Engaging Worship
Southampton Methodist District All Age Worship Road Show
One kind of service that I always enjoy leading is All Age Worship (AAW) - where people of all ages are present throughout the whole service. So when I was asked to be part of a District initiative to encourage creativity in AAW, I was pleased to accept.
The AAW Road Show is being led by a small group of lay and ordained folk, headed up by my friend, Rev. Andy Lowe, in the East of the District and by myself in the West. The idea is that a couple of us come along, by invitation, to a Circuit to lead an afternoon or evening session. The focus of the Road Show is to share ideas. This involves some practical demonstrations of different approaches and plenty of opportunity for sharing together. Primarily the Road Show is for ministers and local preachers but is open to EVERYONE who is keen to see the development of AAW in our churches.
The aim is to encourage, resource and inspire. We are certainly not experts come to show how it's done - rather we are just people who believe in AAW and do it. Hopefully people will come away with at least a few new ideas that they can take, adapt and use. It's all about sharing the stuff we've all done and getting the creative juices going!
In most cases we've also led an act of worship (such as the evening service) following the Road Show and involving as many folk as want to take part and putting into practice some of the ideas and principles we've been looking at earlier in the day.
We've already taken the Road Show to Poole, Bournemouth, the Isle of Wight, Basingstoke, Portsmouth and Reading. The feedback has been very positive and the different Road Shows have been a great encouragement to us as well as to the people who came along. Future venues include Portland (October 6th) and Yeovil (February 2nd 2003).
If you would like more info or to book the AAW Road Show to come to your Church or Circuit then please contact me at the usual email address.
We would be very happy to talk to you about it.