13th November was a big day for CafeChurch and for Michelle as she was ordained priest in the Church of England. After much hard work and a little bit of creative playing with liturgy we persuaded the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds that the service really ought to be true to cafe church (he didn’t take much persuading).
An ordination is a BIG deal and as we planned we quickly became aware that there were those who wanted to be at the service who couldn’t get there physically, so alongside everything that was happening in the chapel we also had a live webstream and an online chat happening at the same time.
So what happened?
On entering the space it was set up as for cafe church (only with more tables than normal). People were invited to get a coffee, eat the cakes and to get to meet the people on their table. On the tables were sheets with instructions to create some prayers for use in the service – these were to be on autumn leaves.
Unusually for cafe church we started with some singing (who knew we had our very own, very good choir!) and then back to tables for more cafe church type worship – we were exploring Jesus as the bread of life. There was a reading and then a series of prompts for discussion ‘if jesus is the ‘bread of life’ what sort of bread is it?’, ‘What does ‘bread’ mean to us? ’ Bread is a staple food – sustaining us, helping give us the energy we need for life – who sustains you? who do you help to sustain? How can you help sustain Michelle in her work and ministry’. To end each table was invited to collect a plate of bread from the altar. When broken each bread roll had a text on paper inside it. There was more discussion and more coffee.
On the table I was sat at someone told a story about his daughter who was making bread at school, she had to take things to put in the bread and when they looked in the fridge that morning there wasn’t much to choose from . She was given a lump of cheese and a packet of frozen ham. Dad was ridiculed by his daughter and her teacher. That evening the family sat down for tea and the bread was put on the table. It was fantastic. Full of flavour, great texture. It was a bread everyone wanted more of…..
All the tables concluded saying the collect. Everyone was then invited to join in the creed (those who were joining us via chat typed along!) Things then became a bit more formal as Michelle was formally presented to the Bishop and made her declarations. The Bishop read out the statement that says what a priest is – a very demanding list. and then invited all to pray for the Holy Spirit (essential to even begin to follow what had just been read!) The Choir sang ‘Come Holy Ghost’ and the prayers written earlier were placed on the altar. The Bishop then laid hands on Michelle and prayed the ordination prayer.
After Michelle had her stole turned round and was presented with a Bible, Communion was led by the Bishop.
It was a fantastic evening, a real celebration of ministry.
If you really want to you can see the ‘corporate’ write up at http://www.riponleeds.anglican.org/news-418-2.html
