I was going to call this blog Confessions of a Recovering Liturgist, but chickened out, as it needs explanation. I’ve spent quite a lot of time over the last decade or so writing liturgy (on the Liturgical Commission) and enacting it in a very specialised context. Now I’m to be found in a parish with five buildings and a Fresh Expression, trying to make sure that our worship and our mission and ministry match up, and doing the day job in a situation much more recognisable to the majority of Christians.
So…I’ll try to record what we do, and whether it works, and what I think the principles are and should be. I’d be grateful for your comments and help. We need each other to get it right.
October 28, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Refreshing, all this, mate – keep it up!
I love the phrase (which I assume is yours, but which sums up much of what I think is one of our major issues) “trying to make sure that our worship, mission and ministry match up”.
Most church situations have one of those three crucial elements trying to ‘catch up’ with the other two. That’s if there’s not two trying to ‘catch up’ with the one that they find ‘easiest’.
I find myself in a situation where ‘worship’ is very much and almost unashamedly the ‘favourite son’, and mission and ministry are pretty poor ‘also rans’ really. And maybe that’s why it makes me so frustrated.
So thanks for the reminder; we here in Bradford are still discussing the pieces in the press last weekend, especially the one in the Mail. Maybe we wouldn’t look quite so bad next to worshippers of other faiths if we’d managed to hold our worship, mission and ministry in a more healthy balance.
I guess that round of golf might now have to wait until next year?
Regards,
Paul