Morph - Our Background

For those of you who are interested, here's how the Morph Community came into being and how we've grown since:

We started out in Summer 2000 as several individual disenters all fuming on the back row, seperately finding it difficult to swallow the simplistic message being preached in our large evangelical anglican church, and assuming we were each alone in our difficulties.

We then found each other (and fumed together) and then became known as "those people who go to Greenbelt". We then started quietly meeting together as a spiritual lifeboat (otherwise several of us would have stopped going to church completely).

As we became more secure in ourselves, our group's profile rose within the church. First the rector knew, and then the rest of the leadership. We were tolerated, but were expected to keep quiet and not the rock the boat. There was (is?) a fear we could "destroy" other people's faith by asking difficult questions.

Then we offered to run an alternative worship service one sunday evening (a labyrinth varient). This was accepted (with worry - the leaders came to "check us out"). Thankfully, we got a very positive feedback from most of members of the congregation who actually attended (dispite the adverse publicity we were given in the church bulletin!).

Several of us (myself included) feel called to try and keep a foot in the home church, and be there for the many people who we are meeting going through the same sort of faith changing journeys we have been and are going through, but had no one to journey with.

So while we are mostly self-sufficient as a group for our faith; we still have many friendships and find helpful expressions in some of the worship and especially the eucharist of our church.

How long did it take us to Morph?
Here's a rough timeline:

Beyond the boundaries – a proposal for a new type of group at St. Matthew’s

I believe that there is a need to form a group with the purpose of encouraging people to explore their faith and spirituality in a deeper way. A group which seeks to really listen to other ideas, however much of a challenge they pose to our current thinking. A group which encourages open and honest debate and where we seek to make our faith relevant to the whole of our lives and the world in which we live. A group which encourages us to explore ways of worshipping God and the ways in which we relate to Him (or Her). A group which supports one another in action as we seek to bring God’s Kingdom, to end oppression and injustice. A group where we can learn to value "being" as well as "doing" and to celebrate the good, that we might not become discouraged.

I see the group having three main components;

DISCUSSION
Open and honest discussion enabling us:

• to engage with God’s word and the issues which affect our world in a deeper way.

• to challenge our beliefs and grow in our faith.

• to make connections in order that what we believe would really affect how we live.

WORSHIP

• to explore our own spirituality.

• to look at how we perceive and relate to God.

• to be open to new ways of worship and prayer.

• to make prayer a part of our life at every moment, part of what we are passionate about, part of our action.

ACTION

• to support and encourage each other in taking action to end oppression, injustice and war - to bring God’s Kingdom now.

• to campaign together and increase our awareness of different issues.

• to share our concerns and passions.

• to find ways of being Christ in the world.

Because of the small numbers we don't have, or need, any fixed routine (and this is part of the attraction - several of us also help arrange 'normal' services at our church and love getting away from things being timed, itemised, listed, and scripted).