Allsorts

April 8, 2021

Notes and reflections from Spring Harvest 2021 : UNRIVALLED

Last summer I was intruiged by the way one church had radically changed aspects of their worship, adjusting what they do and how they do it in order to help as many people as possible. This week I saw the link between that church and the way Spring Harvest’s program caters for all sorts of people. I’ll come back to that church in a moment but, first, here’s what it looks like within the Spring Harvest program…

Spring Harvest for ‘Allsorts’

It’s always been great to see a breadth of program provision. Some of that provision is obvious (eg: age-related). But there’s much more variety than mere ages…

• Allsorts of abilities. There’s a disabilities consultant in the planning process, and there’s a lot of provision. I spent one Spring Harvest helping the audio-visual team troubleshoot problems with the hearing loop, and they went out of their way to deal with it. There’s program provision for people with learning difficulties, live subtitling and BSL signing, dedicated wheelchair accessibility. There’s probably much more that could be done. But there’s intentional action to make this work for all abilities.

• Allsorts of faith-stages. Sessions geared for people who are ‘just looking’ into the Christian faith. Loads of focus on growing in whole-life discipleship. And often seminars and sessions especially for thos involved in church leadership.

• Allsorts of ages. Preschool, 5-8s, 8-11s, 11-14s, 14-18s …and sometimes seminars for latter stages of life, as well as something for all those of us who are neither children nor retired! In truth, it’s the work with children that has especially impressed me with its quality and creativity, probably because I’ve seen how that has helped my own children and grandchildren. But we first went for our own benefit, and have continued going because it has continued to benefit us at different stages of life.

• Allsorts of learning styles. I’ve loved the provision of hands-on, interactive sessions for those who learn best by participating; in-depth studies and discussions for those who like to get their head around ideas; or rubber-hits-the-road sessions for people who need to see how and why this teaching matters in real-world settings. Books and study resources; audio and video recordings to playback repeatedly; interviews and panel conversations; arts and crafts; testimony… and so on. Fundamentally it’s a recognition that different people benefit from different approaches, and what helps one person may not be what helps another.

• Allsorts of music. The exuberance of large-crowd, high-energy celebration and up-to-date worship songs. The quieter, stripped-back acoustics and more reflective approach. The power of ancient hymns and soaring anthems. The stillness of holy prayer space with gentle music in the background. Songs that kids can connect with …or ones that the youth find culturally relevant. All this variety means that most people can find a context for worship which is especially helpful for them as they seek to draw near to the Lord.

• Allsorts together. It’s not just the children who enjoy the all-age worship (after all, if it was only geared for children then it wouldn’t actually be all-age!) The creativity of drama, quizzes, dance, art, prayer, catchphrases all wrapped around a key piece of teaching demonstrates that it is possible for the whole ‘family’ to enjoy a ‘mealtime’ together. Personally we’ve found the Big Start has been a genuinely enjoyable theme-setting event for each day …even though we tend to be there without any children of our own!

Church for ‘Allsorts’

Last summer a blog article by Tim Murray, leader of Amblecote Christian Centre, near Stourbridge, had hooked into my mind, making me ponder its implications for the church whom I serve in Plymstock.

But the pandemic forced ‘normal’ to stop. This is not true in every way, obviously, but substantial parts of our lives simply have not been able to continue as they were. We have become convinced that this is as huge gift to the church – rather than enduring this season and ‘getting back to normal’, there is an opportunity to move forward to something different. We can stop ‘normal’ and think critically, creatively and prayerfully about what we should rebuild.

He then described the fresh approach they are taking in fulfilling their teaching responsibilities. Obviously that’s not the whole of church life (he acknowledged that!), but it’s an important part. And, fundamentally, it recognizes that the reality of differing learning styles and aims to provide a bigger variety so that more people can benefit more. One big shift of focus was:

We will teach for a whole month on one particular topic/text/theme, in order to give us proper time to digest and apply the teaching.

And across the month they are then providing teaching through a variety of approaches.

• One or two long sermons or lectures (yes, he used that word!)
• Several vlogs, blogs or other written pieces (‘vlogs’ = video blogs)
• Meetings where people can have a conversation about the teaching, where we can pursue dialogue and the teaching can become more personalised

By offering a variety of different communication styles he hopes that:

We can engage people in different ways, offer more transformative teaching and encourage our congregation to change the way we think about the gift of teaching in the church – that this should be operating in the day-to-day of our community life, rather than within a Sunday slot. In some ways we hope this models the more rabbinic approach of Jesus, mixing monologue with dialogue, speaking with demonstration, personal vulnerability and availability with directional instruction.

And so…

And so my own head has been spinning with ideas of a mixed approach to themes, spread across a whole month, with devotional videos, in-depth teaching, discussions, opportunities for personal responses to the preached message, occasions for prophetic preaching, times of worshipful encounter, testimony, interview.

Plus, of course, recognising that this is merely looking at the teaching component of growing disciples, and there’s a host of other areas to reflect on too!

The blog article can be found via this link…