Making Bread on Zoom
Part of the life of Hazelnut Community is a monthly creative service called Nomad. It is our aim to blog about each one as a template for a time of Christian worship connecting with nature. Over time, we hope our blog becomes full of ideas and resources that you can use. Please do email us with any questions or feedback.
What did we do?
This month we were in national lockdown, so we had to adapt our plans to have Nomad on Zoom. Our aim was to be as participative as possible for those who joined us online, and to use the Zoom gathering to invite partners and friends of the Hazelnut Community from outside Bristol to join us.
Ingredients
Tools
Through our social media, we encouraged those who requested the Nomad Zoom link to have ingredients ready to make bread together. Our time was shaped around the bread-making process, using the time when natural breaks occurred (leaving the yeast to bubble, kneading the dough and leaving the rolls to prove) for communal times of reflection or prayer. We used this recipe for bread rolls: www.spendwithpennies.com/30-minute-dinner-rolls
We began by saying the Hazelnut Prayer together, then mixed our first ingredients.
· Outdoor reflection with poems
After this, we stepped outside or stood near a window to appreciate God’s creation while the mixture was left to bubble. A member of our community read these poems to us. We listened and had space to reflect and observe the beauty outside.
For One Who Is Exhausted
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.
Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.
Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.
John O’Donohue
Full text: onbeing.org/blog/john-odonohue-for-one-who-is-exhausted-a-blessing
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry
After our mixtures had been left for 8 minutes to bubble, we mixed our second lot of ingredients into the mixture.
· Talk on John 1:1-5
During the 10 minutes needed to hand-knead our doughs, we listened to a talk about the power of God who created the universe with his Word and about Jesus, who was with God in the beginning when all things were created, and who is with us now as the ‘light’ of life. We heard that God made the world, God loves the world, and God will sustain the world, which gives us hope in times of lockdown and when things may feel ‘dark’.
· Prayers for the World
Our third break came once our bread rolls were left to prove and expand. We used this time to pray for the world using a simple formula. We gathered 5 items near us (e.g. a mug, a pen, a phone, a coaster and a spoon). We put the items on the table to one side of us, ‘our stuff’. We took each of these items in turn and offered a prayer to God for: 1. Saying sorry for something, 2. The world, 3. Our nation, 4. Our local area, 5. A family member or friend. When we prayed for each thing, silently or aloud for the group to hear, we took one item and placed it on the other side of us (an area for ‘God’s stuff’) as a way of showing we are giving these concerns to God in prayer.
We ended with the Lord’s prayer followed by some notices about future online gatherings, projects and instructions for baking the bread rolls.
Schedule
3 – 3:10 Welcome people, introduce Hazelnut Community, say Hazelnut Prayer
3:10 – 3:20 Making bread stage 1
3:20 – 3:30 Time of reflection outdoors listening to poems
3:30 – 3:40 Making bread stage 2
3:40 – 3:50 Talk on John 1:1-5 while kneading bread
3:50 – 4:00 Making bread stage 3
4:00 – 4.10 Prayers for the world, Lord’s prayer, final announcements
Preparation
- Zoom link: We asked people to email to request the private Zoom link for our gathering from the Hazelnut Community office.
- Bread ingredients: Individual participants purchased these in advance. We hoped ingredients would be basic enough to not create waste or be too expensive for participants. We delivered ingredients to those self-isolating in Bristol who requested to join the Zoom.
- Bread recipe: We converted quantities to grams/millilitres from cups and added instructions and photographs for how to do things. Each stage was shared on screen for all participants to follow at home. Our slides are here.
- Talk, poems and prayers: Different people prepared to deliver the talk, the poems to read and the prayer time to lead people in praying for the world.
What worked?
People requested the Zoom link online and were able to access the meeting, including many new people from outside Bristol who were interested to attend. Those who participated in the bread making were able to follow the recipe, the time slots had been well-planned, and the reflections and prayers worked well integrated into the bread-making process. Having a hands-on activity throughout enabled children to participate too. We were pleased to include a time of stillness and engagement with the outdoors through poems and creation topic in the talk, despite having to meet on Zoom and not in our community garden due to lockdown. Each element enabled a sense of togetherness – in the bread-making, listening together and praying together – despite our physical distance.
What did we learn?
From feedback from those who attended, online church works well in this format where there is the possibility for real participation in each activity. This is especially helpful for children. Careful planning of timings meant we completed the recipe with clear and natural breaks for spiritual practices in between. Community participation in leading by different people adds a richness to things: for example, one person contributed the bread recipe, another practiced it beforehand and gave us tips on timings and technique, another found and read the beautiful poem for reflections.
Maggie Tate-Druiff