How was church today?

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I've never served a congregation that integrated the annual meeting into a worship service. I have no trouble with the concept of "worship and work must be one," but I would be concerned that such a format would kind of explicitly cut any visitors out of the experience, since so much would be insider and administrative stuff not necessarily of interest to visitors. I think it would also run the risk of making the worship service seem rather inward-looking. But ... if it works in some contexts, then it works.

I got to do Children's Time in church today. It was my ministry colleague Karen's preaching Sunday. She usually does time with the children, but when she preaches (one of every 5 or 6 Sundays on average) we reverse roles. We did have a baptism, and then one of our Sunday School teachers had prepared a presentation about refugees, which was well done by all - including my daughter, who was part of it. That was upstairs Children's Time actually, but Karen and I both felt that the children should have some teaching about Lent, so I did children's time downstairs in the chapel, brought my computer and set up a powerpoint, and talked about the story of Jesus in the wilderness, what a wilderness really is (I showed slides of various kinds of wilderness, and then basically said it's anyplace where we find ourselves alone and friendless.) I then moved on to the account of Jesus finally being visited by an angel to comfort him, and encouraged the children to take time during Lent (and beyond) to look for kids at school who are alone or have few friends or are bullied and be their "angel" - befriending them and comforting them in their wilderness. It was fun. I liked doing Children's Time in the chapel with just the kids and the teachers rather than in front of the whole congregation. The kids seemed a bit more focused.
 
Nancy said:
The church I attend also does the annual meeting as part of the service. I'm not really keen on it...I think worship and business should be separate. But next week, I will lead worship at a church that will have their annual meeting after I leave. Before I knew this was going to happen, I started to write the message already. It's called: Our Profit. And I talk about money. Oops. Wondering if I should change it up.
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Interestingly, Quakers call their monthly business meetings ( which would include the annual meeting): Meeting for worship with attention to business.
Now, they do hold an hour of worship meeting first, then a lunch and then the meeting. But, the understanding is, that decisions are made in a prayerful attitude- and unanimously. Everyone is supposed to read the minutes and reports before meetingand no new items are allowed once the agenda was send out. There is silence as part of the discernment during the meeting. Attendants are asked to “ listen to what others say and what God might want the group to decide and leave their personal interests behind.
 
Jae said:
Good service today. Pastor spoke from the book of Nahum about the God of Comfort. We also had a credobaptism. After the service came a small snack of cake, fruit and coffee to celebrate the baptism. Next week is our annual General meeting.
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Over lunch, some friends of ours (a couple - he is the President of my church) discussed with Yobo and I whether we wanted to become church members. Yobo and I decided that we will not.
 
Today was interesting - our former church held its 50 anniversary. They put a lot of effort into it, including inviting former members. Seelergirl met Seelerman and me there. The usual attendance is about 50 on a Sunday morning. There were probably 150. I'm glad we went early.
Interesting display around the room of many of the banners made over the years -- many I recognized as ones I had designed and/or worked on with the Sunday School or Advent Festival or other gathering, as well as the almost professional ones.
The guest minister, president of Maritime Conference led a meaningful worship service which included communion served by the five charter members still regularly attending. Then we had a 'finger-foods' lunch, watched a slide show of various events of the past - looked through photographs. I recognized many - including some of my children as teenagers and young adults, and Granddaughter as a baby and toddler. Even our Lab retriever was in some pictures of church campouts and SS picnics.
And we mingled. People I hadn't seen in years came over and spoke to me -- Susan who lived down the street from me before moving out of town, Hugh and Judith whose children I taught in SS and who asked me to do the funeral for their son who drowned; Carol who taught SS with me; Andrea who chummed with Seelergirl in CGIT and now lives in another city.
It was a coming home to worship and visit with these great people. I'm not tempted to leave my present church, I belong there now; but I have deep roots in my former chcurch.
 
Jae said:
Over lunch, some friends of ours (a couple - he is the President of my church) discussed with Yobo and I whether we wanted to become church members. Yobo and I decided that we will not.
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Given your plans for this year, it would be a bit premature to put down church roots in Toronto right now.

Waterfall said:
Saw this on facebook today:

Has anyone ever used the Immigrants Creed (for all nations) in church?

Immigrants Creed
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New one on me, but I kind of like it. It's a creed oriented to a particular situation and issue, though, so I'm not sure it is something you would use all the time.

Seeler said:
I'm not tempted to leave my present church, I belong there now; but I have deep roots in my former chcurch.
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I do keep an eye on my old family UCCan in Kitchener via their website. It's tempting to go down some Sunday to sit in on a service but distance makes that difficult. I'd have to time it for a Sunday when I had other reasons to be in town (e.g. visiting my brother's family for some reason or other). From the website, I know there are still some familiar names there, some of them my parents' generation and some of them mine. Even some with familiar last names that I do not recognize otherwise so perhaps millennial children of people I went to Sunday School and confirmation class with.
 
Mendalla said:
Given your plans for this year, it would be a bit premature to put down church roots in Toronto right now.
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Yes, that's our feeling. It's a tad painful since this is a church which we were members of before - Yobo for about three years, me for about 15. Not being members leaves us with no voting privileges at the church. We'd become members again if we weren't planning our move away.
 
My childhood church, a Lutheran church, was torn down last fall to make way for seniors' 'life lease' units. I was very sad to see its spire fall; it was built in the very early 60s, a new church when I was a member.

You need some talent to make the annual congregational meeting into a service. I think we do it very gracefully. However, we are unique in that we're a "suburban" church whose visiting audience is limited usually to friends/family of the congregation, we have an active web page and facebook presence that is supposed to advertise this event so as, largely, to discourage visitors this Sunday. We start half an hour earlier, and have our best and most experienced greeters at the door. We used to have a service, then a lunch, then the meeting. It was a long day, and a very minimal percentage of the congregation stayed. Now, the service takes about 2 hours, but we have a celebratory potluck lunch afterwards, and then we're done!

Need to have a GOOD comprehensive Annual Report ready for the Sunday previous, a comprehensive e-mail blast letting everyone know what's up, how to access your Annual Report, what to look for, etc. I like it better than the previous model, but then, I'm a huge fan of short/compressed meetings.
 
crazyheart said:
@Mrs.Anteater , does it work, IYO.
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I have only attended two meetings so far. Decisions take longer, of course. But also- everybody who comes is usually prepared.
And I am always suprised at the wisdom and kindness of the leaders. Our meeting is small, I am looking forward to attend the Atlantic one, when there is fourty or more people attending
 
I was not at church as I was skiing with a friend from Edmonton. Part of me wishes I had been there as the trift store proposal was greeted with dissent.. I am in favour of a thrift store-as outreach-meeting a need
as caring for the earth-recycling goods vs buying new
and as a way to produce income.
 
No church for me today ... loaded with con tag eons ... so time for isolation ... otherwise I like social conspiracies as a good plot ...

Do you know how many cannot relate plot, scheme, plans and other devious organizations to conspiracies of a specter ...? These are varied to occupy the prototypical soul until outside powers observe that it processes complex -ites ...

That suffix "-ite" suggests alloying ... a relative of allez ... or Allah ... base alt traveller? Some meticulous mettle 'n may be encountered incidentally ... the question remains about cu-lous ... Kohl as what? The waters of the top of Kill-aman-Jerious? Isis ... the soul ...

Possibly a wild psychological theory that wouldn't apply to a host ...
 
Bit of a mixed bag.

Way more of the logistical type accidents. Several visitors to the pulpit walked off with my order of service. Near the end I think it had become something of a game. That lightens the mood eventually even if you have several moments of what happens now.

Prior to the start of the service and due to revelations made during the week I had to offer a corrective with respect to congregational behaviour. I never look forward to that. Consensus is that I handled the situation with grace and tact so hooray for that. Hopefully it translates into congregational behaviour and I am not facing some long-term behavioural issue.

Following the service on of our retired clergy paid me a tremendous compliment saying that I was going on his list of pulpit heroes. As far as he is concerned I preach as well as Paul Shearer (who is a Lutheran and taught at Union Theological Seminary in the 30's) and Nadia Bolz-Webber (who is more contemporary and also a Lutheran). When I offered that I was a Calvinist he was delighted to know that when it came time to get rid of his copy of The Institutes of the Christian Religion that I would happily keep it safe and treat it well.

I'm out of the pulpit next weekend as Wednesday I head back to Ontario to help Qball celebrate his first birthday. Apparently the Pastoral Charge is going to take it easy on me and only expects me to complete the Vital Statistics forms before I leave.

Yeesh.
 
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