A Bit of ‘Behind the Scenes’

One of the aims, or intentions, of this blog is to demystify what happens in church to those outside it. Sometimes people have a sense that church is not for them because of some misinformation they have picked up along the way. There is a perception also that church is a building, or a thing that happens for an hour on Sunday, whereas I want to suggest that it’s something much bigger and all consuming than that.

Have you ever thought about all the things that happen behind the scenes before anyone comes to a church service on Sunday, or any other day of the week? When you come in to worship, or attend a wedding or baptism or funeral, you rarely think about who set up everything and enabled it to happen.

In this weeks blog, I wanted to give a little ‘behind the scenes’ snapshot of some things that happened in our church in the past week. I’m not putting it out there to say that our church is better than any other church, and many of the things I’m describing will have been replicated in various guises in many churches up and down this land and indeed across the world.

A wonderful member of one of our congregations died recently and arrangements were put in place for his funeral service. The family were keen to honour his wishes that a particular song would be sung at the funeral service. It involved our praise band, which normally play at our informal service in the hall. Someone from the sound team came over on Thursday to put in some additional cabling and set up microphones for Friday’s service. Someone else built the service on powerpoint to enable people to follow and sing the songs, and others live streamed the service to enable this man’s family and friends from across the world to be part of the service.

When I returned from the burial on Friday afternoon, I met someone arranging flowers and getting the church looking beautiful for Sunday’s services. As I walked home, I noticed all the bark chippings along the side of the fence that had been wheelbarrowed across and spread to tidy up the grounds. These wood chippings were mulched from some treess that fell during a recent storm, but volunteers gather each month to look after the grounds, to clear the drains and cut the grass and hedges.

On Friday morning, the day of the funeral, I met the praise band rehearsing the music they planned to sing to honour their friend and colleague.

On Sunday morning, when I went over for our early service, a volunteer warden had the gates and doors open. They had left the vessels out for Holy Communion and, after the service, they counted the collection and washed the vessels and locked things up until the next service. Different volunteer wardens opened up the church, welcomed the congregation, ensured the choir and clergy had everything they needed. The parish treasurer had distributed envelopes for our harvest collection next Sunday to assist with earthquake recovery and repair of infrastructure following some devastating earthquakes in Afghanistan in August/September. These terrible events had hardly made the news headlines as there was so much happening in terms of wars and global conflicts.

During the afternoon, I had a phone call from one of our toddler leaders who was setting out toys and activities for Monday mornings session. They had noticed a leak dripping onto the floor, so they had mopped it up and set up some buckets after the heavy rain. We got in touch with our glebe warden, the volunteer who takes a particular interest in the church property and grounds. That person phoned me with some advice from their holiday in Scotland.

When I returned to church on Sunday evening, the choir were rehearsing the music for the evening service. They stayed after the service to do some preparation for next Sunday’s harvest thanksgiving service.

As church services happen each week, there are teams of volunteers who share the faith with our children in Sunday school, and twice a month there is a team who share the faith with our youth group, and there is also a creche staffed by volunteers to facilitate parents who would like to attend the service at 11am.

Do you ever think about those who provide tea/coffee after church or coordinate events like harvest suppers? Do you think of those who work hard to manage our church finances and budgets, or who deal with all our correspondence, or lead activities like pickleball, pilates and crafting groups. What about those who volunteer to give lifts and bring people to friendship groups or Mothers’ Union? There are people who oversee the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme for our young people and lead Anchor Boys and Boys’ Brigade and Mothers’ Union.

We have many housebound people who spend a considerable amount of time praying for others and for the work of the church to introduce others to the love of God and the person of Jesus Christ. We have people who prepare prayers for services, lead enquiry groups for those who are searching for faith, deliver invitations and set up chairs and tables for a whole variety of events that take place each week.

So, the next time you make your way to a church service or organisation or event, think about the many incredible people beavering away to make them happen behind the scenes and not looking for anything in return. We are enormously indebted to those who make our church community such a special place to belong to and offer so much of their time and talents in the service of God’s church, to the local neighbourhood and further afield.

Please do come to join us for our Harvest services on Sunday. At 11am we look forward to welcoming Fergus McMorrow from Divine Healing Ministries and in the evening at 7pm we welcome the Dean of Armagh, the Very Reverend Shane Forster. The evening service will be followed by a Harvest Supper and all are welcome.

Look forward to speaking again soon.

Much love to everyone,

Jono.

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