.bE @ ICYC

March 22, 2004

Last Saturday evening, I stood before 550 Catholic students from all over the state of Idaho and encouraged them to come by .bE, which we had been setting up for the previous 3 hours. We had somewhere between 40-60 students come and pray through .bE - many wonderful comments from people about how much the experience meant to them.

I mentioned there how sometimes I have a love/hate relationship with .bE. There is so much work that goes into it: packing, loading, preparing, copying, writing, carrying, setting-up, lighting, cleaning, scraping(wax), etc. And at times during the prep and cleanup, I’m asking myself, “Why do I do this…?”

Saturday night, the first girl who came in stayed about 45 minutes. She went around to many of the prayer stations. I noticed her sitting in front of the “Prayer” station, where someone had brought some rosaries. She was praying the rosary, which is a pretty big deal, because I was told many Catholic teens today don’t even know how to pray the rosary. But watching her pray was absolutely beautiful. You could tell by her posture, her eyes closed, the expression on her face, that she was praying deeply, contemplating…meditating…pondering the mysteries…such a beautiful thing.

On her way out, she came up to me and said, “Thank you…thank you so much for doing this. It was amazing.” And she gave me a hug - she was crying.

It was then that I remembered why I do .bE - and many people expressed their feelings and thanks about .bE throughout the evening. It was an extremely meaningful evening. My friend Jean brought many kids from her youth group to help set-up and clean-up, and I think it was the fastest clean-up YET, so that was a huge blessing and I think they enjoyed experiencing .bE as well.

The other wonderful surprise was that the woman coordinating the ICYC event wants to pay me for bringing .bE - this is definitely an answer to prayer. We are doing .bE again April 20th at a beautiful facility called the Eighth Street Center. The facility cost us $150 (an amazing deal, about 1/2 price) to rent for the evening, and I just paid for it out of my own pocket, hoping later to get some support from churches in the area. After talking with a few churches, I started to wonder if any would even be interested, let alone help out financially, so this money comes at the perfect time…thanks God!

Reasons I Love .bE
`Watching people pray, specifically the girl and the rosary
`Having people tell me how much it meant to them to set it up
`Creating a safe place for people to pray, share, write, think, question, doubt, worship, smile, cry, ponder
`Creating a place for people to rest, to have a sanctuary
`Setting up .bE is a spiritual discipline, an act of service

Reason I *Don’t* Love .bE
`Walking around after .bE has begun, and seeing 2 certain candle holders. The first was a Santa Claus, and the 2nd was either a Nutcracker or Little Drummer Boy. Time to replace those…

Tags: alt.worship, Alternative-Worship, Candles

Category Posted in Emergent

3 Responses to “.bE @ ICYC”

pastor draven said:

March 22nd, 2004 at 1:30 pm

These are incredible. Thanks for sharing them with us, Cleave.

We’ve been slowly building up to Alt. Worship experiences here. It started out as a night of everyone sitting around writing, doing art, and live worship music, but has evolved to involve a few stations. And as we grow and acquire our liberal arts center, we’re looking to go full scale into it, just as .bE has.

May we use your pictures to help show our vision to our partners and supporters? These pictures truly capture the essence of it all, more than any other pics I’ve seen. Even Steve Collins photo album, smallfire, at http://www.alternativeworship.org doesn’t capture it this well. I bet he would love to feature your photos as well.
Steve Dustcircle said:

March 22nd, 2004 at 5:18 pm

We’ve been doing some experimental worship here at Souled Out Iowa, as well. We’ve been highly influenced by Jason Upton, but of course we have our own language of expression. Thanks for your posts, as I’ve been a lingerer. God’s peace. Steve
cheryl said:

March 23rd, 2004 at 9:14 am

thanks so much for sharing the pictures. looked like a really meaningful time. i am programming and leading worship at a camp in chicago this summer and hope to incorporate as much alt.worship as possible. it will be an uphill battle…. things that haven’t really been done before, but i feel confident in this direction. thanks for the inspiration!