MINISTRY
POSITION
DESCRIPTION
Guidelines for (a) Reading the Bible, (b) Leading in prayer, (c) Welcoming, (d) Morning tea/supper, (e) Slides
Our mission is to be a Biblically vital Christian community where believers as well as strangers to the love of Jesus grow more and more into fully devoted children of God. The warmth and excellence with which we each contribute to the spiritual and community reality of the services is very important in this, both in welcoming newcomers and in building up members.
The overall goal of these ministries is to serve those who attend the Sunday services. This is done both by doing these different elements well, and also by involving as many people in the rosters for these tasks as volunteer.
a) Reading the Bible
Reading the Bible in church is a wonderful privilege. It is a crucial part of our meeting together. Hearing God’s word is the heart of our Sunday service; so reading the Bible should be taken seriously, and done with joy.
The main Bible reading will be found on the rosters which you are sent. The second Bible reading will be emailed to you. If there is ever any problem with the readings, e.g., they don’t seem to make sense, then please check them with the staff.
Clear and careful reading helps people greatly to understand and respond to the word of God. Therefore, it is important to practice the readings beforehand. Try to read slowly, but not too slowly. Try to pay attention to the passages: what kind of passages are they? Is there any part of them that needs to be emphasized? Also, there is no need to try to make eye-contact with the congregation when reading. They will either be simply listening, or reading themselves.
Always read from the NRSV, as this is the version in the church building. If you don’t have a copy of this at home, you can look it up on the internet, or ask for it to be emailed to you.
Normally, the service leader will lead in prayer before the readings. You come to the lecturn after that. The readings should be introduced in the following way:
“The first reading is on page number of the Bibles in the pews. Book name chapter number, verse number.”
Always allow enough time for people to find the reading before beginning. You can tell how long this is by listening to when most of the pages stop rustling.
After finishing each reading, say “This is the word of the Lord.” To which the congregation responds, “Thanks be to God.”
All this is quite straightforward, but worth paying attention to; because we want to help people both take God’s word seriously, and understand it easily.
b) Leading in prayer
Leading in prayer in church is a wonderful privilege. Prayer is a central part of our worship together on a Sunday. The following is a guide for people leading in prayer at St John’s services. It is hoped that this will be an encouragement to pray, and to lead the congregation well in prayer.
The scriptures urge us to pray when we meet together. Paul urges Timothy that “supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made” as part of how we are to behave in the household of God (1 Tim 2.1, 3.15), and calls the Thessalonian church to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). In particular, the scriptures call us to pray for “all people”, for “kings and all who are in authority” (1 Tim. 2:1-2); and for the sick (James 5:13-18). We are also encouraged to pray both for the wider church and for our own community. The shape and content of prayers is substantially up to the person leading in prayers (for communion prayers, see below). Normally, it is good for prayers to be roughly shaped by the categories mentioned above, although it is not necessary to always pray for all these categories. It is important, however, that the prayers every week reflect our concern for the wider world. Our prayer together is an expression of our mission and mind. Prayers which are only concerned with “internal” matters mean a lost opportunity to lead the congregation in love for others, and to show outsiders that the church is an open and outward looking community.
It is not generally necessary for prayers to directly respond to the sermon. Most weeks, the service leader will pray a “response prayer” at some stage after the sermon, so that the person leading in prayer can concentrate on the regular prayers.
Our prayers each week will also include the Lord’s Prayer. We do this every week because of Jesus’ teaching: “When you pray, say…” (Luke 11:2; cf. Matt. 6:9-13). When the service includes the Lord’s Supper, the person praying should conclude by leading the congregation in saying the Lord’s Prayer (see below). In other weeks the service leader will lead the congregation in the Lord’s Prayer.
Typically, our prayer together forms part of our response to hearing God’s word in the Bible readings and sermon. It is important that the form and style of the prayer serve and reflect the corporate nature of the prayer. The person praying is leading the whole congregation in prayer, so prayers should always be in the form of “we pray”, and not “I pray”. It is also appropriate that prayers be more prepared than spontaneous. It is a mistake to think that preparation restricts “authenticity”. In fact, preparation presents an opportunity for careful and loving service of the congregation.
In form, public prayers are different from private prayers, in that we are asking everyone to say the ‘Amen’ to them. The prayer book prayers for each Sunday (called ‘Collects’) are good examples of well crafted public prayers, although the language is now out of date. In particular, public prayers are often helpful when they reflect the form:
• address to God (not ‘dear God’ which is a letter form; rather ‘Gracious God’ or ‘Heavenly Father’
• something about God that is relevant to the prayer (eg. ‘You rule all the nations of the world, and no corner of the earth is beyond your reach’)
• the need (eg. ‘we live in a world where rulers oppress rather than serve etc’), including appropriate specific details.
• the actual request (eg. ‘please bring justice and peace etc’)
•
the basis of the prayer (eg. ‘through Jesus Christ, who is the prince
of peace’)
The same sort of structure could also work for prayers of thanksgiving, with the appropriate changes.
Don’t feel constrained by these suggestions; rather feel free to use them creatively.
When we share in the Lord’s Supper together, which happens once per month, the prayers have a set structure. They follow the basic structure for prayers at Holy Communion in the prayer book tradition. This is not because of any unhelpful enslavement to tradition or rule, but rather because it is good to ensure that we regularly pray for these things.
Briefly, prayers should follow the following structure.
1. Prayer for the church.
This prayer includes prayer for church from its worldwide level to the local level. In the prayer book, it included prayer for church leaders, especially the Bishop and Rector of the local church.
2. Prayer for all people.
This includes prayer for the world and its troubles, and especially for those in positions of authority.
3. Prayer for the community.
This includes prayer for wider society at a local level, i.e. for the neighbourhood, local families, etc.
4. Prayer for those in need.
This includes prayer for the sick and all who are suffering.
5. Thanksgiving for the faithful departed.
This is a prayer of thanks for any Christians who have died, and that we would follow their good example of faith.
The prayers are concluded with the Lord’s prayer, which is said together. This can be introduced in a number of ways. Normally, it will be printed on the service sheet, for example:
“Accept our prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord, who taught us to pray…”
Whatever is done, it is important to make it easy for people who are not familiar to join in. It might be best to mention at the beginning of the prayers that “we’ll finish our prayers by saying the Lord’s Prayer together, which is printed at point x.”
Hopefully this will be an encouragement
to pray well and to take this task seriously. However, do not be anxious
about praying. Our Father knows what we need (Matt. 6:32) and we can
come before him with confidence because he loves us (Jn 16:26-27).
c) Welcoming
Welcoming people to church is a very important part of our ministry at St John’s. It can be a very nerve-wracking thing to come to a strange church, let alone if no-one comes and talks to you. Failure to warmly welcome can put people off in the blink of an eye. The flip-side of this, of course, is that good welcoming does wonders. If people have a good experience at the door of the church, they are probably more likely to have a good experience in it. Welcoming is a profoundly Christian thing to do because God, in Christ, has welcomed us all into his family. There is no one who does not deserve to be warmly received when they come to church; no one, in fact, who is not welcome.
If you are involved in welcoming, it is good to start with this mindset. It will be a great service to God, and others.
The important things about welcoming at St John’s are as follows:
1. It is important to arrive early. People start coming into the building at least 15 - 20 minutes beforehand, so please try to be there be then.
2. The first job is to stand at the door and hand out service sheets (sometimes these will need to be folded). These may well have something else with them; there is a notice sheet which says what needs to be handed out at this week’s service. As you give people their sheets, say hello. Make eye-contact. Give them a smile. It all sounds corny, but it makes a difference.
3. Stay on the door for at least ten minutes after the service has started. Early in the service there will be an official welcome, which Andrew Katay will do. During this, Andrew will say that we have a gift for anyone who is new, namely, the Welcome Packs. One of the welcomers need to distribute these. (The Welcome packs are the big, glossy, square folders with the hand on the front. You need to make sure you use the correct welcome packs for the morning or evening service – the difference is in the ‘Teaching program’ page, which has the different preaching programs for the different services). Andrew will call you down the front and after he has finished his spiel (that is, when he says, ‘why don’t we all take the opportunity to say hi to the people around us in church today’), you just walk up the aisle, offering them to anyone who wants them. Just walk slowly and hold them up. If new people don’t want them, that’s fine; we don’t need to put too much pressure on.
4. After this, it is good for one welcomer to stay near the back so that they can greet anyone who happens to wander in during the service.
5. The last thing the welcomers need to do is to pass around the offertory bags. This is normally done during the final song. The offertory bags are kept in the side room of the church. If you are unsure, ask one of the staff before the service starts. After the bags have been passed back through the congregation, they are taken to the front of the church and placed on the table.
d) Morning tea / supper
The time of fellowship after the service is essential for our community life. Providing morning tea/ supper for this time is a wonderful ministry. It encourages people to stay around and helps them relax. It can be quite a lot of effort to do supper, but its importance is hard to overstate. The basics of what you need to do are as follows.
1. Your job is to provide food, and the milk for the tea and coffee. What food you provide is really pretty flexible. The only real guideline is that it should be inclusive, i.e., don’t just bring a super hot chilli sauce or a large number of sardines! On the whole it’s pretty safe to stick to sweet things like cakes, scones, muffins, chocalate, biscuits, etc., and savoury things like crackers, cheese, dips, chips, etc. (Obviously you don’t need to bring all of the above). As far as milk goes, it’s probably best to bring 2 litres.
2. Working out how much to bring can take a bit of practice. You could try finding out how many were at the service the week before.
3. It is important that morning tea/ supper be good, but there’s no need to go over the top. It should not be an excessive burden to provide morning tea/ supper, so don’t stress out too much. If it is getting a bit too much, or you are worried about cost, just ask someone to help out. Feel free to ring either Andrew Errington (9799 7778), or Andrew Katay (9798 6313), about this. Please don’t worry too much about whether your morning tea/ supper will be as good as last week’s!!!
4. It is good to get to church early enough to set up morning tea/ supper beforehand, say 20 minutes early. There are a couple of tables us the back on which to arrange things. Once the service starts, it’s important to finish up with the preparations for morning tea/ supper and join in the service.
5. Tea and coffee, sugar, stirrers, etc., are stored in a cupboard near the morning tea/ supper tables. The clean cups should be on the tables, or coming with Andrew Katay. The urn lives on the morning tea/ supper table. It should be filled with water from the tap outside (which has a detachable head which is kept in the side entrance in a ceramic jar) and turned on at the beginning of the service. Otherwise, it will not get hot in time. However, don’t put it on high, otherwise it will boil for the second half of the service. Only put one urn on, or the fuse will trip!
6. After the service, the rubbish should just be put in a bin or a plastic bag. If you need to, Andrew or Andrew will be able to get rid of it. The dirty cups go to Andrew Katay’s house to get washed, as do the coffee plungers. The tables can be left as they were.
If you have any problems with any of this, please ask for help. It is a great service to the congregation to do this.
e) Slides
Operating the slide-show is a useful service to St John’s. It is very straightforward. All the slides are prepared in advance by Tom Barrett. You just need to turn up suitably in advance (10 minutes early) so that you can be ready when the service starts.
All repeated choruses are included in the slide-show, i.e. you press the forward button every time there’s a new thing.
The key to good button pressing is to move to the next slide as soon as the congregation starts singing the last word on the current slide, not waiting til they have finished singing that word!