Since I wrote the last post here, life seems to have particularly hectic (nothing new there then!). Apart from work, I was involved in leading worship yesterday; also during the last few days a fair bit of spare time has been taken up with organising our church's Spring Harvest booking.
Anyway, back now, albeit briefly! Thanks to those who have read this far. I've had a fairly brief browse around the blogosphere of various British Methodists - good to see all sorts of opinions, thoughts and debates going on - much more entertaining and thought provoking than the (IMHO) rather turgid 'Methodist Recorder'.
Our church has for the last 18 months or so had two morning services on each Sunday except the first Sunday of the month. This started as an experiment to create more space in the church - apparently research has shown that once a church gets more than about 75% full for services, it tends to stop growing numerically. As we were in this happy position and having had much prayer we set out on an experimental period with the idea of having two broadly similar services.
Because of Junior Church staffing constraints, this takes place during the second service only. For this or maybe other reasons too, we seem to have fallen into a pattern where the first service is now more traditional style (with choir and keyboard or organ) and the second service more contemporary (with some sort of ensemble of musicians). This isn't set in 'tablets of stone' but is more the way things tend to be on the whole.
The vagaries of the way the Circuit Plan works (for non-Meths - the allocation of ministers and lay preachers within a group of local churches) still means that we can have a more 'trad' preacher planned for the second service. This doesn't always make things easy - especially if a guitar-led music group/band is rota'd for then!
With all this in mind, I came across an interesting article http://www.lpma.co.uk/ichthus/newpatterns.htm by Revd Dr Mike Bossingham who also runs www.FamilyFriendlyChurches.org.uk. One part of the piece in particular I thought very relevant - he says "There really is no gentle way of saying this, but all this means that the hymn sandwich has come to the end of its shelf life."
It seems to me that if we are to have more contemporary style services in Methodist churches, somehow the way the Circuit Plan is made has to take notice of this. It is no good trying to shoehorn contemporary worship songs into a traditional 'hymn sandwich' service - they don't work well in this way. Further, many Methodist ministers and local preachers (not all!) have the traditional service format very firmly ingrained into them, making it difficult for them to see that any other format can be valid and helpful in leading people to God's throne of grace.
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Good point here "It seems to me that if we are to have more contemporary style services in Methodist churches, somehow the way the Circuit Plan is made has to take notice of this. It is no good trying to shoehorn contemporary worship songs into a traditional 'hymn sandwich' service - they don't work well in this way. Further, many Methodist ministers and local preachers (not all!) have the traditional service format very firmly ingrained into them, making it difficult for them to see that any other format can be valid and helpful in leading people to God's throne of grace."
One of our Circuit churches has adopted cafe style worship- the local preaches were told by the church council- adapt or don't come! Yes it caused upset- but it was worth it!
I agree completely! Having had Mike minister our Church for a while, he introduced more contemporary worship into this mix, whilst he was ministering this worked ok. We have now adapted it slightly so that the firast twenty minutes of the service has contemporary music, after this the preacher takes over and either preaches a more traditional service with a couple of hymns, or some (very few and very rarely) will lead some more contemprary music still.
The biggest problems we have is mixing the two styles of service,while now we have far more people who relate to that style of worship, we very rarely find a lay preacher willing or able to take on the challenge.
I was even contemplating the ministry myself to help solve this problem, but when looking at it I noticed that I would get little opertunity to work with a church embracing new initiatives. This also further deepened my despair when I saw that the local preachers are taught to preach a five hymn sandwich and nothing else.
So...daveh has problems finding local preachers willing to take on his church's challenge whilst sally's church has told them to adapt or don't come.
It's maybe easier if a church has several of it's own local preachers - very difficult with preachers from other churches which still mainly have trad hymn sandwiches.
Further, if as daveh says, local preachers are still being trained without any regard to other service styles, is the Methodist Church training people in patterns of services appropriate for the last century (or two) rather than the present?
Interesting thoughts here- just to say that many of our churches do not have their own local preachers- and most of the local preachers are very traditional in style! It is sheer determination to see something new happen that has caused this radical change and step- that and the grace of God! :-)
Re. "It is sheer determination to see something new happen that has caused this radical change and step" - I think that sometimes doing things 'from the grassroots' can be good and result in something deeper and more effective than if imposed from church hierarchy (nearly said "from above" but thought that could be construed to mean something else!).
In my experience a lot of ecumenical work is like that too.
As for the grace of God - we all needs lots of that :-)
Our church has two services. 9am is informal, 50 minutes long and is completely out of the circuit. It is run by 5 groups of church people, each group including a worship leader or local preacher. There is a 20 min slot for groups - children's groups and adult discussion groups - rather than a sermon slot. It has grown in five years from 20 people to 100-150 people each sunday. God has blessed it and nurtured our (hidden) talents in his name! We also have a growing and thriving traditional service at 10.30am which follows the hymn sandwich formula and works very well still - room for both in our diverse world???
I read this with great interest since my church is in the position you described. I wanted to read the rest of the article you mentioned, but the link was not applicable. I think this is the link you mean: http://www.lwpt.org.uk/welcome-mainmenu-1/26-worship/229-new-patterns-of-worship.html
Looking forward to more of your posts!
Emily - that is the correct link. The perils of leaving a blog for 3 years...!
I shall attempt to find time for renewed posting on this.
Did ye leave the church? Why no blogging? There is no one else out there writing about this stuff. It is important as some church buildings become emergent bodies of Christ and others close due to lack of interest. The dialogue has to keep going.
Do Do Do
Start blogging again on this subject of worship leading.
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