Phoenix Nights

The Phoenix Cinema

Last night we ('hOME') had our first meeting in the upstairs bar of the Phoenix Cinema, Jericho. We thought that the terrible weather and the fact that a lot of people were away for one reason or another might mean we had a low turnout but we actually had a really good number. The plan is that we will be in there the fourth Thursday of each month for a central meeting with a learning/discussion focus. Having said that we still said some simple Celtic prayers and liturgy together at the beginning. It was great to offer prayers in a non-church venue. The staff at the Cinema are real people of peace and have bent over backwards to accomodate us - taking things off the wall so we could project, giving us a couple of bottles of wine at the end as part of the financial settling up etc. - they've been brilliant. In fact the bar manager remembers the band that I used to play in 10 years ago in Oxford (coincidentally the chief projectionist at the cinema used to be our bass player!) so he was quite surprised to see that I've ended up as a priest!
Anyway, we had a great time last night with some great discussion on the theology of community and what it meant to be both a 'community of acceptance' and a 'community of resistance' in our culture. there was a bit of lively debate and a general feeling that to be a community of resistance might mean taking a negative stance which needs to be balanced by a desire to be a community that celebrates the goodness of the life offered to us by God. Top banana - I love our church!