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Observation 5
Church Five Observation Report
24th July 2005
Once again, I am very much the insider at this church, for it was here that my parents first worshipped when they moved to the village in 1972. Some of the people in the congregation we observed remember me in the church as a baby. So it was, that though I had never met the new minister, the team was welcomed as old friends.
The church enjoys a prime location in the village, at the busy end of the High Street, opposite the shops. Its congregation, however, is small compared to the other churches in the village, numbering about 25 on the day we visited. There were no young people present.
Church Five does have a number of families with children and reportedly, a thriving Junior Church. The previous week there had been a large number of young people in attendance for a special Junior Church Anniversary service - to quote the church notices, 'the size of the congregation was tremendous'. Junior Church was now officially closed until September. I was once again reminded of the importance of looking at 'normal' Sundays for my observations. Whilst it was maybe disappointing for the people of the church to have 'no young people to show us', I suspect that our findings were more representative than they would have been if we had observed the special service the previous Sunday. Perhaps we would have had a more fruitful visit if we had observed during term time when Junior Church runs, but it didn't occur to me that none of the families would come to church if there was no Junior Church for the children to attend. Nor did I realise, at the time of booking the appointment to observe, that this would be the only church observed where there was no Junior Church/Sunday School on the day of the visit.
In the absence of any young people to observe, the team were able to relax into the worship. The congregational singing was accompanied by the organ. One song was sung as a round, the rest in unison. Communion was celebrated, but not according to the liturgy printed in the service books - none of the elements of the mass (Sanctus, Gloria, etc.) were said or sung. The minister's thirty minute sermon had me riveted from start to finish (I left feeling I had really heard the gospel that morning). He took as an example the words of the hymn, Take Time to Be Holy 1. Having learnt the hymn as a child, its sentiments had stayed in his heart all his life. There might not have been any children to observe, but there before us was a living example of why it is so important that young people are appropriately enabled to sing.
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- Stebbins, G.C.(music) & Longstaff, W.D. (words) Take Time to be Holy, no 214 in Fudge, R., Horrobin, P. & Leavers, G. (compilers) (1983) Mission Praise. London: Marshall Pickering Back to text
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