Sunday

Went to MK village this morning to lead worship at All Saints'. Had a great time with them. They were really friendly and seem to be developing some good ideas. I look forward to working with them again!

While I was there I popped round to look at Broughton Church - it's surprisingly big! Can't quite get my head around the fact we're not using it. The notice in the porch says it's not needed for public worship, which I think is unfortunate. All the evidence I see seems to point to the fact that we need a large number of small worshipping communities which are as local as possible... but I'm sure there was logic in the decision to close it...

In the evening I had the second of four sessions with the second batch of worship leaders from St Mary's. There are four of them and we had a good session reflecting on worship that they had observed. My last run of worship training didn't go so well - largely because I tried to fit it in around my sabbatical. This group is thriving - possibly because they all come from the same church and are working on the same service...

From a personal point of view I feel I'm learning a lot about the dynamics of local training. I begin to feel that it is really important to offer something that is a) locally delivered, b) appropriate to immediate needs, c) limited in scope, and d) based on relationships. It therefore works better to offer training for a group of people from the same church for a very specific service that they need to be able to lead than to attempt a more open worship leading course. The more open ended comprehensive course is better offered on a wider area basis for those who are willing to give time to be more exploratory.

On the other hand, it may also be helpful to offer some nuggets of ideas that could be built on... Since MSI has been cancelled I may use some of those dates to offer something on this basis...