In our Sunday services, where do we put the notices?

The notices at my church yesterday morning seemed more comprehensive than usual. This reminded me of something I wrote back in October 2013 for a presentation and so I thought it should be reproduced it here.

My presentation addresses something of great concern to the Church of England, and of each individual parish church within it; a matter of such importance that we ignore it at our peril; a topic that has the potential to change the shape of worship and mission as we know it:

In our Sunday services, where do we put the notices?

In its wisdom, the Church of England has given guidance on this issue. Common Worship permits notices to be published before the Gathering, before the Prayers of Intercession, or before the Dismissal. But each of these opportunities presents potential pitfalls. Latecomers will miss the notices if they are read out at the Gathering. Notices given before the Prayers of Intercession may disturb the worshipful atmosphere. And delivering the notices just before the Dismissal is arguably not the best time, because the congregation is waiting to be sent out to love and serve the Lord after a good cup of coffee and a chocolate biscuit. So I ask again: In our Sunday services, where do we put the notices?

Of course, we might not consider the notices to be essential to our services, especially where there’s a printed notice sheet made available for each worshipper. But if the notices were delivered in such a way that they didn’t feel like randomly connected snippets of information, but a contribution to the worship made alive by the Holy Spirit, then we might think anew about what’s being said in the notices, and how they, too, can inspire and feed the worshipping community. And this in turn can help the service planners ascertain the best location for the notices.

As you might expect, I’m hoping to excavate a deeper level of meaning under what I’ve been saying about the notices. I’ve become very interested in the way our services are put together. In many respects, the Church of England is fortunate that guidance on crafting services is provided throughout Common Worship; but it seems to me that while attention is given to following this guidance, less attention is paid to consideration of what a particular service is trying to do. Or, to put it another way: How are our services forming us? And who are our services forming us to be?

These two questions suggest that a flexible approach to our liturgical structures is what’s needed. Sometimes it may be more appropriate to make use of A Service of the Word than follow Holy Communion Order One. Sometimes it may mean we have a dramatization of a Scripture passage instead of a simple reading from the lectern. And sometimes, yes—sometimes it may mean the notices come at the beginning of the service one week, but at the end the following week. But these are decisions to be made once the formational aspect of the service has been decided.

But why is this important? I don’t believe that our services, and perhaps especially our Sunday services, are optional extras, or mere ritual. I do believe that through them, and through us, the Holy Spirit can and does achieve wonderful things. Our services are occasions, and perhaps the only occasions, when the people of God actively make time in their lives to seek God, to hear God, to receive from God. Modern pressures mean that participation in a service of worship is often a welcome break from the chaos of everyday life, and an opportunity to receive strength from God. And if only for these reasons, I say it’s extremely important that our services are crafted with formation in mind.

I began my presentation by asking where in our services we should put the notices. But underlying this opening gambit are two deeper questions that I’d like for us to consider in our group discussion: How are our services forming us? And who are our services forming us to be?

https://derekthecleric.wordpress.com/2013/08/