Date: Sunday 7th May

Locations: Bracknell and Watford

Special occasion: none

Speakers

CJ spoke with passion on the story of Gideon in Judges. Obi gave us a thoughtful communion talk in Bracknell, with a feature being his personal openness. Very endearing. My sermon featured a few minutes of small-group discussion on the question of why Jesus wept.

Today’s lesson: personal openness helps attention and absorption of the points.

Music

Danny’s song selection in Watford tied in well with the passage for the sermon (Lk 19.28-48), with mountains and Jerusalem featuring as themes. It’s always helpful when we can find a good connection between what we hear taught and what we sing about. The children joined in with actions for, “I’m going to view that holy city” (as did most of the adults!), aided in large part by Dan’s enthusiasm. Involving the children helped raise the joy-level in the room. We sang two a cappella songs in Bracknell – the richness of the harmonies and the sense of everyone singing together was a very unifying experience.

Today’s lessons: the right person leading the song makes a difference when it comes to children. 

Connection

The connection in both places was positive today. The rooms were more full than the previous well. Harnessing the children’s energy helped in Watford.

Today’s lesson: involve children at the start

Other Matters

  • Gifts were handed out to several of the children in Watford at the start of the service. Finding ways to help the children see this as ‘their’ church takes creativity, but is well worth it.

Today’s lesson: inspire people to be creative in involving groups in the church services. 

Last week I said we would prioritise:

  1. Ending songs well – we planned this and it worked better in Watford and Bracknell
  2. Children’s involvement – honouring the younger children in Watford was very special, as was Danny’s ‘performance’ of “I’m going to view that holy city”.
  3. Do one song at an unexpected tempo – not something that worked for any of the songs this week

This week I’ll prioritise:

  1. Put a children’s song in the first part of the service
  2. Teach a cappella harmony songs to the singers

Let me know your ideas. You can leave a message here, or send me an email: mccx@mac.com.

God bless,

Malcolm