Hallelujah He is Here - Chataway

[DutchOma]

Well here you are then I don't post often, but just to save Nickel a job...

nickel I agree with you re short punchy service with not too many hymns/songs. We have all age services once a month which are sometimes good and sometimes hard work. The leader often goes out of her way to do sketches, dressing up, interactive prayers etc all of which engage the children well, but still sometimes it just seems too long, and little children especially are just bored. My dc prefer sunday school weeks

When our church is up and running I really want families to feel welcome, children and their noise to be not just tolerated but embraced and a good balance in all age services - yes that's it nickel, children know when they are being patronised and it's hardly all age if it's just trying to pander to the dc - there needs to be something more authentic and really all age about it - so interviews with elderly people about their lives and faith, teenagers doing sketches/leading the band, a quiz for everyone, little children encouraged to come to the front and have instruments etc. I want a service where everyone feels included and loved. Is it possible?

nickel thats what happens in our church too. I dont find it too disruptive personally. Sunday schools are great! But you need the kids to go to them...

these are what I was looking for - it's the service book, but aimed at children.
don't know which eucharistic prayer they are though.

this one

I did find a proper service book a while ago, and i can't find it now.

i think it is possible.
It just needs to be properly done

bad - i also think they don't have enough time for their sunday school part (and i kind of meant also disruptive for the kids - starting here, going here, coming back here...)

oh! i didn't say how PCC went!

Someone wasn't at the meeting, but everyone said he could be secretary.
I didn't want to voice my concerns because i'm no good at diplomacy...
so i've offered to be deputy secretary.
I thought it might mean a more balanced view.
and I might insist on a bit of shadowing

Oh well done!

For some reason I read that as 'I might insist on a bit of showdancing'

thank nickel

well done at the PCC!

I was supposed to be doing the minutes as an emergency back up for the regular secretary who has now suggested we do them alternate months!!!

I will, of course, but she was ADAMANT she wanted to continue being the secretary!

Oh! and apparently there were complaints too (the PCC meeting was on the thurs pm and I put the minutes out at church on sunday). Thats "too quick" for some it turns out! "We will forget what was said" Erm...isnt that what minutes are for???

you just wanted to see this didn't you!

some people don't like to relinquish control, do they!

our PCC meetings are no longer to be tuesdays, because the team rector wants to come (tuesday is his Day Off).
okay, so we did Monday this time (so lots couldn't come), and he didn't even come !!
it's on wednesday next time.

at early minutes!

I love the dog in that first video, in the left hand bottom corner. You see him most clearly at about 1.57 mins

dog? what dog?

You have another look. Most of the time it's just a black form, moving in and out, but then all of a sudden it comes out and you can clearly see its eyes and ears.

For Nickel:

www.cartoonchurch.com/content/cc/clergy-ads/

Hi all... very quickly, as I need to sleep. Just to say that I wasn't suggesting that Sunday School/Junior Church was a bad thing - not at all.

The other thing that I see working is getting the children to do something for the service. A children's choir? (I know you take the choir really seriously, nickel, but I was thinking more of something for younger ones where they just learn a song in the Sunday School weeks and then perform it in the Family Service week... that kind of thing.) My dd2 loves serving. I'm sure there are other things that the children (of different ages) could do during the Family Service - pass the collection plate, do a reading, take up the bread and wine, collect in the hymn books and service sheets at the end... anything to make them feel included and important and part of things. As a tone-deaf teenager (no choir for me!) I was briefly a bell-ringer. And, Badvoc, the 'higher' the service, it seems to me, the more 'jobs' there are to share around... candles to light, incense boats to carry, bells to ring...!

(Lest you think I'm being rude... I'm also of the high persuasion! )

I really like the idea of starting a choir tuo

oh Mary !
I wish i'd seen that in time for the last magazine!
I went with:
this one

Tuo - i know what you mean - ours is very much traditional junior choir, like at a cathedral. you mean more like a school choir - can be much more child-friendly, and they don't have to be in the service all the way through.
(unless they're part of the service, of course!)

you have to have uniforms though - it's what our JCs love most!

kids love having candle responsibility!

Haha at those cartoons

Yes it's definitely a good thing for children to have things to do - in our last church my dc loved taking up the candle, bible etc, and I often got the children to prepare a sketch or dance for the all age which they loved. They can do readings, prayers, lead songs, even talks. Can be involved as much in a lower church as a higher one. I think they just like to feel part of it all, in whatever way.

join my dinosaur thread
it may be construed as anti-religious