CLPD Meeting ' Needs of Congregations'
Held at Trinity United Thurs Nov 13th 2008 7:30pm
Six preachers attended; three sent apologies.
The meeting opened with devotions.
The original reason for calling this meeting was to look at the census that was produced some time ago, regarding the wishes of the twelve churches, at that time, in the Leeds North-East Circuit ( 16/02) . However, unfortunately, this didn't occur as the material wasn't available for this meeting. This will be discussed at our next meeting in January. Instead we talked about what we, as preachers, have found the congregations we have spoken with, have shared, with regard to their needs in worship.
One member of the meeting told of how the whole congregation from his neighbouring church failed to turn up for an ecumenical morning service at his church and from this arose discussion on communication between ecumenical partners and whose responsibility it was to ensure that this didn't happen .
The differing needs of congregations concerning the administering of Holy Communion was discussed. In churches where differing denominations share worship together on a regular basis, there is often conflict with regard to how Holy Communion is presented. Many like to spend time at the rail awaiting a blessing, others like to receive Holy Communion in their seats, others are happy to 'queue', receive and go back to their seats; this last way so many Methodist congregations find unacceptable.
We discussed how we could grow together, promoting harmony. If the morning service was a Parade service,then ensuring the evening service was more traditionally based on that day. This was because many absented themselves from Parade or All Age Worship (AAW) services and by following the above format, it satisfied the needs of many more, if not all, within a congregation. It was felt, therefore, helpful for preachers to kno , when leading evening worship, if a traditional Methodist service would be appreciated that evening. We also noted the importance of acknowledging children and young people when they were present in the congregation and that by using drama etc. was a way of including them in meaningful worship.
In all things, it was felt, the congregations should be encouraged to articulate their wishes to the ministers and preachers so that, hopefully, worship would be a uniting experience although this didn't mean that it would be uniform in its format. By providing different types of worship on the same day, or throughout the month, we felt means more of the congregations wishes would be catered for.
We turned our attention then to music. The difficulty of leading worship without an organist/ pianist is becoming more common place. 'No organist, no problem' was suggested as an alternative along with 'No Music Group, no problem.' Leading worship using CDs to accompany the hymn singing is not ideal, but better than no music at all. The two aforementioned packages however, each cost around £100 each and should the Circuit pay for these, as usually it was the smalle , poorer churches that faced this problem? Should a more sophisticated system, such as in use at the Harewood Church, be considered instead? Comments would be welcome.
Our meeting closed at 9 pm with prayers and the Grace.
Our next meeting is scheduled for Thursday Jan 29th 2009 at 7:30pm at Trinity United, Roundhay Road, and anyone interested is most welcome to join us.
AJ