2010 littleservices #1: “12 Minutes”

Happy New Year!

The first littleservice of 2010  was conducted on a very cold night. The streets of Bristol were slippery with frozen rain on frozen pavement.

Opening with a Jeff Buckley song “New Year’s Prayer”, service leader R paused to recite this poem by Turlough O’Carolan…

How beautiful the turning of the year!
A moment artificial yet profound:
Point upon an arbitrary chart
Passing like a breath upon the heart,
Yearning with anticipation wound,
New hope new harbored in old-fashioned cheer.
Even when the boundary line is clear,
We recognize the oneness of the ground.
Years, like circles, do not end or start
Except we lay across their truth our art,
Adjusting dates as they go round and round
Revolving to a tune long sung and dear.

Three readers read different versions of Philippians 3:13-14 (followed by Revelation 21 – “behold, I make all things new!”). The Message version reads like so:

Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.

There was then a short spoken address in which R related what the title “12 Minutes” referred to – he was born on New Years’ Day at 12.12am and thus always wonders at this time of year about what was happening in that hospital ward in those 12 minutes, and how if he could go back in time, that’s where he’d go.

A film clip was then shown of Back To The Future (1989) in which Doc Brown explains to Marty McFly the ways in which the actions of one person can change the entire course of (local) history. This is illustrated by the first clip in this YouTube video.

R then invited everyone to partake in 12 minutes of silence (in a sort of Quaker style) to think further on time, choices, seeing the new year as an opportunity and so on.

Then, the gathered Foundationers partook in some joyful, if curious millennium liturgy, which can be read here (under “Words Of Welcome And Call To Worship”).

The congregation was then invited to choose a photographic image from a selection to take home as symbolic of their new year’s resolution, prayer, hope or promise.