‘A blessing to the Church’

Thomas Baldwin learns more about congregations which are taking the initiative in leading worship.

IT’S no secret that finding somebody qualified to fill the pulpit every Sunday is an ongoing problem for many congregations in the Church of Scotland.

The hunt for a retired minister, OLM (Ordained Local Minister), deacon or reader to lead worship will be a regular feature of life for session clerks whose church is in vacancy, or if their minister is off or ill.

In response, an increasing number of churches throughout the country are finding the answer within their own ranks, as members of the congregation step forward to fill the gap. With both formal and informal training, and the ready availability of resources on the internet, some are even finding that their churches are thriving with lay people leading worship.

One of those is Rhu and Shandon church, which serves a parish of two villages on the eastern shore of Gare Loch, in the new Presbytery of Clyde.

Andrew Nisbet is the session clerk, and one of the worship team. “It started in 2021,” he says, “When our then minister said that there would be a worship leader course being run by Christine Murdoch, the minister at the Lochside linkage just across the water from us. So six of us went, over two afternoons, and that gave us information on how to structure a service, how to write some prayers, the importance of linking music to the theme and so forth.”

“ With both formal and informal training, and the ready availability of resources on the internet, some are even finding that their churches are thriving with lay people leading worship.

Shortly afterwards, Rhu and Shandon’s minister demitted office, and Andrew was left trying to find pulpit supply each week, supplemented by members of the congregation writing and delivering the prayers. That continued until one Saturday, when the person who was due to take the service the next day tested positive for Covid-19. With no replacement available at such short notice, Andrew was forced to step into the breach.

“She very kindly gave me her sermon, and we managed to cobble together the rest of the bits and pieces of the service,” he says. “That seemed to go down quite well and people were quite complimentary about it.

“And then a few weeks later, the minister who was meant to be taking the service was taken into hospital. And I was running around trying to see if we could get anyone else to do it, but by then all the pulpit supply ministers were taken, and one of them said ‘do it yourself’.

“That was Palm Sunday. And again, it went quite well. To be honest, I quite enjoyed it.”

Following that, the church had a meeting of the six people who had taken the training. Encouraged by their interim moderator, the Rev Roddy Hamilton of New Kirkpatrick Church, Bearsden, they decided that they would lead worship in future, initially in pairs. Another two people have since taken the training, and they use resources including the Church of Scotland’s Weekly Worship and Spill the Beans (produced by a team of Kirk ministers) as well as more general websites such as Desperate Preacher.

“The buy-in from the congregation has been really quite encouraging,” says Andrew. “We are not theologians, and we speak in our own voices and we are not teaching. It’s more discussion – a favourite word of mine is ‘perhaps’. And we always try to bring it back to our own church, our own community and our own mission.

“One lady said ‘I like your services. I don’t come to church to be told things, I come for some quiet time and to reflect’.”

The church has even seen an increase in attendance, from around 35 to more than 50 people at the last communion, and Andrew says that ‘the spirit is hugely improved’.

Under the Presbytery Mission Plan they are expecting to be allowed to call a part-time minister, so the demands on the worship group may fall. But whatever the future holds they have proved that a church can not only survive but prosper, at least in the short term, without a minister leading worship.

“I think I speak for everybody that we have learned an awful lot in the past two years,” concludes Andrew. “As individuals we have gained a lot out of it, and I like to think the congregation have got something out of it as well.”

The need to equip the eldership and lay members for a future with fewer ministers has been recognised by the education providers who train those ministers, several of which now offer short courses for lay people.

One of them is New College at the University of Edinburgh, which includes in its suite of short courses one on leading worship for elders. The course, consisting of a mixture of evening sessions (now online) and two Saturday afternoons held mostly in-person at the college, includes an overview of worship in the reformed tradition as well as sessions on crafting prayers and reflections and choosing music.

The course is run by Professor Alison Jack, Principal of New College, and her colleague (and immediate predecessor as principal), Professor Susan Hardman Moore. In addition to their academic careers, both are ordained ministers in the Church of Scotland.

Alison says: “I think it was Susan’s suggestion originally. We wanted to resource the Church better and we felt we had an interest in promoting worship in the tradition of the Church of Scotland.

“Of the people who came to our last course, several of them were in a situation of vacancy and really needed some support and encouragement to play their part in the life of the Church of Scotland. While they might have been doing it informally, they didn’t feel confident to lead worship in a sustained way, and were looking for more background skills, and we are also able to share with them resources we were aware of that would help.”

Alison emphasises that such training does not replace the need for fully-trained, full-time Ministers of Word and Sacrament. “What this is is training people in the local context to serve the church in leading worship on an occasional basis. It’s not taking on the deep, constant nurturing of a congregation in worship over a period of time. It supports the work of a minister, it takes a bit of pressure off people in full time ministry if they know that on the odd Sunday there is someone else in the congregation they know is responsible and trained.

“But no-one is suggesting, and I don’t think congregations should be expected to permanently have worship led by people who haven’t gone through that deep, long, immersive training. No-one can replace that with six evening sessions.”

She does, though, say they have been ‘blown away’ by the response of the people who have taken the courses. “People have come from miles away to be together in the afternoon sessions, and we are so buoyed up by their enthusiasm.

“I was at Perth Presbytery (recently) and a woman who took one of the courses came up and gave me a hug, and said it changed her perspective on worship and what it meant to be the people of God worshipping God.

“We think it’s a real honour to do this work, and I hope it’s seen as a blessing to the congregation and a blessing to the Church.”