Disastrous Worship Experiments

Sometimes you've got to stop, take stock. Look at what you've been doing, and wonder what on earth you thought you were up to. Why did the idea that seemed so good at the time, that drew such energy and enthusiasm, turn out to be so awful, you ask yourself? Unless, of course, it was a great success. In which case, well done. We judge failure very hard - or at least I do. When we should realise there's no such thing as a failed experiment - only an experiment that gave a negative result. Except for Young Keith trying to store petrol in pasties, as they're cheaper than jerry cans and keep the petrol in a kind of sequestered state. That was a bad experiment.

We have been inspired by the concept of Fresh Expressions over the years. Still are, of course. But maybe after the attempts we've made, we should rein in our ambition. Still, to give you some ideas of what to avoid - feel free to read, mark and outwardly avoid.

Post-modern Church - Where we abandoned the old, oppressive "big" narratives like God, Renewal, New Life, Moral Living, Trinity. and focussed ourselves on small narratives that people could own for themselves. Turned out the small narratives were all stuff like sneezing, itching and people asking when coffee-time was.

Cathy Church - all the men got really annoyed at being called "Cathy". Actually, so did the women. Especially Cathy. She didn't feel so special any more.

Sadly Play - A form of children's work where you act out Thomas Hardy novels. The kids got so down. Maybe if just one lead character had make it to the end alive, it would have helped.

French Expressions of Church - nobody turned up.

Stoat Pastors - turns out stoats aren't aware of any particular spiritual needs.

The Church in the Market Place - Actually, this was just a reading of a 20-year-old book by George Carey rather than a radical concept. Still, we had a nice morning cheering when the pews were taken out.

Garage Church - Total confusion, this. Most people thought we were going to introduce a radical, revolutionary, 20-year-old form of music to the church. Instead, turned out that Hnaef just thought it would be fun to have a service in the garage. It wasn't.

Goth Church - total failure of understanding again. I was thinking more "moody young people with a spiritual side just waiting to be tapped". Not recreating the sack of Rome. Not again.

Moth Church - like Goth, only with Moths. Attracted bats. We won't be doing that again.

The Church in a Tent - Like a church, only in a marquee. In the winter it got freezing cold, and the rain dripped in. So just like a church, in fact.

The Good Gnus - The Nativity, acted out by people dressed as aardvarks. Wrong on so many counts. Not least because a gnu is a kind of wildebeest, and nothing like an aardvark. Fitting those snouts on was just a painful waste of time.