On Jordan Cooper's blog, he links to a list of 6 (+2) worst practices in ch meetings (services).
The first thing the list shows me is how culturally bound our views of our community and its meetings are. I disagreed not only with most of the list, but with the premises underlying them (but then, my interests are adult and young children discipling and teaching).
Maybe the list is right and I'm not, but our views of our community life are also very personal!
The item I agree with is having announcements at the commencement of the meeting. How crazy is that? As soon as you arrive, they are talking not about what they are here for, but about other things that you might like to consider. Announcements are definitely part of the denoument, not the introduction or development!
Much of the list seemed to be 'main man minister' orientated, rather than community, or truly 'church' orientated (church as in the NT, not church as derived from Rome), so that's the premise I'd resist.
What would be my list?
Based on my local ch, and therefore entirely my personal thoughts (and probably different from everyone else's, and a survey might show me to be out on a limb):
- two songs at the start: one's enough, two is just tedious, especially when they are lyrically and musically at odds.
- compares (moderators, service conductors) making unhelpful continuity remarks. No one turns up to hear the compare, but expects them to keep the meeting running smoothly and without drawing attention to themselves
- completely ignoring the wonderful Anglican prayer book tradition: the prayer book would save us from people of varying talent 'making it up as they go' and provides a steady structure for those places where innovation is welcome.
- skipping prayer because there's a baptism (infant, not adult); this would be solved at our parish if the following service would agree to commence only 15 minutes later!
- because of the time, always rushing
- conspicuous fussing by musicians at the front, as though its about musicians and not about us teaching one another with spiritual songs (I quote Paul here)
- the ever-present 'PowerPoint' for projecting song lyrics: not that the idea isn't good, but I can't easily look up due to a neck injury (I did say it was a personal list), so, church=have a headache for me.
And what should ch be like?
My ideal would be something like a small conference, with a mix of mingle time, plenary sessions and workshops. I think this model could work for a tiny church or a large one, because what it does is get people together, giving opportunity for conversation, discussion, prayer, support and reflection, with people able to leave or join at a number of points through the program.
So, I'd join two different church models I've known:
Model 1: sunday school for children and adults (discussion group), break for morning tea, 'normal' church meeting.
Model 2: 'normal' church meeting, using Anglican prayer book and old fashioned hymns and choir (v. good), creche operates for young children, morning tea, then prayer meeting, sometimes followed by light lunch (soup, bread rolls, fruit).
Together, I'd propose:
Formal opening, contemplative, prayerful, slow paced (young people might do it differently for pace)
Teaching/encouraging talk (aka sermon, but not a 'sermon')
brief break: people might leave, or join,
Proper morning prayer service, or communion.
morning tea
children's and adults sunday school
prayer meetings, one to one prayer or conversation (structured time, for encouragement, etc, over a cup of tea or not)
light lunch.
The times would be advertised for each segment so people could come or go as they pleased.
Just an indication, not a worked out program!
