Unna's Blog of Total Randomness

Last Brock of the season – catching up on Brocktour 2010

31 May 2010 Leave a Comment

by Unna in Brorson's Rocktour, Church, Music, Photos, Religion Tags: Brocktour, Brocktour 2010, Brorson's, Facebook, Music, Photos, Religion, the Blessed Sacrament, travelling

If you want to cut the latest and go straight to the last of the Brocktour, click here.

On Friday, we had the last Rock Service of the season in Brorson’s Church. The band was Turnip Greens, playing a very Southern kind of rock; very bluesy. They were, IMHO, one of the few bands that have been radically different from the rest of the lot I have heard live at the Services. Sure, I can tell the bands apart when I have to, but most of them are ususally one big blur.

This was also the first time I have ever worn a portable mic in my life. I think this came from having to deal with a presentation with two exercise bikes in front of everything, the two guys exercising having to use the portable mics anyway. So instead of having to deal with the extra cords/wires/jacks for the usual prayer mics when pulling the (heavy!!!) bikes aside, we (who read the prayers) just took over the mics as soon as the presentation was over. And just so we’re clear – using portable mics for the two individuals reading the prayers is GENIUS; no having to think of how to hold up the prayers and tilt your head in order to be able to READ the prayers AND having the mic catching the sound properly. Just attach the mic as you did when it worked through dress rehearsal, unmute it (it would be stupid and highly disturbing to the rest of the crowd NOT to mute it throughout the rest of the Service), and wham-bam-boogie – vi kører.

Having Per the Reverend back as the preacher was a true gift. In spite of him being the preacher through Easter, I had almost forgotten how he looked in his cassock and ruff; he’s been off duty for the Rock Services of March and April, plus the monthly morning service in May – and I haven’t been able to attend the very few services there has been in between (there are few enough for me to actually spend a lot of time in Jerusalemskirken in between without missing out on much in Brorson’s; most of Brorson’s services are at the most monthly or annual, depending on the occasion, not weekly). Seeing that Jerusalemskirken is a Methodist church (where the ministers either look like smurfs when dressed in their blue cassock and white stole for their regular morning service or are dressed slightly more informal for their second Sunday service), Per in his black cassock and white ruff was a divine sight!

We had visitors from Herning, a town in Jutland, who left us this wonderful message:

Super good service!! We enjoyed it! You rule! And keep doing that! God be with you! With love Herning <3 P.S. Hope you see this

Catching up on the last of the Brocktour, we had our last Service in Skt. Nikolai Church in Holbæk. In my opinion, it was one of the greatest Services of that tour. You could argue that it was because it was the last one, that it was the only one on Zealand (the rest being in Jutland), and the worst had already happened (you may remember me cursing over the confirmands in Løgumkloster over Facebook). But I don’t think those are the actual reasons why.

I remember a description given by one of the others; that the last couple of back rows in the church were confirmands with their usual hormones – topped off with Red Bull. Yup, you can only imagine the noise they were trying to make; you might think it would be Løgumkloster all over again. But first of all, Skt. Nikolai isn’t as huge as Løgumkloser. Second of all – as soon as they started making noise, the rest of the congregation (including confirmands, I believe) litterally hushed loudly at them – every time! – and they stopped. I LOVE them for doing that, hushing down the rascals! Love. love. love!

Besides that, we had the same arrangement with the Sacrament/Holy Communion as we did in Løgumkloster; seeing that at least Løgumkloster is one of the biggest churches around (Skt. Nikolai isn’t the biggest, but it isn’t small, either), we had two stations with two reverends each serving bread and wine. Besides our own Reverend (Per), we had three other Reverends coming in from the local and neighboring perishes. In Skt. Nikolai, I remember receiving it from at least one Reverend (if not the two of them) from the neighboring perish (Tveje Merløse Church/Perish) – and I was surprised by how sincere he was. Not saying that other Reverends aren’t sincere, but I think it can quickly become a habit when having to say “This is the Body/Blood of Christ(, shed for you)” a humongous number of times every so often – and this Rev was jawdroppingly sincere and convincing, not just repeating a line. That gave me a great, positive energy to go up and read out the prayers shortly after, and that was the best read of prayers of the entire tour, no question about it.

I think no matter how sick and tired I become of dragging things back and forth from different churches, setting up, taking down, etc., I’ll always end up going back on tour again – just because I end up remember the good things. If I get another chance of touring, I may just take it.