Sunday Assembly Pippa Evans spoke about how she coͲfounded the Sunday have rapidly mulƟplied throughout Britain and abroad, what happens at a meeƟng and what the purpose is.
I do comedy most of the time but about a year and a half ago I started a little project with Sanderson Jones called Sunday Assembly. Sunday where she can wear a hat and my husband doesn’t Assembly is a godless congregation that celebrates want to get married in a church. So what we need life, so our aim is to celebrate being alive together. to do is marry the two things, the traditional Our aim is to have a godless congregation in every wedding service but also keeping ourselves in the town, city and village that wants one. We don’t proselytise: our aim is to help people set up their own Sunday Assemblies. Our purpose is to help everyone find and fulfil their full potential.
I’d just like to get you warmed up and connected as a group, so if you could hold hands and it kind of feels like a church because it’s got with the person that you know or don’t know, and that theatre, it’s got an aisle – my dad wanted to then look into each other’s eyes. Take that person’s hand and look them in the eyes and repeat after me: ‘If I’d known this was going to happen I would have washed my hands.’ So we are all about breaking the ice, connecting with each other. Some people aren’t very keen on what So we sang instead When I’m Sixty Four by the we are doing. That’s OK. because we are pretty happy people, me and Sanderson, we really do love to celebrate life. When I first started Sunday singing as one, everyone is joining in, we can agree Assembly I found that the hardest thing to do, because I am quite prone to negativity.
I just want to tell you the story of how Sunday comedians make fun of Christians, there’s a lot of Assembly came about. We are both comedians so anti-Christian comedy. Well, I used to be a proper we don’t come from Secular Land, we are not members of the Sceptics in the Pub or Atheists United. It just happened that I was doing a gig with Sanderson Jones, so I was driving us to a show in Bath and we started talking about my wedding. When I got married to my husband Callum, my mother wanted me to get married in without the church that we were brought up in. I was brought up in this church since I was four and the Assembly. vicar is the same chap since I was four, so actually I wouldn’t have minded getting married in that church, because I was part of that family. But Callum said there is no way I’m getting married in invited people. And the day before we thought no
Assemblies and how they
a church, because it’s so against my beliefs that I would feel wrong. So my mum wants a situation
service, making it relevant to us.
So I was brought up doing Old Time music halls. And in East London there’s the Wilton’s Old Time Music Hall, which is an original hall from eighteen something-or-other. It’s beautiful
walk me down an aisle. So my mum wants to wear a hat, my dad wants to walk me down an aisle. So we did it in this Music Hall, so that it felt part of our tradition. But then we thought: what shall we do because you always sing a hymn at a wedding?
Beatles. It was the first time I’d ever heard everybody sing at a wedding and I loved it. We are
at this basic level.
Then we were talking about when
hard-core Christian. So now that I don’t believe in God, I still find it offensive when people make fun of those who believe in God. Because I had such a strong connection with the church. So we were talking about that. Then we both said: I’ve always wondered if you could have church God. So we decided to work together. And we started to set up this thing called Sunday
We found a venue, we got a band together and we found someone to be a speaker and we
one was going to come. Neither of us slept. Then about it because people have made their decision, on 7th January 2013 we had the first event. We put so let’s talk instead about all the interesting, out fifty chairs and over two hundred people turned up. My friend was outside. He spoke to lots of people and no one had come from the same source, so there were very few people who were friends of ours. Normally, as a comedian when you put on a show, you have to invite your have ‘X is mum and dad and hope they bring their friends.
Then people got in touch and said: We want a think we were telling people what to do and that Sunday Assembly where we are. So we went to all we thought we had perfect lives. So I put in a sorts of different places. I went to Melbourne and thing called ‘Pippa is Trying her Best,’ which has set up the first one in Melbourne and Sanderson now become a thing called ‘X is Doing their Best’, went to New York, where we had our first and only ever the thing we protestor. So were talking that was New about to improve York and it just your life, just carried on, until because we had a sometimes we do launch in need to be October last reminded that we year of forty are all human dates and forty and that failure is nights, and we part of having a set up forty wonderful life. more different ones. Now we silent reflection, think we are which is such a going to have a wonderful, hundred by Wilton’s Music Hall, September (2014). So you can see that this is something people want, something people need. People say sum up, because we have a theme for each Sunday things to us like: ‘I’ve been looking for a church without the god bits all my life.’ ‘When I read about this movement I was so happy, I just love come from a church background, that’s what we this idea.’ ‘This is not just an expression of interest, it’s an expression of need. I want this to happen more than anything else.’ ‘I’ve been wondering for years how to get people together in Sunday the interest of the common good without religion. important. Thanks to you guys I’m not alone. Even better, you have a plan of action.’ ‘I’ve dreamed about a connections in that room? To ensure we make secular church for years.’
So this is what we do in a Sunday Assembly. We have two songs. Then we have the welcome, have small groups, where people meet and talk to then we have a reading, we have a talk, we have a each other and help each other out, Maybe that song. The talk can be about anything but we don’t could be a book club, that could be a thing called talk about religion or politics. We don’t talk about Resolve, which is a self-help group helping each atheism because the idea is we don’t need to talk
wonderful things in the world. Let’s talk about the trees, let’s talk about the rain, let’s talk about the grass…
So then we have another song and then we Doing their Best’, which is a personal story. The point of that was that when we first started I was very concerned that people would
where I would tell a story where I had failed to do
Then we have a
East London connecting thing. Then we have a collection. Notices, address, which is where we
Assembly. Then the final song, tea and cake. There is a similarity to church, because having
based it on.
Another really important thing for us about Assembly is community. Community is We can meet once a month and talk about what’s interesting but are we really making
those connections we do these activities to try and connect people together. We have the tea after the service, which is a great place to meet people, we
other reach their goals, we have a Sunday Assembly choir in London…
We don’t have rules but we do have a Charter. The Charter is more like a guideline, to make clear what is the difference between any atheist meeting and a Sunday Assembly. So the Sunday Assembly is a godless congregation that meets to celebrate life and we have our motto which is ‘Live better. Help often. Wonder more.’ We really like that because it’s about looking after yourself, looking after other people and then looking at the whole world. By helping yourself you are more able to help other people and by helping other people you are more able to help the world. This is the Charter. What is a Sunday Assembly? It’s these nine points:
1. It’s a hundred percent celebration of life.
2. There is no doctrine so we have no set texts. There is no deity, so we don’t do supernatural but we won’t tell you you’re wrong if you do. 3. We are radically inclusive so everyone is welcome, regardless of their beliefs.
4. It’s free to attend and not for profit. 5. It has a community mission, so we try to use anyone who comes to Sunday Assembly to help other people.
6. It’s independent; we do not accept sponsorship, so you will never see Sainsbury’s Sunday Assembly.
7. It’s here to stay. This really is something we want to carry on for years and years.
8. We won’t tell you how to live but we will try to help you do it as well as you can.
9. Most of all have fun, be nice and join in.
9. Most of all have fun, be nice and join in.
Pippa Evans is a comedian and coͲfounder of the Sunday Assemblies. More informaƟon on the website: sundayassembly.com This is an edited, shortened version transcribed from the recording of the talk she gave to the SOF annual Conference in Leicester.