{"id":899,"date":"2010-07-01T18:35:13","date_gmt":"2010-07-01T22:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedockchurch.org\/blog\/?p=899"},"modified":"2010-07-12T17:08:19","modified_gmt":"2010-07-12T21:08:19","slug":"church-without-walls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-dock.org\/blog\/2010\/church-without-walls\/","title":{"rendered":"Church without walls"},"content":{"rendered":"

What a fascinating day! \u00a0I’ve just returned home from Mass at Mass Rock – sharing worship with a fantastic bunch of people, deep in a forest somewhere in Belfast, well out of my usual comfort zone but well in the ‘shared medley zone’ and loving it!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>In the usual Wonderful Way of Dockworld, an unexpected chain of events – a chance encounter leading to a meeting leading to an invitation – led to me being present at tonight’s gathering. \u00a0How’s this for a Shared Medley in action: an ancient site used centuries ago for celebrating mass in secret – buried for years in forest undergrowth – cleared by the co-operation of the local Roman Catholic parish, members of a nearby Travelling community and volunteers from Redeemer Central church, and used tonight for a service of worship, communion and fellowship.<\/p>\n

To get there we followed Fr Martin, the friendly priest of St Oliver Plunkett’s parish, into the depths of a forest somewhere in a part of Belfast that a Protestant boy like me had never been before… We slipped and slid down muddy pathways, through brambly hedges and down a perilous slope – and then witnessed the amazing sight of several quite elderly and frail-looking members of the parish making the same journey! \u00a0Our jungle-exploration efforts led us to a beautiful, quiet clearing with the ‘Mass Rock’ at its centre and a group of people gathering, tuning up guitars and enjoying the summer evening.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>This is actually quite a shameful confession but I haven’t actually attended a Roman Catholic Mass before in my life – make of that what you will! \u00a0But my experience tonight was one of welcome, hospitality and warmth – I was even invited to help lead the prayers – not bad for my first time! \u00a0Sharing the peace and joining in the liturgy (and yes, it was almost all familiar from Church of Ireland services) with this diverse but welcoming group was quite a profound experience for me. \u00a0I’ll say it again (and again and again) – Shared Medley works. \u00a0This was Church Without Walls in every possible and positive sense…<\/p>\n

I didn’t have my video camera with me – but as luck would have it, my snazzy new iPhone (that’s the last time I’ll mention it, promise!) is able to take pretty decent video footage – so look out for a new Dock Movie over the next few days…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a fascinating day! \u00a0I’ve just returned home from Mass at Mass Rock – sharing worship with a fantastic bunch of people, deep in a forest somewhere in Belfast, well out of my usual comfort zone but well in the ‘shared medley zone’ and loving it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chris-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nChurch without walls - The DOCK - Life in the Titanic Quarter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.the-dock.org\/blog\/2010\/church-without-walls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Church without walls - The DOCK - Life in the Titanic Quarter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What a fascinating day! 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