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Reflections on my First Year in Street regarding the changes to Church Services
Introduction
Andy and I have been in Street just over one year and the time has flown. I feel
it is time to reflect on my 1st year. The reason for writing this is three fold,
firstly it helps me to clarify my thoughts, secondly it enables me to communicate
with you and thirdly, it gives me the opportunity to be honest and open with you
regarding my thoughts and vision for our churches.
I want to start by saying you have been a delight to work alongside and even though I’m sure you have not always agreed with my actions you have been very gracious and given me space to try new things. My motive in all that I do regarding the leadership of the three churches which God has called me to serve is to try and discern God’s own heart, to be a disciple and to be obedient to His call. Being a mere human being I will from time to time get this wrong.
It is not my intention through this communication to highlight every change that has happened over the past 12 months but to concentrate on the three churches and the changes to the service pattern. I want to try and explain the demographics of the three churches that I have observed over the last 12 months and also some of the mindset regarding what church is and what church is for. I also want you to appreciate that I hold all of the people’s preferences and dislikes. One person says to me please can we have more informal spirit filled worship and another person is saying why did you ever change that! It is not possible to please every person and to the people who have negative things to say can I please ask that before coming to me or others with them you pray for God’s guidance and seek His will and then come and see me and together we can hopefully discern the best way forward. Remember we are serving God and the community not ourselves and our own preferences.
Parish Church
When I arrived, I felt that the Parish Church was stuck in the past but fortunately
there was an awareness that things needed to change and people have taken on board
the changes to services and times with extremely good grace. Because the Parish
Church is such a wonderful re-
1st Sunday 8.30 HC (BCP), 9.30 Sunrise and 4.00/6.00 Evensong
2nd Sunday 9.30 Sung Communion (prayer for healing)
3rd Sunday 9.30 Morning Worship (CW)
4th Sunday 9.30 HC (CW), 4.00/6.00 Evensong
The 8.30 on the first Sunday is growing, I suspect this is due to the fact that there is only one 8.30 a month, we will soon need to move into the main body of the church, Praise the Lord.
Sunrise does not seem to have grown over the year and we need to work on this as this has the potential to accommodate young families into the church in a very relaxed manner and we need to promote and think of how we can build this service up. The Evensong continues to draw between 20 and 35 and nationally this is a good number and I’m more than happy for Evensong to continue. But please realise that this service will not bring in newcomers or those seeking a relevant faith. This service is for those who are familiar and comfortable with the more traditional forms of worship.
I am delighted that the sung communion seems to work at the Parish Church and thank
you to those that have supported this change. I have had a couple of comments that
the sung communion fits better at the Parish Church. I am also very pleased to have
up-
My reflections on this present pattern are: 1st Sunday to stay the same but for the Sunrise team to get together and pray regularly for new people to join them and to initiate a growth strategy. The Sung Communion to move to the 3rd Sunday (this helps us out at the Mission Church and is no detriment to the service pattern). The Morning Worship to move to the 2nd Sunday (this I believe will help us out with musicians) and the 4th Sunday for the Parish congregation to have a choice i.e. to keep both services, to just have communion in the morning or to just have Evensong, I’m happy to go with the majority. I was also wondering if it would be helpful if the 2nd and 3rd and possible the 4th Sunday morning services go to the later time of 10.30. My initial thinking behind introducing a 9.30 service was to keep it uniform throughout the month and with a 9.30 service it was possible for me to do both the Parish Church at 9.30 and go straight onto the Mission Church for a 10.30 service. But it’s more important to try and accommodate the congregation than to keep it uniform! So a new proposed pattern would look like this:
1st Sunday 8.30 HC (BCP), 9.30 Sunrise and 4.00/6.00 Evensong
2nd Sunday 10.30 Morning Worship
3rd Sunday 10.30 Sung Communion (healing prayer)
4th Sunday (either 10.30 Communion and 4.00/6.00 Evensong or just 10.30 Communion or just 4.00/6.00 Evensong)
We are going to have a review of the services at the Parish Church in the autumn and the date I propose to do this is Sunday 25th September after Evensong. If these new proposed changes are accepted we will keep this pattern for at least 12 months to give us some consistency and continuity.
Mission Church
The Mission Church has always been regarded as the more modern expression of Church
but I actually found this to be quite traditional and felt that a re-
1st Sunday 10.30 HC (Common Worship)
2nd Sunday 10.30 Café Style (Baptisms)
3rd Sunday 10.30 Morning Worship (prayer for healing)
4th Sunday 10.30 HC (child friendly)
On the first Sunday of the month the majority of the children are not in the service because there is Sunrise for the little ones and breakfast club for the older children, both of these are good for the children but church can look a bit sad and not very full due to the families not being around. I have tried to make use of the screen and projector for all of the services and there is no doubt the singing is much better as people have to look up at the screen to sing. I have on one occasion put all of the service onto the screen which enables me to use different versions of the confession, creed etc. One lady said she could see much better on the screen and really liked it. Perhaps for some the whole service on the screen could cause a slight strain on the neck and the light isn’t always that good but this is a great resource for us and we need to keep experimenting.
The second Sunday has caused the most comments and rightly so, it has been radical
and very different. There is a lot to reflect upon with this type of service. Having
experimented with this service I feel that it certainly has a place within the life
and worship of our church but that perhaps it would be better on a different day/time.
The idea with café style worship is that un-
It has been interesting having the baptisms families in and even though I’m not sure it was what they were expecting they have looked relaxed and all the comments that I have received were very positive (I’m aware that perhaps the negative comments do not always reach me!). Having said this, I feel that the café style isn’t very conducive to baptism families but when we do get a baptism in and it is always far better in the service because the church family are welcoming the child and family, we need to endeavour to put our own preferences aside and accommodate them. This is a God given opportunity to share the love of Jesus with them. We could do with a group of people with a real heart for evangelism to get alongside our baptismal families, to offer a warm welcome and to journey with them.
My suggestion for the 2nd Sunday is that we mix and match depending on who is leading.
If there is a baptism then we need to use this as a real mission opportunity but
perhaps have the church set up in a more normal way as the huge numbers that we can
sometimes get in makes it a real squeeze with the tables set out. If there is not
a baptism during the service we can try all sorts of things to accommodate the full
age range in our congregations. If you have ideas, suggestions regarding this service
please do come and have a word. Hopefully each 2nd Sunday will be a bit different
but with the focus on families and children and sometimes we will have the tables
set out and other times experiment with the chairs to provide a more informal approach.
Incidentally, on Sunday 9th October the congregation from St Benedict’s in Glastonbury
are coming to join us so that they can experience café style worship with a view
to introducing it at their church. Ideally, we could do with some people who have
a heart for reaching out into the community with the Gospel to instigate a café style
service on another day of the week in which non-
The third Sunday is primarily geared towards prayer ministry with the opportunity to receive prayer. So that we can get away from the Anglican Lectionary sometimes, I have put in themes for that Sunday i.e. depression, healing, Holy Spirit etc. I see this service as Worship and the Word with space for quiet and prayer. A group of musicians got together for the informal worship service on the second Sunday at the Mission Church in the evening and I have asked them to play during the service on the 3rd Sunday. The children will be in their groups during this service, but I would like them to start off in church as we will have the worship group leading us in a few songs at the beginning of the service and this gives the children the opportunity to worship with us.
The fourth Sunday is HC and I have added the child friendly bit in brackets next to it as this is the only service in the month that the children will receive communion. The idea is that they start off with us, with something relevant to them and then they return before the prayer of consecration. We can use a lot more creative ideas here which are more accessible for children (and adults) to connect with during the blessing and the distribution of the bread and wine. I look forward to experimenting and as always ideas, suggestions most welcome.
I hope that gives a flavour of the Mission Church, we have the name and we need to live up to it. We are extremely privileged to have two brilliant church buildings and my vision is to keep the Parish Church more traditional and to build up the congregation and for the Mission Church to offer a more informal, accessible form of worship with the emphasis on mission and outreach.
Walton Church
Holy Trinity Walton – Everyone, pretty much without exception always comments that they get a wonderful welcome at Walton Church and what a nice bunch of people. In fact someone said to me, “When I go there I feel cherished”. The numbers are small and the average attendance is around 24 and the average age considerable higher than 24! As you are well aware we need a toilet and kitchen installing. I am keen that we remove the back pews get the toilet and a small kitchen area put in and give the whole church a thorough spring clean. It would be good to get the community in to clean the church and then maybe they will have more of a sense of ownership to the building. Walton Church is now open every day (unmanned) 10 until 4.
The congregation at Walton have embraced the later time of 10am for their Sunday service and we now need to focus on how to draw people in. Often we hear that it’s not about drawing people in but about going out, the two church wardens are always out in the community, they know most people between them and are a brilliant witness to our faith. But I feel here that we somehow need to draw people into this small, faithful worshipping community because if we do not what is the point of spending money on the building? The School is one of the key areas of mission and outreach and we need to sit down together and work out a strategy to see how best we can serve them and the village community. The current pattern of services at Walton Church are:
1st Sunday – 10.00 Baptism/Praise round the piano
2nd Sunday – 10.00 Morning Worship
3rd Sunday – 10.00 Holy Communion (CW) Healing Prayer
4th Sunday – 10.00 Morning Prayer
In September on the 4th Sunday of the month we are going to introduce a Taize Service. This service will include elements of silence and time for quiet reflection and we hope people from the other two churches will come and join us. The 1st Sunday at Walton works well as it is the space for baptisms where we offer a family type service. If there is not a baptism we gather around the piano with coffee and cake and people are free to choose a hymn/song and to share something if they wish. This service has attracted people from the village who would not feel comfortable with a more formal church service. We need to get those back pews out as sometimes the space we use is not big enough!
Morning Worship at Walton tends to follow a traditional pattern but there is no reason why we cannot try other things (suggestions always welcome). The third Sunday is the HC with healing prayers at the altar. It is possible during the communion to offer healing prayer at the altar as there are not many people and surprisingly everyone stays to be prayed for, this is very special and a real joy. I would like to propose that we swap the 2nd and 3rd Sundays around so that we make sure that there is a communion service each Sunday at one of our churches so the new proposed pattern of services will look like this:
1st Sunday – 10.00 Baptism/Praise round the piano
2nd Sunday – 10.00 Holy Communion (CW) with prayer for healing
3rd Sunday – 10.00 Morning Worship (CW)
4th Sunday -
I’m looking forward to introducing the Taize Service and pray that people will really engage with God during this style of contemplative worship.
Conclusion
We really do need to have corporate times of prayer and fasting to listen and to
discern what is on God’s heart for our churches because without doing this it will
be like trying to climb a mountain in the ice, one small step forward and a slide
back down. It is all about God’s plans for us and not our own self made plans. God
has plans for His church and when we connect with God we will see amazing things
happen. The way to connect is through prayer and worship. Jesus said you will worship
me in spirit and in truth. We need the spirit to guide us into God’s truth. We
need to pray, pray, pray. Each Monday at the Mission Church a group of about 7 of
us faithfully turn up each week to pray from 7-
I’m here not just to serve the churches but to serve the community of Street and one of the most dangerous things we can do is to become to comfortable in our holy clubs, church works for ME so that is how I want it to stay. When we come to church we should be entering in with the attitude what can I give to God and to the gathered people this morning, not what can church do for me.
I think I have said all I want to on the three churches but suffice to say sometimes I wish I was the sort of person that just went along with the status quo, it’s safe, it’s ok and much less stressful and perhaps over the course of a year we may have the odd family join us. But God has made me the way I am and I want to see our churches alive with God’s presence and a place where we encounter Jesus. I want church to be the best it can be for both existing members and for new comers, it should be a place where people are taught, prayed for, accepted and loved into the kingdom. This is not impossible for God, this is God’s heart, we are the stumbling blocks.
I want to mention the Churches together in Street. I know from past history that there have been good relations between the churches but when I arrived this was not the case. I have a real heart for Christians to be working together and for bringing the different denominations together, to that end I have instigated regular meetings with the other church leaders in Street and I pray that we can really work together in our community.
On a more personal note, I have found the past 12 months interesting with various
emotions that range from ‘help’ what I have done? I should have stayed in Peterborough
-
both of them on Sunday 28th August at the Mission Church at 10.30 and afterwards you are invited to lunch at the Rectory (please pray for good weather) and I would appreciate it if you would let me know if you will be joining us, thanks.
So on to our second year in Street! I will be running an Alpha Course in the autumn at the Mission Church and I’m looking for a team of volunteers to help with catering, leading and worship, please do let me know if you are interested in helping.
In summary I would like to reiterate that my motive is to serve the Lord, God is never still, He is always looking out for people who’s hearts are open to His call, and the exciting thing is that He let’s us join in with Him. I would like to finish by saying a huge thank you for giving me the space to experiment and over these past 12 months we have seen many good things come out of our churches that honour God’s name. I pray that we will continue to deepen our relationship with Jesus and as we journey together we will seek to build up both our church and our community for the glory of God.
Revd Sharon Walker
“unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labour in vain” (Psalm 127:1)
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