As we continue our February theme of Healthy Churches, we look at the importance of inspiring worship. The Revd Charlotte Jackson, Vicar of St Thomas, Keresley, writes about how they bring inspiring worship to their services.
Our worship group is the quiet work of many years, making the most of the skills we have rather than lusting after something fancy that is beyond our reach. Our approach is a corporate one, giving confidence to the congregation to pick up and join in, using mics to lead not to perform, limiting instrumental sections and long introductions. The group is tucked away rather than being the focus of attention.
We aim for a mixture of songs old and new to suit all. We consider how they link to the theme and bible readings for the service and their position within it. In choosing songs we also ask:
- are they scriptural/faithful and do the words makes sense
- is the tune accessible for a congregation and in range for most people
- is the rhythm accessible or are there too many changes to the tune or irregular number of words to fit in
- does it work well in its simplest form when the professional layers are stripped away
We have a tech setup that can be operated by one person, with free and simple software with some additional features that enhance our service recordings for YouTube via a single fixed camera. We continue to adapt to those that are willing to offer their skills, learning from each other and always focussing on how we enable the whole congregation to be fully part of sung worship.
Clive Hicks, Healthy Church Development Enabler, visited St Thomas and was very impressed with the worship. He says:
“There are big churches with huge worship resources, including musicians; there are tiny churches who use recordings, or no music, for many or even all services.
When I visited St Thomas’s in January, I was ‘wowed’ by how their group were leading worship in an all-age service. Why?
A thoughtful blending of traditional and some very contemporary hymns and songs
An energetic, small, music group led by a confident keyboard player (vocals amplified with a headset microphone), with a lively bass guitarist, lyrical violinist and male vocalist
Unfussy style, where you could see the congregation were comfortable and confident, yet stretched with some ‘big songs’
All the technology - amplification, screen (words), electric instruments - worked without any hitches
It all seemed balanced to the church, tradition, history of worship developed in this corner of north-west Coventry
Among the features of a healthy church are ‘inspiring worship services’, and with this strong musical core the rest of the service flowed very well, including a ‘messy church’ activity icing star biscuits for Epiphany – nothing ostentatious, just the feeling that everyone knew why they wanted to be there for that service, and I told them at the end it was one of the “best” music groups I had encountered since returning to then Diocese in 2022.”