How we meet

Another format for meeting, following my post on a new format, that we sort of tried at the service of the D. Min (in progress).

A few songs...although I don't want to keep standing for 4 songs consecutively, then a morning tea break, sermon, prayer, close. Maybe there was a Bible reading there too.

I'd vary this so:

1. Call to prayer recitation: to 'dignify' the context.
2. A few songs: stand or sit as you like
3. Bible reading
4. Morning tea at tables, in groups, with a topic to spring from. The tables are important to bring people together and avoid cliqueing, pairing and isolation.
5. Sermon (15-20 mins max), still at tables.
6. Prayer: brief by a precentor, then at tables, also brief. Precentor would close with
7. Benediction. A final song might follow.

All done in 60 minutes, with an optional study for 30 to 40 minutes following the end of service after 10 minutes.

Keeping strictly to time, people would be able to easily arrive at start, at Bible reading, at morning tea, sermon or for the study: it should play out flexibly.

The compere should resist the urge to comment on everything that has just occured, and on clumsy hand-overs to the next. This particularly applies to the sermon. Sermon intro? One is not usually necessary. Speaker just stands and delivers. End of sermon? "Bill will you pray, please?" (no attempted summary of John's sermon...we don't need it. We were all there, and we don't need an amateur theologian attempting to repeat what a theologian has just been through!).