Sunday Assembly
“Celebrating life together. Inspiring events and caring communities in 70+ cities worldwide.”
A Sunday Assembly. What are your associations with this? You probably already have some. Maybe your mind goes to Church. Maybe it goes to Religion. Maybe it’s just thrown back to some gathering, or school, or choir thing you had to attend when you were a kid. But does it go to singing Snow Patrol (‘Light Up, light up / As if you have a choice / Even if you cannot hear my voice / I’ll be right beside your dear’), or eating donuts and drinking coffee, or hearing someone’s story of how they couldn’t quite get their life to do what it needed to do that week?
Since it was launched in 2013 by two comedians Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, as the punch-line that didn’t have a joke, Sunday Assembly has morphed into 70 chapters in 8 countries. The most recent chapter opened in Plymouth, England in the past month. We’ve attended the monthly meet-ups in the San Francisco Bay Area. There are others, many others, in places like Cape Town, Sydney, Amsterdam, Paris, Detroit and Las Vegas. If there isn’t one near you, you get to start one with 9 of your friends, following this pathway. There’s a reason it’s the fastest growing secular community in the world.
What makes Sunday Assembly distinct, and widely compelling, is the basic belief system of ‘Live Better, Help Often, Wonder More’. Who could not find themselves getting behind that? Each Chapter is built around a Manifesto that includes things like ‘Is 100% a celebration of life. We are born from nothing and go to nothing. Let’s enjoy it together.’ And ‘Is radically inclusive. Everyone is welcome, regardless of their beliefs—this is a place of love that is open and accepting.’ And ‘We won’t tell you how to live but will try to help you do it as well as you can.’ (There are 10 points that make lots of sense, read them all here)
But this is making it all sound horribly serious. The Assemblies themselves are open and playful, and delightfully human. They speak to our needs as people – the simple ones of laughter, storytelling, friendship, singing, music, sharing food and spending time together. Things happen at them, some expected like the inspirational speakers saying wise words on themes like human aging, or happiness, or body positivity, but some things that may take you out of your comfort zone (or not, depending on how you are inclined) like err dance breaks. Bands play, spoken word artists perform, poets take the podium. Each Assembly is different though the foundation of the mission permeates even the most unique among them.
Maybe because they all speak to our more complex needs, those of wanting to be heard and needing to listen, of getting beyond ourselves and into a wider purpose, of realizing that our emotional lives can have a place in the days of our weeks, that there’s a graspable value system within our reach. Maybe the most important thing here is around belonging – at a time when we’re more and more disconnected, more lost, more lonely, Sunday Assembly opens its doors and says just ‘hi, come in.’
That’s the beautiful simplicity of the whole thing. When you walk into one of the congregations, you can feel it. That openness, that sense of welcome, that feeling of being ok. As you sing along, as you reflect, as you boogie just a little, even as you catch the eye of the person next to you in the fab recognition of it all, you get to be a person in the world, and that can feel good, even if you are out of tune or a stranger or slightly befuddled by it all. This is your chance to revel in the feeling of truly belonging, even if it’s just for a little while.
To find out more: Website www.sundayassembly.com / Instagram @sundayassemblylondon
