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Where The Lost Things Go
Where The Lost Things Go is a ‘practically perfect’ Lent course for small group study – or for reading on one’s own – based on the popular film Mary Poppins Returns. Poet and minister Lucy Berry skilfully draws out some of the themes of the Oscar-nominated movie (which stars Emily Blunt, Ben Whishaw and Lin-Manuel Miranda) and shows how we can consider them more deeply alongside passages from the Bible.
The course is based around five weekly sessions, entitled:
• Were we dreaming? Belief and unbelief
• This can’t be happening! Loss, denial and acceptance
• The Banks children? Or the Bank’s children?
• Lost people, being found: Fogs and the wilderness
• Light! A seriously heavy symbol
Each session includes suggested clips from the film, as well as discussion questions, Bible readings and closing prayers. There are detailed notes, advice and additional questions for leaders to help them plan an enriching group study in which all group members can feel accepted and involved. And the book contains an additional section for those who wish to make a deeper study of Mary Poppins Returns’ songs.
Lucy Berry is a performance poet and a United Reformed Church Minister. She is a fifth-generation Londoner and part of a mixed-heritage family. Lucy was for four years Poet in Residence for Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show. She has worked in advertising, in HMP Holloway, and as an art therapist. Her work constantly explores what Bible stories are telling us about our successes, our denials and our terror of change. Both her poetry and her prose have an enjoyable sting in the tail.
Church Of Snails: Poems to a sluggish Church by Lucy Berry
"Churches too often sift people and situations, involving themselves only with those people and things which won’t embarrass or challenge; we decide who are the sheep and who are the goats. Our decisions are plain for the world to see. Sometimes they look funny or silly. Sometimes ugly." Lucy is poet-in-residence for the Joint Public Issues Team (JPIT) and was formerly resident poet on the Jeremy Vine Show. In her latest collection of poems, Lucy rails against churches’ reluctance to change.
Trouble with Church: Provocative Poems for Thoughtful Christians
Trouble with Church? “Lucy writes with sharpness, clarity and soul… with this Collection she has outdone herself”. Jeremy Vine BBC Radio 2 As Church we’ve been called to love one another. But let’s admit it, most churches exclude someone. While we do Us-and-Them-Church, rather than Christ-Shaped-Church, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot; we’re excluding Jesus. You can read these pieces as poems, plain and simple – or use them for worship, private prayer or group work...