nadia bolz-weber introduces the service with some references to the current swine-flu rules - no common cup, servers using hand gel etc - all of which will be subverted by the general hand-shaking and hugging of the peace!

house for all sinners and saints - intro from steve collins on Vimeo.

house for all sinners and saints - kyrie from steve collins on Vimeo.

house for all sinners and saints - absolution from steve collins on Vimeo.

house for all sinners and saints - holy holy holy lord from steve collins on Vimeo.

house for all sinners and saints - eucharist from steve collins on Vimeo.

house for all sinners and saints - closing prayer from steve collins on Vimeo.

nobody wanted to leave at the end, so the last couple of hymns are really an encore.

house for all sinners and saints - closing hymns encore from steve collins on Vimeo.

people were saying afterwards, how about this for the sunday morning mainstage communion? i think so...

Comments

[becky]

For you to praise a sermon,it must have kicked theological ass. Wow.

[Ellen]

Steve, thanks for posting this...it was a fantastic service and as you say the sermon was well placed and thought provoking. Certainly a New Forms highlight this year.

[Ellen]

Did you by any chance record the sermon?

[steve collins]

sadly no. wished i had. the only answer is to record entire services and edit, because it's hard to guess beforehand which bits are going to be good.

[annette]

thanks Steve, this was certainly one of the highlights of my greenbelt this year - I am the blonde just in front of your camera in the first few vids. I thought the sermon was great too!

[Nadia]

Thanks so much for this Steve! I can't tell you how much fun this was for us.

I'm happy to send you the text from the sermon if you'd like.

Blessings,
Nadia

[steve collins]

nadia has posted the sermon text here
http://sarcasticlutheran.typepad.com/sarcastic_lutheran/2009/05/sermon-on-judas-easter-7b.html

[John]

Hey Steve.
I'm the Methodist HFASS-er from the B&B. Thanks for posting the video, I had no Idea it was on the net. IM glad you liked what we did. Your thoughts on the nature and experience being transcendent was well said. Im glad that is one of the things people could take away from our service. Good luck and many prayers for your ministry.

Peace,
-John

[Abigail]

Does anyone know the words that they used during the absolution, I found them very moving but cannot remember what thy were. Thanks