Towering preparation for Advent
Rev Chris Warner is living in the Trinity URC Church Tower in Norwich for three days as part of his preparation for Christmas. Tower in for three days as part of his preparation for Christmas.
Chris said " The idea to make the Tower into an active tower of prayer came to me a little while ago. The idea is to help us reach out to God and open ourselves to receive God’s love and justice in our lives and the life of our community".
Trinity Prayer Tower
You are invited to share in Chris’ “Start of Advent” Retreat between 2–4th of December, in the Trinity Church Prayer Tower.
Chris will be living in the Tower over these days and will open the doors for shared prayer and/or reflection between the following times:
Prayer time Door Closes
Advent Sunday (2nd December)
12.30 (Enter Advent) 13.30
17.00 (Prayer/reflection) 18.00
19.00 (Prayer/reflection) 20.00
Monday (3rd December)
8.00 (Prayer/reflection) 10.00
12.30 (Prayer/reflection) 14.00
17.30 (Prayer/reflection) 19.00
Tuesday (4th December)
8.00 (Prayer/reflection) 10.00
12.30 (Prayer/reflection) 14.00
Advent time is a time to prepare the way for the coming of Christ at Christmas.
Chris said: "Preparation needs time. Good preparation could make all the difference to how you experience Christmas. Please give it some time here or elsewhere
The Trinity Newsletter reports:
Get thee to the Tower!
The Trinity Elders have given their blessing to the desire Chris ex  pressed recently to put our church tower to some practical (and prophetic) use by making it into a “Prayer Tower”. The tower gives aesthetic balance to our (now listed) church building and it was never designed to be a bell tower – an agreement made with our Cathedral neighbours I think. This is what Chris writes about his vision:
We have this wonderful tower, symbolically stretching up towards heaven, practically looking out over our city and down on our local neighbourhood. My vision is that it should not just be a symbol, but also a practical part of our ministry and mission as a praying, working church. After I talked the idea over with David and asked the Elders about it I looked up “Prayer Tower” on the internet. I found many examples of Christian churches and organisations called just that – all in the USA. I also found one amazing structure, at the heart the Oral Roberts University in Tulsa. However this didn’t put me off (though the approach of many on the website did).
As with all visions the reality is usually much messier. Cleaning out the tower has certainly proved to be that. So much stuff, deep in layers of dust – it took six and a half hours just to get everything out and stacked ready for carting away!
I got quite fed up at one point as I tackled this enormous task. Then I realized this was all part of the content of the retreat I am planning for the first three days of advent. The tower is a symbol of our lives too, standing (sometimes too) proud when there is so much that is surplus to requirements inside us that we need to get rid of so that we can feel lighter of heart and open to people, prayer and God in our lives.
Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not trying to be clever in my reflections, and certainly not judgemental. I am standing in too big a glass house to chuck even the smallest stone. But I do think it is true that we are all carrying a lot of stuff that we could better do without both physically and spiritually. Once I had this thought I started to shift the tower’s contents with more energy, seeing it too as a symbolic action challenging me to clear out stuff in my soul which is not helping my being open to others and to the coming of Christ which we prepare for in the Advent period.
I don’t know what will happen as I do my retreat in the tower – there is still work to do to make it possible - involving an industrial vacuum cleaner!
One thing I believe, because it is my experience, is that we sometimes need to put ourselves on the edge of things, or in a different situation in order to refresh our search for God and discover Christ’s coming new in our lives and the life of our community.
I know I’m a bit of a pain at times but I genuinely want to search for God every day of my life and I want to share the journey with those who are also searching. I don’t think that necessarily requires me, or any one else, to become a trapist monk or a Julian of Norwich. I remain (I hope) a pretty down-to-earth sort of bloke.
Who knows how the Prayer Tower vision might develop? The first step for me is to be there: to listen, to pray, and hopefully survive.
I’ll let you know what happens!
Have a good (and challenging) advent. Chris | 