Monkfish Eucharist
A little thanksgiving ritual ‘round the bread and wine.

The Gathering
We gather around the table with friends to remember Jesus, who spent some of his last hours around the table with friends, passing around bread and wine. The reason he did this, and the reason we do this, is to create a bond with one another, and with God. It’s a simple habit of eating from the same piece of bread, drinking from the same cup of wine, and remembering the same person together. But it gives a rhythm to our living, a rhythm of remembrance, of togetherness, of being present to a few simple actions, of marking a few moments of holy time.

The Blessing (said … {read more…}

This week at Monkfish Abbey we did Once in Awhile Church. (Once in Awhile Church was Jim Henderson’s idea and you can read about it here. Another missional community in our Missional Cooperative has recently adopted this model too. V. interesting, if you ask me.) Since it’s Lent, we thought we’d do something that focuses very specifically on Jesus. Here’s how it went:

1) Played a couple songs about Jesus off the Ordo CD from Church of the Apostles while people sorted through our stack of Jesus pictures and chose one that resonated with them.

2) Sang some worship songs about Jesus (Vineyard favorites and a couple Mike LaJoie had recently written). Folks who weren’t up for singing … {read more…}

Sing it with me…. !

Okay, nobody knows that song….

I’ve been thinking a little bit about money. It hasn’t been the first thing on my mind, but it’s been knocking around back there, and I needed to email someone about it recently so I thought I might as well blog it out a bit.

We don’t really take a collection at Monkfish Abbey/ThPM. I was getting paid for awhile, but now we are sort of mildly supplementing my childcare expenses instead of full-on covering them, and it’s working out alright, so I don’t really mind. We don’t have many expenses, just soup and bread and wine and the occasional hundred or two for a big party or art project. I try … {read more…}