Congregational Worship Questions

Next week we will be meeting in our worshipping communities after the services to look at questions around how we worship. The point of the exercise is to help me understand what the congregations want and how I can serve you better as a priest. The meetings have no agenda for me; I am happy to lead worship in a variety of settings. Also, just to note, there will be no decisions made at the meetings. It is a listening and information gathering exercise for the leadership of the parish to process and determine what the best way forward. My guess is that after the meetings we would come back with a list of observations and invite feedback on the observations and then move forward based on the observations. Hopefully we can have the whole exercise wrapped up just after Easter. Thank you for taking part. (Note: I will also have the questions up on my blog; you can post comments there as well.)

These are questions for the different worshiping congregations to ponder. They are not the only questions possible; they are just to get the conversation started:

8am Service:

·         Why do you come to this service?

·         Do you want to continue using the traditional language service out of the BAS or do you want to switch to the BCP?

·         Given the limited time would you prefer either the same sermon as the 9 and 11am services with less of the liturgy or the full liturgy with a slightly abbreviated version of the sermon?

·         Other issues?

9am Service:

·         Why do you come to this service?

·         Are you basically happy with what we have now which is a standard BAS service with contemporary music, or would you prefer to explore creative forms, albeit still (mostly) within the general Anglican fold?

·         Are you comfortable changing the seating arrangements or would you prefer them to remain as they are?

·         How much extra liturgical material would you be interested in having on a monthly basis? This includes drama, liturgical dance, etc.

·         What would you add or take away from the service?

·         Other issues?

11am Service

·         Why do you come to this service?

·         Are you happy with the service as it is now or would you change aspects of it?

·         Would you be interested in adding tradtional liturgical elements to the service such as reading the Gospel in the midst of the people, or entrance and exit processions?

·         Would you be interested in a responsive changing of the introduction to the Eucharistic Canon? This is the dialogue: The Lord be with you. And also with you. Lift up your hearts. We lift them to the Lord…

·         Other issues?