Grace
St. Mary's Church, Ealing, London
Grace began in November 1993. I joined in April 1997. At the October 1997 service 'Harvest' the congregation assembled dinner place settings on the altar, complete with candelabra. The results were so beautiful that we were reluctant to take it down after the service. "Does anybody have a camera to record it?" we said, but nobody did. So I bought a camera and started to photograph alt worship services. The first photos are the Reimagining Worship Conference and Whose alternative? on the same weekend in May 1998.
Due to Grace's longevity and the presence of several photographers in the group, there are a lot of Grace photos. Here I have concentrated on earlier services before the advent of Flickr. From 2006 on we have published photos of most services there.
Early services show us working with a dingy church and hacked-together half-analogue technology. In 2002-2003 we met in the church hall while the church was closed for restoration. Ten was the first service back in the restored church, which now had movable benches and modern sound, lighting and projection systems.
Grace website | Grace Flickr group