The first meeting was an hour and a half discussion over which carols to have over advent. That's all the meeting did, I kid you not! Perhaps it's just me (and my husband), but I thought an advantage of being a minister is you get to choose the hymns.
Tonight's meeting was my supervisor getting volunteers to take part in the service (e.g. do the readings/meditations) and a discussion of the activity for the children's watchnight service. A few things occurred to me about this:
- If you're looking for volunteers for readings/meditations you as the minister have already selected, why do you need a meeting? Surely you approach the individual(s) and ask them.
- The group was not the ideal forum for deciding the activity for the children's watchnight service -in my experience, input about children in services is carried out at young church (Sunday School) meetings. The leaders of the young church can be involved in the activity and know the children and what will work with the childresn.
- Why have a children's watchnight service? For a start, the whole point of a watchnight service is the keeping watch until the arrival of Christmas. The children can do that at 8pm. Also, why can;t the activity my supervisor is planning be used at on of the advent services (the last Sunday of advent seems most appropriate IMHO).
I having a meeting with my supervisor tomorrow. The meetings aren't supposed to last much more than an hour, but I've loads to discuss...wish me luck! I hope I don;t look totally negative.
Hope your meeting was fruitful.
ReplyDeleteOne church I was in had/has a 'worship planning group'. It was only a handful of people but you could often detect the underlying acrimony when it came to hymn choices. I suspect there were those on the group who were members for the sole purpose of ensuring their hymns got selected.
That said, it had its plus points. You got creative ideas for worship, especially for prayers, meditations and children's talks.
There is always the danger that, when the entire responsibility for worship is given over to the minister, there is a 'disconnect' with the congregation. One of my little soapboxes is participation in worship. A congregation generally gets so few opportunities to contribute to worship (and I don't just mean take part in it) other than singing along with the hymns (which aren't even necessarily ones they like because someone else always chooses them) that any opportunity to allow a sense of 'ownership' of what takes place on a Sunday morning should be nurtured. Just don't let it become a typical committee talking shop.
I agree completely; congregations should be more involved in worship. Their worship group felt like a committee with very little exchange of ideas/contribution made.
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