Working Together

Planning for a Sunday morning service rarely begins with a moment of inspiration - usually it starts with a list of tasks and issues which need to be dealt with. This morning's service at All Saints' was one of those. Here is a cut down list of objectives to be achieved on this occasion:

• It's the first Sunday of the month so it needs to be an all age service with children included throughout - not too long so that there is time for coffee and no-one gets bored...
• There are some new wedding kneelers which need to be dedicated...
• There are two families coming to be welcomed before baptism...
• There's some lent material which the team have produced so that each service in Lent can be a kind of "Bible Study on a Sunday"... The theme for this week is choices...
  
• Peter's doing music so the hymns must work on a guitar...
• and so on...

When I was taught to lead worship and preach I was encouraged to think about a single idea and how that may be communicated. Leading worship on a Sunday morning is often more a case of knitting together a number of disparate strands to give the illusion of coherence...

Actually I think we did quite well this morning. I worked with John RJ and we did a bit of a double act. We focussed on the theme of choices and wove the various strands together to produce something which felt fairly meaningful and had some positive feedback. Well done us!

The double act worked very well and is always a good thing to do. It demonstrates team work, collaboration, and shared ministry - and provides a good mechanism for using the thoughts and talents of more than one person. It does require a certain amount of improvisation and trust, however, which is also a good thing...

At lunch time I attended the planning meeting for St Mary's Shenley 11 O'clock service. They really didn't need me there - which I think is basically a good thing. They are well on the way with collaborative ministry and are basically "self-organising". It was good to spend some time with them however and it was a good meeting...