A (fairly typical) week in the life of All Hallows
Sunday
9.15 am Ray is joined by a small congregation for our meditative Eucharist using traditional liturgy (ASB/Common Worship) with music and a short reflection.
10.30 am Sharing the Feast of Life. A mixture of newcomers, occasional attenders and regulars form a gathering of between 40 and 50 for our main Sunday service. We open with an evocative chant calling upon the Holy Spirit to bless us with her presence. The pace of the service is celebratory but contemplative. A member of the congregation, David Sarsfield, breaks the word with us today, exploring ‘the miracle of life’. We gather for Communion in a large circle around the altar. Ray breaks the bread to the four points of the compass:
We break this bread for those who follow other paths: for those who follow the noble path of the Buddha; the yogic path of the Hindus; the way of the Eternal Guru of the Sikhs; and for the other children of Abraham, the Jews, from whom our Lord came, and the Muslims. We pray that one day we will celebrate our differences and live as one.
We break this bread for the broken earth, ravaged and plundered for greed. We pray that one day we will learn how to live with respect for our beautiful blue and green planet.
We break this bread for our broken humanity, for the powerful and the powerless trapped by exploitation and oppression. We pray that one day we may all be free.
We break this bread for our broken selves, for the unhealed hurts and wounds that lie within us all, and we pray that we may all know healing, forgiveness and resurrection joy.
At the close we use the following blessing:
As we are blessed by God, may we be a blessing to all we meet this week. And let us remember that we are beautiful in the sight of God; the blessing of Christ is upon us: let us walk free and open our hearts to life, for Christ walks with us into each new day.
3 pm A group of singers from a local lesbian and gay choir, including several members of the congregation, gather in the church to rehearse the Vivaldi Gloria for the concert here on 9 December.
Monday
7 pm As folk gather for the Exploring course in the café they can see people limbering up for the T’ai Chi class across the corridor in the church. Monday evenings at All Hallows: people using both mind and body in seeking Spirit!
Tuesday
12 noon Local mums Natalie, Faye, Debbie and Clare, with helping hands from café stalwart Iris and our project coordinator Caitlin, start decorating the café for the under10s Halloween party and making the food. The decorations look great. Ray arrives to help out (a bit late in the day) at 3 pm and ends up baby-minding Faye’s gorgeous little one Brogan.
Kids start arriving in all sorts of scary costumes by 4.15 with their parents, and the place fills up — musical statues is followed by pass the parcel and face painting; then on to the food; then, after putting the pin in the skeleton, it’s on to the ghost tour. Theological college never prepared Ray for playing the ghost; in the end, after tripping on the sheet, he ends up flat on his back, and it’s a PILE ON and one flat vicar! After some ghost stories by candlelight led by Faye and Natalie, it’s home time. At 6.30 pm the exhausted team clean up ready for tomorrow’s café . A great party — well done to all!
Wednesday
9 — 11 am Breakfast is served in the café: at £1.60 for a full cooked breakfast it’s a good deal and well used — mums coming in after dropping the kids off at school, others looking for a good breakfast and company, over the last few months a good and loyal regular stream of customers have been developing.
10.30 am A visit to the church from Broomfield School in Middleton. The children are all living with severe learning disabilities, but our open space gives them and their helpers freedom of movement around the church in their wheelchairs. Slowly and purposefully, allowing the children to set the pace, we explore some of the sounds (music) , smells (lots of incense), elements (water and fire), pictures and objects associated with the space.
Then we move into the café to join with others who are enjoying today’s café lunch (served 12 noon — 3 pm), which is being run by guest cooks, the Asian women’s group from the Burley Lodge Centre. Their Nice n Spicy menu is going down well with regulars and newcomers alike. The group is made up of women who are Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, and as it is in a church building it could be said to be a real inter-faith event!
Thursday
9 am — 3 pm Café open for breakfast and lunch again — at lunch, locals and community workers tuck into today’s dishes of meat and rice cooked by Natalie and a bean and veggie stew made by Caitlin. And for pudding there is Iris’ trifle!
7 pm The All Souls service of remembrance and hope. Twenty-five people gather by candlelight to hear readings, music and prayers in memory of those who have died. The remembrance book that has sat in the corner of the café has 82 names in it. The central part of the service is the lighting of a candle for each person we have been asked to remember. Locals, members of the Sunday congregation, and relatives of people whose funerals we have taken in the last year, are amongst the gathering.
Friday
5 — 7 pm The Hip Hop club run by Breakers Unify. 20—30 young people come to learn breakdancing and rap with an emphasis on creativity and respect for self and others.
Saturday
9.45 am A group from Exploring gather at All Hallows in order to head off to Sinai Reform Synagogue in Leeds to experience a Jewish service as part of the course. It is a Bar Mitzvah, at which we are made very welcome. When Exploring meets again, people will share their experiences of visits to other faiths (other visits are taking place next week) and will explore the significance of our inter-faith world on how we live our commitment to the way of Jesus of Nazareth.
2 pm After several months of planning with Ray, Kath and Jane celebrate with 30 members of their family and friends a moving and powerful ceremony of blessing of their relationship. Up until the last minute no one is sure that Jane’s mum (who has struggled to accept Jane’s sexuality) is coming, but she is there, and as the couple come in it’s hugs and tears — a real healing moment.
Sunday
10.30 am It’s All Saints Sunday, our special day (‘patronal festival’ in churchspeak), so we swing the incense. Ray starts his sermon by telling us about a week in the life of All Hallows; it bears a strong resemblance to what’s on this Web page. He reminds us dramatically that we are all saints … St Laura, St Andrew, St Iris … We feel our haloes glow. We sing an Iona Community hymn, The Strangest of Saints, which includes the verse:
Who dare deride those found at Jesus’ side,
welcome despite their weakness?
Christ, who knows all, expresses by his call
the wonder of everyone’s uniqueness.
Afterwards in the café we have an ‘eat and meet’. It turns out to be more eat than meet, as we share a celebratory bottle of wine and the food that folk have brought, including a wonderful plum flan (thank you, Susanna).