Choirs, worship songs, after service coffee - the all new religion chat thread

[niminypiminy]

A new place for us to share the lovely, silly and annoying things that happen in church life and share our great love of Graham Kendrick.

Well, building you will just have to find your own place then. Sit where you are most comfortable. It will probably depend on the service.
You are certainly most welcome.
I spent the morning, together with about 8 other ladies tidying our resoures room. Frankly I think it now looks no better than when we started, but it is better as we have tidied all the boxes on one side of the room. The other side is mainly used for flower arranging stuff and the communion glasses (it is a Baptist church so no communal cup most of the time), so not the responsibility of the resources co-ordinator. It is amazing how much stuff we have, three boxes of tissue paper for instance, small medium and large, four boxes of wool, which I condensed to two, so much stuff. Our minister said that we were going to have a skip, I have no doubt that we will will that as well.

Can I ask a question? Those of you who serve in your churches, what committees and sub-committees do you have? Just interested in the different ways of doing things.

building sounds like you could be persuaded either way

I think.it would be lovely to do the compline thing again. Not sure how often, but no reason why we can't use that same thread on a regularish basis.
Then we can fit readings to a lectionary theme

Leadership team (sometimes known as Standing Committee), pcc, choir (music dept), bellringers, servers.
I think that's it for official stuff, but we have sidesmen (who are apparently not a welcome team) too, and the people who can go out into the community to administer communion.

I want a communications team.and a welcome team as well, but what I think works is not what that church wants to see happen.

Interesting question building. I think just vicar, children's church leaders, churchwardens, pcc, rota wrangler. But now if I wonder if there's a whole other layer of committees I'm not aware of. I suppose there must be a ministry 'team' come to think of it - vicar + pt assistant priest + pt deacon / curate + reader?? And we have two retired priests who do the early service so maybe they are also involved...
But basically I think the vicar runs pretty much everything herself. Could be wrong though.

nickel do the community communion givers just do that or is it part of a wider pastoral role? Do they also preach sometimes etc?

Committees/groups here:

Staff team (all paid members of staff plus non-stipendiary with formal roles). Pcc. Wardens. Welcome team. Prayer ministry team, pastoral ministry team, prison ministry, hospital visitors, old people's homes ministry, children/youth ministry, mission contacts, life group coordinators, flowers, worship, AV desk, cleaning, older people, toddler group, schools visitors, street pastors, bible readers, lay ministers, Christmas Carol service team, passion play team, buildings committee, women's ministry, men's ministry, 18-30s...

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, but somewhere I have a multi page booklet listing all the different ways to get involved.

your church sounds a lot bigger than mine!!

Formal structures:

PCC and its subcommittees: Finance and stewardship; fabric (i.e. Buildings); events.

Then there's the ministry team.

And as we are in a team of five parishes there are also churchwardens' meetings for the team.

There are occasional meetings of people involved in children/youth/families work, and a pastoral visiting group meet regularly. But it's quite slimline from the point of view of committees and meetings.

Ours is a village CofE church with less than 100 regular attendees. We have the PCC and one person running the children's work (ropes in ad hoc help but not much), a fundraising team and some Authorised Lay Ministers. We have a Fabric Committee too because the building sucks up a LOT of time. We have people on rotas but no Worship team as such. I think it is a bit of a case of 'if you want to, go ahead'.

If you mean leadership style committees, we just have a parish council, finance and liturgy committees. Various other organisational things get done by one lead person who communicates to the others but not a committee as such (catechists, various choirs/music groups, readers, Eucharistic ministers, ushers, cleaners, evangelisation etc.).

Then there are numerous other groups which are not organisational, more social. Like different national groups (it's a London parish, many nationalities), women's and men's groups, Bible study, SVP (local charity), different prayer groups, children's group, probably others I can't think of.

Edd I'm not sure - a couple of them definitely visit oeople to catch up, which I think is why they were given the communion role.
I assume it's all.part of the same role.

The ones who preach are on tthe leadership team, so you have to be on the leadership team to preach

Edd think there's about 600 of us. But also there's a strong emphasis on every member ministry; everyone has gifts and talents and should be encouraged and supported to use them.

Ours sounds fairly similar to SilenceofthePrams. Lots of committees and groups because it's a fairly large church with a few congregations. I'm not on anything yet, biding my time to see what feels the right thing and health being rubbish anyway.

Definitely bide your time - once there's a whisper you may be willing to commit, you'll have so many pressing invitations to do so!

I got a hilarious email from the vicar yesterday telling me in detail how awful the job of rota wrangler is, and asking me to do it. So if course I said yes . I will try not to take all the resulting frustration out on you all!

Edd could you also wrangle the children's church rota at my place? (not really, but it's a lovely thought).

Things are so different in rural churches. We have one big-ish church that has about 80 on a Sunday and four smaller ones which muster probably two congregations of 25 each between them (there's a service caravan which goes round the villages). On the other hand, one of our villages is so tiny that probably about 25% of the population attends church. Five medieval buildings is also a lot to look after!

niminy I could send you the email to use as a template - clearly v effective method!!

Why would she ttell you the job is really hard if she wants you to do it?!

Maybe it's a "you're jeffing brilliant you are!" method!

Because she's a friend and didn't want to bullshit me? Or because it's an almighty hassle getting someone to do it, so she wants me/whoever to start eyes open?
And yes also a bit of flattery I'm sure.

I love it as a refreshingly truthful way of getting a ttask done.
Although, not everyone would think iit to be a dreadful job.

Cautiously peering around door and searching for an empty seat
May I join? Not sure I can remember all the questions
Started life happy clappy and gradually gone more up the candle but still happy in either setting.
Love both a choir or a signing group as long as they are rehearsed
Organ with the choir but otherwise a band (again as long they have practised!)
Book rather than screen - easier to show the kids where we have got to.
GK is ok, like a few of his songs but prefer Stuart Townend and Matt Redman

In reality I am a Church in Wales ordinand with a Methodist upbringing and Baptist once left home before being drawn to Anglicanism 7years ago.

Hi tiggles welcome.

I am clearing out my parents house (they are dramatically downsizing and are hoarders). There are parish magazines in various corners dating back decades - along with millions of other crap - beware those who write those things - your words are immortal!

Hehe Edd. I occasionally find old church newsletters from special dates lurking around in dusty corners!

Hi Tiggles! ☺️

Niminy, you have a service caravan? Cool!