Worship Weblog

Edmonton Book Group – Third Meeting

Posted by cicw

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Book Groups

We invited 34 book groups across the U.S. and Canada to meet and discuss The Church of All Ages and its implications for their worship, and to share their notes here.
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Where Do We Go From Here?

In our last gathering, we discussed the final three chapters of the book, focusing on ideas that we might want to use in our own churches. Our group was considerably smaller this time, but the few who gathered had a good discussion.

We were thankful for Stan Mast’s chapter because it gave us some insights into one church’s experience. We were surprised by their findings about what youth want in worship; we expected the idea that they would want passion, but were surprised that they expressed such an interest in the preaching over the music. What we spent the most time discussing from this chapter is the idea that parents should make their teens participate in church and the youth programs. Darlene shared that she has seen kids be turned off from church when it’s something they are forced to do. Tracy shared her own experience of having been forced to go to church in high school and then not going anywhere for the first two years of college because she could finally decide for herself. We all agreed that we don’t think forcing teens to go to church or to be involved is the way to ensure intergenerational worship. Parents have a huge rule to play in modeling worship and talking to their kids about worship, but forcing teenagers to participate might result in the opposite outcome of what we would hope.

When we discussed ideas we might hope to put into action, Julianne was drawn to the idea of an intergenerational team to plan worship each week. Darlene commented that she didn’t know how realistic it is to expect a group of volunteers to meet each week to plan a service. This led to a conversation about what the logistics might be to gather such a group. Someone suggested that a few teams might be ideal so that they could have some breathing time between the services they plan. We also began to recognize how differently small churches and large churches function. A large church has more resources available for worship, although it might be easy for the staff to do most of the planning without involving others. In a small church, more people might be involved, but they might not have the same level of resources as a large church.

As we concluded our time together, Julianne asked if there was anything that we wished the book would have addressed that it didn’t. Tracy said she wished she could have heard ideas people tried that didn’t work because when a church begins instituting change and things aren’t going well, it can feel like you are alone.

Tracy also asked why this topic was chosen. We discussed whether or not intergenerational worship is an important issue for churches. In the end, we agreed that it is, especially as we look at churches that are more and more segregated.

Tags: bgedmonton, Book Groups 2009, intergenerational