Carols by Candlelight

Nativity Service

Today was our Nativity service - always joyous and profound.

Shepherd lighting candles (top)

Our narrators (lower)

Mary and Joseph

Bunch of shepherds (flock?)

Little shepherds and minders

Angel 

The Scene 

Really good service this morning - it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Advent 2

Clem leading worship

George Craine speaking/whispering.

Various gentlemen listening

 From this mornings Advent 2 service.  Interestingly the sermon took the form of a talk from George Craine about medieval carvings of Matthew's account of the Magi in a cathedral in Spain - apparently one of the finest examples of medieval carving in Europe - shown on a power point.  So artists rearing their heads for a second advent service.

Just a word about my sketches of members of the congregation - firstly I am getting increasingly long sighted so if you are more than 15 feet from me and I'm not wearing my glasses, you are a bit of a blur so I might get your shape but no details.  Secondly I am/was a cartoonist and have a tendency to caricature a little bit.  So if you recognise yourself and think 'My nose isn't that big!'  Be assured your nose is not that big it's just been drawn 'that big'. So please don't take offense.

What to do with the Lost?

An interesting thing happened to the little hiders.

People, visitors to the church, found them and thinking they were lost put them on the communion table.

Now as a 17 year old I was 'converted' in what described itself as a Free Evangelical church, but was really a more laid back brethren church.  We had an 'open' communion service called the Lord's Supper, though no one explained to me why our Lord had his supper at 11:15 in the morning, in my house we had our supper in the evening between dinner and bedtime.  Anyway it was 'open' in as much as you weren't allowed to take part unless you were a male member of the church.  As open as 'Securicor on a Saturday night' as I once heard it described.  But that's the thing about communion, lots of churches expect you to have been baptised or confirmed or to be able to burp the alphabet (actually not the last one I made that up) or to show in some way that you belong.

Our visitors, on the other hand and probably because they didn't know any better, think the communion table is a convenient place to gather the lost!

We'll put them right.

Some of our shopping visitors searching for the right pack of cards.  I wonder do they choose a card that they think is pleasing to the eye or because they want to support the charity.

Band Setting Up

Was in church early setting for the installation and got to watch the band setting up.

Baptism at St Michael's

A slightly better scan of the sketch of the Baptism we had Sunday week.

Hiding

Here are the figures 'hiding' around the space in St Michael's.

The children seemed to enjoy 'seeking' them out.

Hide and Seek - An Advent Installation

Here's the text to help encourage people to explore the new installation

Hide and Seek

An Advent Installation by Mark Cripps at St Michaels Without

Is it better to seek than to find?

Depends what you are looking for I suppose.

Let me rephrase that. Is it better to be a seeker than a finder? 

This Advent we’ll all be looking for things, that perfect gift for that special someone, those lights – we had them last year – for the tree, the address of those people we said we’d stay in contact with, a bargain, that feeling that Christmas used to invoke in us when we were children.

There are some hiders in the church, they are small and are about the space.  Please take an opportunity to seek them out but if you find them please leave alone, so others can also look.

In Genesis our first act as lost humans was to hide? Then we blamed each other.

And as you look ask yourself what does it mean to be a seeker after the Kingdom of God?  What do you think you may have already found? Who is calling out to you ‘Here I am?’  

‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.’  Bono U2

‘Here I come!  Ready or not?’ A seeker.

Baptism

Here's a not very good iPhone photo of a sketch from last weeks baptism will try to post a better quality scan at some point.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to the St Michael's Without Bath Artist in Residence's presence on the internet.  I'll hopefully be posting artwork and comments here about my year long residency at St Michael's Without Church in Bath, better known to locals as St Michael's Waitrose.

We are starting with an installation called 'Hide and Seek' which will begin Advent Sunday 2nd December.  So here are some of the figures during their construction awaiting their opportunity to hide in the church.