I recently completed a diocesan Growing Gifts course to gain this rather grand title. The course is a new one encouraging lay people to develop either worship leading or preaching skills.
I particularly wanted to help us return to occasional evening services where different styles of liturgy and music could be offered to support more reflective quiet worship, like those from the Taize and Iona communities. I started this last summer taking back the second Sunday in the month and sometimes the fifth Sunday too.
The services have been well received and it is hoped that some will also continue to attend as they have to date from other churches, where they perhaps have not had these services either in recent years. The intention is that music is integral to the worship but for all to feel enabled to participate in that as well as the liturgy.
I was lucky that when I was suggesting we might go down this route the diocesan course was being started. It has been very useful to meet others considering a wide range of different worship styles in different places and also with wide-ranging life experience and church background.
If anyone else is thinking about supporting our worship in this way I would urge you to speak to Becky to see how you might fit in. The commitment is not onerous and entirely for individuals to manage as they can.
I am very grateful for the opportunity to support the evening services in this way and also feel very supported in turn by a number of people in the congregation (and my family of course) who I know have made time to be at the services to help in different ways.
By Stella Thebridge.
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