The Anglican Church in Tasmania                                                             Search
	a healthy church...transformingLIFE
	Home      About      Contact us      News      Issues      Parishes      Prayer      Calendar      Youth      Resources

				April 2007
		The Dean speaks Inspiring worship - is Easter different? At the Cathedral we have by our very nature, an outward focus to the City, to the Diocese and its parishes and to the tourists of our town. But is it a mission focus? Dean and Chapter are exploring a strategic plan for gospel growth. By gospel growth this Dean means not just growth in numbers but existing Cathedral members' growing as disciples and in maturity in Christ - as the Bishop's A Healthy Church Transforming Life envisages. It also means reaching out to those who over recent years have either given up on being part of an Anglican community of faith or have never known Christ personally by faith in their lives. ('Jesus is Lord'.) How do we go about prayerfully planning where we should put our limited human resources for growth? Yes! We have duties under the Cathedral Ordinance. But a very helpful assessment tool is 'Natural Church Development' designed by Christian Schwarz. Schwarz and his international resource group have assessed tens of thousands of churches from every continent: small churches and mega-churches; city, suburban and rural community churches. He has isolated eight essential qualities for the healthy church. If your church has each one of these qualities assessed at a 65% pass rate on the NCD assessment tool your church will grow. One of the most important qualities is 'inspiring worship.' Our Cathedral Choral tradition will be quite different from the practice in Deloraine or Ulverstone or Snug. But we can all get our worship service right for our faith community. In Sydney and Melbourne there has been a huge shift to what are called 'informal services.' Unless you have many, many hours to write liturgies and practise, do not head in this direction. Shelagh Shaw and I, both liturgists, spent in excess of 100 hours writing the contemporary service for the 'Blessing of the Bonnets'. (This service will be on our website together with our Easter services shortly). Remember that guest services such as Easter, Christmas and family services and baptisms should be family focused. I do not agree theologically with the so called 'seekers service' which are purposefully designed for the unchurched. Worship is for believers, but as Anglicans we are open to having the seeker, even the agnostic among us. Church is for the people of God but note 1 Corinthians 14:25. At Easter we long for God's people to be built up in faith as we focus on the centrality of the cross and the hope and certainty of the resurrection. Easter Day is to celebrate 'Christ is risen'. It is also a gospel opportunity. How does the Cathedral prepare for this, the holiest season of the Christian year? We clergy pray for clarity of purpose and for our people to be 'gospel-focused'. We encourage our people to pray for the family and friends they will invite to church this Easter. We prepare a quality invitation. (again see our web) We letterbox drop our very small parish and advertise in the paper. We prepare our services well. The preacher is asked to preach plainly and not too long, with a faith invitation of hope. The hymns are uplifting with tunes known to the unchurched. We use dramatic Bible readings. In a parish church, if I had an accomplished musician, singer(s) or drama group, I would invite them to prepare a five-minute worship segment. You could arrange for a visiting artist at cost. Above all we inspire the people of God to look inwardly in Christ, expressing our devotion to him and outwardly to take Christ to a world, which without him is lost for eternity. Lindsay Dean John 3:16 The Revd Dr Lindsay Stoddart is Dean of St David's Cathedral, Hobart. Phone 6234 4900 or email.