The title speaks for itself. Present on Earth is a creative and engaging book of worship resources focused on and around the life and work of Jesus. It is actually the third book in this particular series of worship resources from the Iona Community. The other two books in the series, Cloth for the Cradle and Stages on the Way dealt with Christmas and Easter respectively. The book is full of prayers, meditations, dialogue scripts, symbolic actions and worship ideas covering the three years of Christ’s ministry. Much of the material is drawn from the work of the Wild Goose Resource Group in workshops and worship services. I am still working my way through it (I only bought it yesterday at a workshop led by John Bell) but I have found much that is useful and challenging in what I have seen so far. The focus of much of the material is on engaging people’s experience, intuition & imagination. Highly recommended, as are the other two books in the series.
Fractals: Alternative Resources for Worship in the Emerging Culture is a new alternative worship resource from Cityside Baptist Church in Auckland, NZ. According to the back cover of the CD…
“This is a resource for those wanting to pursue creative possibilities in worship. ...Fractals takes you through Cityside’s Sunday morning worship, their cycle of evening worship events and then through the Church Year as they celebrate it.”
There are literally hundreds of ideas for worship, ranging from ideas for multimedia worship experiences to simples prayers for use in every day worship. All the material comes on a single CD and can be adapted and used as needed with virtually no copyright limitations. The CD contains basically all text files, although there are some audio and graphic files. The flash interface is very nice to use as well. Although if you really want to you can skip the interface and copy the text files directly off the CD.
There is a whole lot of creativity and energy in this resource. And it is well worth the NZ$25 + postage. If you want to think creatively about worship and want to start exploring how to worship in a way that is more authentic and relevant to our culture and society, I highly recommend this particular publication.
If you have any further enquiries about Fractals or just want to get your hands on a copy, you can use this enquiry form.
