Week of Prayer 2011

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Permalink Reply by Gareth Hill on January 24, 2011 at 13:35

Well I've said this in other places so I ought to say it here and I'm sorry to be broadly negative, but I was disappointed with the service yesterday although I should also say that the two I helped to lead were entirely positive events.

My main critique would be, in the line from My Fair Lady, "words, words, words, I'm so sick of words". I came away overwhelmed by how much liturgy there was and how little space there was in the template for silence, video, background music etc.

I was also really disappointed that children and young people were completely absent from the shape of what was offered from Churches Together.

Of course I know that we could (and did) adapt the material. However I think my disappointment is because it felt to me that the planning of the service structure had assumed children/young people would not be present or would be willing to engage with all those words.

I looked at order of service B but that effectively left the whole service up to the local community. Out of the two, service A was more suited to our congregations, but we had to cut a lot out and still ended up with (in my opinion) too many words.

In defence of the worship though, I may be in a minority. Everyone else said it was a 'lovely service' but maybe they always say that or were being polite because they were sitting with strangers :)

For the future, because I want to affirm the principle of this week and these services, surely the CTBI writers group must have people with expertise in worship for all ages together as well as acknowledging that not everyone uses liturgy to such an extent.

I would just like the process to begin with an acknowledgement that the following things are part of contemporary worship for many Christians in this nation:

 

- children involved

- young people actively leading

- use of audio/visual technology for film clips

- silence

- contemporary songs

The writers group could surely suggest some of these as well as written prayers.

I am really sorry this sounds so critical. I don't mean it to because I valued the Jerusalem content and the PowerPoint presentation was excellent (with very minor quibbles about some of the text colours which didn't work in bright light).

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Permalink Reply by Sylvia White on January 30, 2011 at 9:47

I agree with Gareth.  Too many words, nothing for children and young people.  At our village service in a congregation of about 200 there were 50+ children and young people including 35 Beavers, Cubs and Scouts.  I have to put on record that even though there wasn't really anything for them to engage with they were extremely well behaved.  We must not forget that these young people are the future of our church both denominationally and ecumenically.  A worship service which brings together the separate denominations must surely be the ideal forum for engaging with our young people to encourage their committment and foster links across the denominations.  I was not involved in the planning or leading the service although, as a member of the laity, I regular lead All Age Worship .and spend a great deal of time planning Acts of Worship accessible to children, young people and adults.  I know it is time consuming but it is vital if our churches are to be relevant in the present day.

Sylvia White

Gareth Hill said:

Well I've said this in other places so I ought to say it here and I'm sorry to be broadly negative, but I was disappointed with the service yesterday although I should also say that the two I helped to lead were entirely positive events.

My main critique would be, in the line from My Fair Lady, "words, words, words, I'm so sick of words". I came away overwhelmed by how much liturgy there was and how little space there was in the template for silence, video, background music etc.

I was also really disappointed that children and young people were completely absent from the shape of what was offered from Churches Together.

Of course I know that we could (and did) adapt the material. However I think my disappointment is because it felt to me that the planning of the service structure had assumed children/young people would not be present or would be willing to engage with all those words.

I looked at order of service B but that effectively left the whole service up to the local community. Out of the two, service A was more suited to our congregations, but we had to cut a lot out and still ended up with (in my opinion) too many words.

In defence of the worship though, I may be in a minority. Everyone else said it was a 'lovely service' but maybe they always say that or were being polite because they were sitting with strangers :)

For the future, because I want to affirm the principle of this week and these services, surely the CTBI writers group must have people with expertise in worship for all ages together as well as acknowledging that not everyone uses liturgy to such an extent.

I would just like the process to begin with an acknowledgement that the following things are part of contemporary worship for many Christians in this nation:

 

- children involved

- young people actively leading

- use of audio/visual technology for film clips

- silence

- contemporary songs

The writers group could surely suggest some of these as well as written prayers.

I am really sorry this sounds so critical. I don't mean it to because I valued the Jerusalem content and the PowerPoint presentation was excellent (with very minor quibbles about some of the text colours which didn't work in bright light).

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Permalink Reply by Peter Colwell on January 30, 2011 at 13:41

Thank you to Gareth and Sylvia for this feedback. The writers group meet shortly to start work on 2012 so these comments are helpful. We don't start with a blank sheet of paper - we base our service on that worked out internationally and we do cull of of the words from that text. However we will look at how to make it less wordy for 2012.

 

Material involved - ususally prepared by ROOTS but we didn't put up the link on our website. Our fault - we are sorry!

Film clips - interesting suggestion, we will exlore this one.

Silence and contemporary songs - absolutely!

 

Peter Colwell (CTBI, Director of Programmes)

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