Odyssey

connecting spirituality and contemporary challenges

A monthly service on Sundays at 11am at St Edwards
October 7th	Professor Brian Thorne	Mystical Experience in a Secular Age
November 4th	Revd Angela Tilby	Can Liberal Christianity Nourish Us?
December 9th	Revd Dr John Polkinghorne	Nature and Providence
Information about the speakers can be found here

About Odyssey

There is a substantial body of people who think the spiritual side of life is very important, but who often feel alienated from Church services. Our hope is that `Odyssey' will be helpful and attractive to such people as well as to our regular congregation. It will be for those who want an atmosphere of open-minded enquiry rather than cut-and-dried answers. We want the mood of the service to be evocative and contemplative rather than dogmatic, and to expand spiritual horizons rather than being narrow and constraining. `Odyssey' will invite people to join a journey of spiritual exploration. We want it to be warm and inclusive, not narrow and alienating.

We are committed to Christ and celebrate the glory of the Christian tradition, but we want to be open to the Spirit of God everywhere, not only in the Church but outside it. We hope to make common cause with new spiritual practices and new movements in science, psychology and ecology. Odyssey will draw on ancient spiritual traditions while also, we hope, having freshness and immediacy. We will make particular use of the contemplative tradition of monastic worship, and of the Celtic tradition that has come down from the ancient highlands and found contemporary expression in the Iona Community.

`Odyssey' will be out of the same stable as the Meditative Eucharist at 5.00 pm on Sundays at St Edward's, but it will be a `service of the word' rather than a Communion service. There is now flexible authorisation in the Church of England, within Common Worship for such services. Whereas in most churches a monthly `service of the word' is aimed at young families, `Odyssey' will aim to meet the needs of spiritual seekers as well as regular church-goers. It will be an experimental service that reflects the `Motte and Bailey' model of the Church in which there is a secure inner core, but also enough flexibility to enable the Church be able to welcome those who might otherwise not attend.

Each service will move through the stages below. Hymns and songs will be used where appropriate. They will be predominantly modern, and chosen to be in tune with the spirituality of a broad cross section of people. The form of the service will evolve in the light of experience, but this is how we envisage it:

1 Invocation
An opening dialogue in the Celtic tradtion such as the one below, a collect or thematic prayer and an opening hymn

Thanks be to you O God that we have risen this day
To the rising of this life itself.
Be the purpose of God between us and each purpose,
The hand of God between us and each hand,
The pain of Christ between us and each pain,
The love of Christ between us and each love.
Oh God who brought us to the bright light of this new day
Bring us to the guiding light of eternity.

2. Listening
We will hear readings from the Christian scriptures and elsewhere, and say a psalm together.

3. Reflecting
To lead us into meditation, an ancient plainsong chant will be sung. Then there will be `Lectio Divina', the Benedictine practice of meditating on the scriptures in which part of one of the readings is read again slowly, and with pauses for meditation after each verse. That will lead into an affirmation such as this one from the Iona Community:

We light a light in the name of the Maker who lit the world and breathed the breath of life for us
Thanks be to God
We light a light in the name of the Son who saved the world and stretched out his hands to us
Thanks be to God
We light a light in the name of the Spirit who encompasses the world and blesses our souls with yearning
Thanks be to God
We light three lights for the Trinity of Love,
God above us, God beside us, God within us,
The beginning, the end, the everlasting one.

4. The Address
A talk on an issue connecting spirituality with contemporary challenges

5. Prayers for Spiritual Renewal
Prayers of penitence, dedication and renewal, including, for example, these responses from Compline:

Keep me as the apple of thine eye
Hide me under the shadow of thy wings.
Into my hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit
Into my hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
For thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, thou God of truth
I commend my spirit.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost
Into the hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.

6. Blessings
Prayers of blessing and intercession to invoke and channel the healing energy of the Spirit of God on those in need, such as this blessing on those who will die today

May God provide for you all that is needed for body, mind and soul, as you face the final journey. May Christ take your soul in his arms, and bring you through the balancing time to the dwelling place of peace and make it your home for ever.

and a final benediction on everyone present, such as

May the Lord bless us and watch over us, May the Lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious to us, May the Lord look kindly on us and give us peace. Amen

Details of the preachers

November 4th
Revd Angela Tilby
What is Sin?
Angela Tilby is Vicar of the neighbouring parish of St Benet’s, and a well-known author and broadcaster. In this sermon she will explore how the traditional concept of ‘sin’ can be rehabilitated for the 21st century.

December 9th
Revd Dr John Polkinghorne
Nature and Providence
John Polkinghorne was a distinguished theoretical physicist who for 25 years has helped people to rethink Christianity for a scientific age. He will explore how the Christian belief in the providence of God can be reconciled with the laws of nature.

 

January 13th
Chris McKenna
Healing: The Christian Contribution
Christopher McKenna is a priest and psychotherapist who is currently Director of the St Marylebone Healing and Counselling Centre. In his sermon he will explore the contribution that Christianity can make to healing of body, mind and spirit.

February 10th
Steven Shakespeare
Wild Wisdom
Steven Shakespeare is Chaplain of Liverpool Hope University, and recently co-authored ‘The Inclusive God’. He studies contemporary theology, and will explore what Christianity can learn from emerging forms of secular spirituality

March 9th
Jeffrey John
Understanding the Cross
Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans, is a member of Affirming Catholicism and a leading Christian thinker. He is much indeed as a speaker. At St Edward’s he will explore how we can understand the significance of the cross in the 21st century.

April 6th
Joanna Collicutt
Trauma, Transformation, and Resurrection
Joanna Collicutt, recently ordained in the Church of England, is a Lecturer in psychology and religion at Heythrop College in London. She will explore the similarity between post-traumatic growth and how resurrection was experienced by Jesus’ disciples.

May 4th
Mary Tanner
Unity – But What Sort?
Mary Tanner is President of the World Council of Churches, and has long been a leading figure in work on Christian unity. She will explore what kind of unity is possible, both between denominations, and (amid preparations for the Lambeth Conference) within the Anglican Communion.

June 1st
Alan Hargrave
A Simple Rule for Living
Alan Hargrave, Canon Missioner of Ely Cathedral, will explore how the rule of St Benedict can be adapted to provide a framework for living and spiritual discipline in modern secular life.

July 6th
Fraser Watts
Christianity after Freud
Fraser Watts, Chaplain of St Edward’s, and Reader in Theology and Science in the University, believes that Christianity has often been strengthened by responding to its critics. In this sermon he will explore how it has been strengthened by the challenge of Freud.

Aug 3rd
Robin Griffith-Jones
Mary Magdalen
Robin Griffith-Jones is Master of the Temple Church in London, is well known for his books on the Gospels and Paul. He is currently working on a book about Mary Magdalen, The Woman Jesus Loved, whose relationship with Jesus has been the subject of so much speculation.

Sept 7th
Malcolm Guite
Christ and Eros
Malcolm Guite, priest and poet, is Chaplain of Girton College and Associate Chaplain at St Edward’s. He will expound a theology of longing and desire for God, through such figures as Augustine, Dante, Charles Williams and C S Lewis.

 

 

Previous Odysseys:

2006

July 2nd	Donald Reeves
	The Moral Imagination: Reconciliation in Bosnia
Aug 6th	Fraser Watts
	God and Evolution: Christianity after Darwin
Sept 3rd	Malcolm Guite
	The Shaping Spirit of Imagination
Oct 8th	Rupert Sheldrake
	The Mind Beyond the Brain
Nov 5th	Eric Hutchison
	Theology and Psychology: Exploring the Dialectic
Dec 10th	Nigel Cooper
	Encountering the Spirit in Nature

2007

Jan 14th	Jessica Martin
	What Did I Do to Deserve This?
Feb 11th	Beaumont Stevenson
	The Power of Paradox: An Approach to the Homosexuality Debate
March 11th	Marcus Braybrooke
	The Prophet Muhammad - A Christian Appreciation
April 1st	Fraser Watts
	True Authority: Reflections on Power and Leadership
May 6th	Michael Langford
	Why I am a Liberal Christian
June 3rd	Malcolm Guite
	‘Angels and Ministers of Grace’
July 1st	Paul Oestreicher
	Our Choice of Weapons
August 5th	Charles Elliott
	World Poverty: A Second Look
September 2nd	Morna Hooker
	Use and Abuse of the Bible
October 7th	Brian Thorne
	Mystical Experience in a Secular Age