Our church is currently in search of a pastor. After reading my friend's flute's blog on this subject, I decided I should blog over here about it. (Thanks for the inspiration Flute!)
We had small groups discussing our feelings about Pastor Bob's departure. Some were like my feelings and others were happy for the change.
As Flute said on her blog, she has been enjoying Pastor Bob's sermons lately. Ditto for me. They've been very good! You know some Pastors (not here lately) have just rambled on and my thoughts go elsewhere. I like the way that worship ties together. For instance, today, our children's message, presented by Leslie and Joel G., talked to the kids about Joseph and fleeing from wrong choices.
Let me just insert here that Leslie and Joel G., have done a marvelous job in this ministry. I hope that they continue to be the ones doing the children's message. This is something that has been missing in worship for a long time. So this is a huge thank you, way to go, keep up the great work, out to them!!
Then Pastor Bob presented the sermon followed by a skit. I absolutely love the use of drama in worship. Now I know a few people who don't care for it at all. But I like it that it is used and not often enough!
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Back to the meeting, we discussed what type of person we would like to lead our church. Again I was surprised how everyone was lining up with our small group. We did have a discussion about more praise songs/teams vs. traditional music.
My thoughts are thaat I think we should have a different way to lead praise music and yet still use traditional music. It should be a blended service. Now we just have very traditional old hymns for 3 weeks out of the month and 1 week of praise songs. When praise team was first started here we were rarely used at all. It was more like every 6-10 weeks. At least praise team is utilized more but not to the extent where I would like to see it. Today we had 2 singers and 2 instrumentalists. Traditional hymns still could be used but used in a more progressive style and blended into the contemporary music time.
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Another concern in our church is the youth. We have a pretty good youth group program on Wednesday night. Yet, when it comes to Sunday services we have only one in MYF that shows up consistently and four in the JYF. What must we do in order to attract the families of these youth to come to Sunday services as well?
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Yes....it will be interesting and exciting to see who the search committee will find for us to lead our church.
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Finding a comfortable blend in worship style has been something that the Music/Worship committee has been working on all the years that I served on it. It's very difficult to please everyone, and believe me we hear about it! We want to attract the younger set, but also respect the wishes and comfort level of the older groups. Using the praise team twice a month is an intentional compromise and so far it's been the best solution. I'm a traditional hymn girl myself, but I do also enjoy the occasional praise songs. But...like I said, we won't be able to please everyone every time, and that's just the way it's going to have to be with the diversity we have in our congregation. Unless we can grow membership enough to have two services, which with our small town isn't all that likely.
I also have concerns about those members/attenders that are rarely there. That's always bothered me, but again it's going to be something that we always battle. In some ways, I believe that we need to do things to get people energized and willing to come to church every Sunday. But on the other hand, I think some of those people won't come no matter what we do. It's all about priorities, and different families have different priorities. What annoys me is the families who never show up, unless they're having some sort of crisis and want prayer. I'm happy to pray for them, of course, but it would be nice if they were here praying for the rest of us, too.
And now I've probably said too much...
I really like the search committee membership - I think they did an excellent job of selecting a diverse group and a representation of the congregation.
I found it interesting once a long time ago a pastor pointed out to our congregation that people usually don't come unless they are invited. find out if anyone has actually invited the parents of these kids. If they know they are welcome, they just might come. Church is intimidating for many people.
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