Blog archive November 2018
12.11.18 / 01 / god in the house
'God in the House' was a series of 6 programmes shown on Channel 4 24th-30th December 1996. Each one featured a 'radical alternative Christian service' and the final one was Grace.
I had seen Jonny and Mike around at Abundant and St. James the Less, and heard talk of Grace and seen flyers, but it hadn't really registered. When I saw the programme and saw various friends there, I realised that I had to go. I got the flyer at Abundant in January 1997 but didn't get round to going until April. And then of course I've been going ever since.
We finally had the Grace episode digitised and Jonny put it on YouTube here for the 25th anniversary. Of course it was an artificial situation for the sake of TV. The church was brightly lit for filming so the visuals look washed out. There were more people than usual. A live band had been imported to provide the music, which was all stuff off the forthcoming Grace album - this was probably due to performing rights issues for TV programmes preventing broadcast of our usual soundtrack (although a bit of Inner City Life can be heard at one point). And there was a Communion which was edited out. This explains why Jonny is suddenly singing with a glass of wine!
11.11.18 / 02 / grace xxv zine
I created a 64-page full colour zine to mark 25 years of Grace - it grew into a small book really. But it could have been two or three times as big!
11.11.18 / 01 / grace xxv
Grace began on Sunday 7th November 1993, with a service called ‘Grace’ and Dave Tomlinson as guest speaker. We can't quite believe that was a quarter of a century ago. For the 25th anniversary we had a celebratory meal, inviting as many people from Grace's history as we could track down. Some even came! I made a timeline on the floor showing all the flyers. There were old artefacts such as flyers, magazine articles, T-shirts, CDs and cassettes. We tried to recreate the old 'stack of TVs' using modern flat screens, which didn't work in the same way but could also show different things on each screen - old video clips including 'God In The House' (see entry above). Digital Pilgrimz played drum'n'bass. There was a special cake by Lynda. It was a great evening, of food, celebration, catching up with old friends, and enjoying a big noisy Grace environment. Photos here.
Below, a walk around the space at about 11pm. The meal is over and some people have gone but the party continues.
