A to Z prayer

Urban Saints: Join the community...
Was just doing some research on the Crusaders organisation, recently renamed (wisely, I think) to Urban Saints... Thought this was a neat idea - take two A-Zs, chop them all up and tape them down on the ground, and then walk all over them and pray.

That would make an amazing set-up for a 'pray for london' week. Take your, shoes off and walk all over london. You could have a route marked out to follow, and have prayer points pinned in various locations, and you could carry a marker with you and just write a prayer anywhere on the map.
Imagine what church on the corner would look like with all the furniture gone and a huge map of london pasted to the floor...

PS, trying out Mark's Flock recommendation. Looks magic to me.

Passing trade

There are probably quite a few lessons to be learned from sunday night... Wouldn't want to explore them all here, but one thing that caught my attention was that a fair number of people up and wandered in off the street. St Mary's have a prime location, but I still reckon that's pretty unusual for them. I was just wondering what it was that made them want to come in, and what made them feel comfortable doing so.
At church on a sunday evening you can sit there and watch people crossing the road, going past, looking in. I'm sure many of them would pop in if they thought they could. We provoke a lot of curiosity there on our corner.
So what can we do to make it okay to stick your head round the door? Anyone up for running a few experiments? Here's one I think we could try: now that the odd corner fire exit thing is gone, how about we try putting the musicians on that side, shifting the angle of the seats, and then opening those double doors for the summer? If we put a couple of cafe tables just outside in that space, a few chairs along that wall by the fireplace, and give people the freedom to wander about in the middle of the service, I reckon people might pause, maybe ask what's going on. I volunteer to sit out there and chat to people, as long as it's sunny. We could even get some parasols...
(Incidentally, months before I moved to London I walked past church on the corner on a sunday morning, thought I might step in for a bit, and couldn't find the door. So it's not just speculation! We're used to the wierd side entrance into the random glass corridor and don't notice it any more, but it's not immediately obvious. Nobody wants to walk back and forth round the building with everybody looking at them, especially if they're not sure they want to stay.)