U2CHARIST SERVICES

U2CHARIST LINCOLN

What is a U2charist?

A U2Charist (also spelled eU2charist or U2 Eucharist) is a Eucharist (communion service) that uses music by U2 in place of traditional hymns and in our case, as part of the liturgy itself. Here in Lincoln we use a combination of live and recorded music, though we have never got U2 to play live for us (yet!) We are not afraid of using music from other contemporary and ancient sources as well. If U2 can sing Jerusalem at Glastonbury, we can sing REM at a U2charist. We try and make the worship a multisensory experience that you can see, hear, touch and smell.

Real worship of course is not just about singing songs and having a nice jolly time rejoicing in how relevant we are and how cool God is. Real worship is about service and transformation.  U2charists call us to love our neighbour, near and far. Love is an action, not just a feeling.   U2charists call participants to concrete action in support of The United Nations Millennium Development Goals {link}. U2’s lead singer, Bono, is a passionate advocate of the MDGs, and has been proclaimed a global MDG ambassador.  The U2charist seeks to raise awareness of the MDGs and call people worldwide to a deeper faith and engagement with God's mission.

Does anyone else do them?

Yes. Wikipedia  has a fair summary of the development of U2Charist Services.

The U2charist was initially started in the U.S. Episcopal Church but has been adapted by several other denominations. Although churches have used U2's music in liturgy for many years, the first U2charist was designed by Sarah Dylan Breuer in 2003, with the service held in Baltimore, Maryland, in April 2004. Breuer was a contributor to the book Get Up Off Your Knees: Preaching the U2 Catalog (Cowley Publications, 2003), and was inspired to create the U2charist by her reflection on spiritual themes in U2's music as she wrote her contributions to the book.  The service spread quickly by word of mouth and over the Internet, particularly after the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland held a U2charist at their conference for all diocesan clergy in October 2004, after which many clergy present held U2charists with the assistance of the "Without Walls" worship team throughout 2004 and 2005, with the St. Mary's Outreach Center in Baltimore, Maryland, where the U2charist first took hold, as its base of operations.

After consulting with Breuer, the Rev. Paige Blair, rector of St. George's Episcopal Church in York Harbor, Maine, along with several of her parishioners, held her first U2charist on Sunday evening, July 31, 2005. Since that time, Blair has appeared numerous times in the media as an advocate for the U2charist.

Since the U2charist began in 2004, it spread quickly around the world, with services being held in numerous countries, including a “U2-dienst” (U2-service), started by the Rev. Jan Andries de Boer from Broek op Langedijk in the Netherlands in 2006. as well as services in Australia, Italy, and Mexico.

On Saturday May 26th 2007 we held the first U2charist in England at St Swithin’s church in Lincoln.