Interfaith Reformation Service

Our Reformation Sunday sounds like the beginning of a joke:  a Lutheran pastor, a Muslim iman, and a Jewish rabbi walk into a suburban church.  But at our church, it wasn't a joke.

We had our first interfaith Reformation service, and I suspect it won't be our last.  We also had a city commissioner and the executive director of the Florida Council of Churches.

Each one of them spoke, and the messages were what you would expect:  the value of diversity, the value of outreach, the value of community.  And the speakers weren't unfamiliar to many of us.  We've done many events with the mosque, which is in the same block as our church, and the rabbi came to an anti-gun violence worship service that we did.

I missed some of the elements of a traditional Reformation service.  We did not sing "A Mighty Fortress"--but did I miss it?  A bit. 

I volunteered to shift the worship space decorations from green to red.  But I still needed an element to fill in a hole:

I knew that we would be having an interfaith service--so what would be ecumenical and still speak to Reformation?  I thought about a flame or a labyrinth or spiral.  My spouse suggested a butterfly.  In the end, I went with what I knew I could pull off:

Here's a close up:

I though it worked nicely in the space:

Here's an even longer view:

It's simple, but I liked it.  And creating the spiral was oddly satisfying.