Changes to Weekly Worship: Sept 2010

Some changes to weekly worship: One of our key values is to provide a welcoming environment for as many people as possible. Another is to value the presence of children. Growth has meant that we have already needed to change the way we do things both to welcome guests and to value our children. As we look ahead to future growth we would like to introduce some more changes into the way we run weekly worship for children and adults.

Weekly worship provides one key place and time where people encounter not just the people of our community but also the Jesus we love and follow. We deeply desire to share Jesus with as many people as possible. We want someone who visits on a Sunday morning with questions in their mind and hurt in their hearts to hear the truth about Jesus and to find healing and hope through His touch.

Therefore we seek to make it as easy as possible for people to meet with God rather than place stumbling blocks in the way. That means that it is important to think carefully and check to make sure that what we are doing isn’t actually having the opposite effect. Any ideas and observations you may have are welcome.

As part of this ongoing re-evaluation, we will introduce some changes for adults and for children from the beginning of September. Weekly worship serves a number of functions and change will improve some and not others. One aspect we will not be able to do quite as often (for a while) is to enjoy all age worship. We will continue to run all age events from time to time but for the next season most Sunday mornings will be run with adult and children’s activities happening side by side.

Changes for adults at weekly worship: Here are some changes we are going to make from September. Some will work better than others and we will make further adjustments in the future:

Refreshments will be available on a self-service basis at several stations around the main hall from 10.15am until 12.00pm. You can help yourself to a drink and something to nibble at any point during the service;
The seating will be laid out to help those who are trying us out or visiting guests to sit in areas where they may feel more comfortable. We will also be able to increase the number of seats to accommodate any growth;
There won’t be a welcome slot with all ages present. Instead at 10.30am, after a short welcome, we will usually go straight into worship;
There will be a comfort break after worship, an opportunity to say hullo, to share some stories and catch up on news. Then there will be teaching and the service will end with an opportunity for prayer ministry.
We will ask parents & guardians to collect their children from B block before 12.00pm.
We will not be celebrating communion on the first Sunday in September.

Changes for Vineyard Kids and Young People (T4:12) at weekly worship: High up on our list of values are the children. We want this community to continue to be a place where children of all ages feel safe and enjoy learning about Jesus. Although parents have the primary responsibility for the raising and discipling of their children we all have a part to play in that journey as the larger family that is the Wharfedale Vineyard.

We value the shared experience of faith; it is great for adults to see children in worship and for the adults to learn to moderate their own activity in order to accommodate the children. It is also important for the children and young people to see examples of adults expressing their faith in worship, prayer, communion and baptism. For that reason we have, up to now, tried to ensure that a part of the Sunday morning always involved all ages together in one place. Yet, as we grow in numbers, the practicalities of our current facilities mean that we need to find different ways of expressing that priority. From September the children and young people (T4:12) will be invited into their own programme from the beginning rather than going to the main hall. The effect we hope to achieve by that will be that the adult event will gain space and ease of access - in particular for guests for whom the milling around of all ages is not always a stress-free experience. We will also be able to trim down the length of our time together a little and focus on the core part of our gathering - worship, teaching and prayer ministry.
So, on 5th September, if you are bringing children, please take them straight to B Block from 10.15am where you will be directed to the new rooms we are using. There they will be welcomed, signed in and will find a range of fun activities in which they can immediately become engaged. They will also be offered their own snacks and drinks during the morning. Try to leave enough time to get across to the main hall where we will start the adult event at 10.30am. Refreshments will be available for adults throughout the morning so you don’t need to rush for your hot drink!
The few minutes the children are taught on a Sunday morning make up only a very small part of what they learn (they get much more from family) so we want to make it as special as possible. For some time now we have been researching into refreshing our teaching and activities materials. We are delighted to have found an excellent new set of resources, written by an experienced Kids leader at Belfast Vineyard. This new material will help the Vineyard Kids team in their preparation and will improve still further the content of what we are teaching the children.
Alongside refreshing the curriculum and resources we have been looking around for alternative ways of running the actual weekly worship programme for the children. There is a model we would like to implement that would seem to fit really well. In some ways it is like the Praise Party and fits with our existing expertise. Hannah will be communicating more detail to the team at the Children’s & Youth Ministry Celebration on 3 September. As ever, your thoughts and ideas are welcome.
During September we will be learning the new programme together so things will be unfamiliar for everyone for a while. This is a consultation period so your constructive feedback is welcomed. October to December will be a trial period for the new programme and if everything goes well we will implement it and the new resource material as a settled format from January 2011.
Because it is important to us to bring all ages together we will plan some Sunday events that do involve all ages. The obvious ones are the Carol Service, Easter Sunday and probably the last Sunday in July. These events need more work and preparation but can be a great deal of fun and are also good to invite guests.

The Gathering takes a break: As you can see there are quite a few developments in the way we run weekly worship and we want to concentrate our energies and resources on doing it really well. At the same time it is clear that the Gathering has not really grown as we hoped over the last 2 years. So with immediate effect we will stop running the Gathering.

Although we would love to see something like the Gathering flourish, for now we need to focus on Sunday morning. We are sorry that some people who preferred the Gathering will lose something important to them but we hope they will understand that we have limited resources and for now we need to concentrate them elsewhere.

If you have been serving at the Gathering we are very grateful for all you have done. We fully expect the Gathering to re-emerge in some form in due course when the Lord indicates that the time is right. In the meantime you are, of course, warmly invited to weekly worship in the morning. If you have been serving at the Gathering and would like to continue to serve it would be great if you could find somewhere to do so in the morning instead.

A change of support for Big Groups: Quite a lot of unseen work goes into coordinating and supporting the Sunday events for large groups of people - liaison with venues, coordinating multiple teams, logistics and resources. This has been Nik Gee’s primary work responsibility but will now come within Erik Peeters’ role. Erik’s work will focus mainly on weekly worship of course, although the Prayer & Worship evenings and other large events will be included.

Nik has done a marvellous job over the last couple of years getting us settled into Carr Manor High School, building teams for set up and set down, for refreshments and so on. We are thankful to Nik not just for the skillful way he has fostered the teams but for the sacrifices in time he and his family have made to serve.

As he moves to a different role we would be really grateful for the teams to help Erik find his way around as he learns the ropes over the next few weeks. Inevitably there will be some handover going on from Nik to Erik so, again, if you have questions or suggestions please call either of them.