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Peer Groups Help Prepare for Worship

October 12, 2016
Claire McWilliams of Loop Ministries (center) with members of her peer group

Claire McWilliams of Loop Ministries (center) with members of her peer group

Worship Ministries

The call came to Kayla Jory on a Friday night, informing her that a well-loved member of Covenant Christian Reformed Church in Winnipeg, Man., had died suddenly at the age of 54.

As worship coordinator of the congregation, Jory says she knew right away that she needed to reconfigure the Sunday service, changing the Call to Worship and adding prayers of lament and some different songs.

“A year ago, I wouldn’t have been sure how to react,” said Jory. “But that Sunday I was able to lead worship that was meaningful and appropriate and could help the congregation deal with the loss.”

Jory credits her participation in a new Worship Planning Peer Group initiative, organized by the CRC’s Worship Ministries, with enabling her to respond creatively and quickly to adjust the worship planning for the Sunday service.

As part of the small peer group, she and others had read and discussed Stilling the Storm: Worship and Congregational Leadership in Difficult Times, a book by Kathleen Smith that addresses ways in which worship can help a congregation going through difficult times.

“Before reading the book and meeting in the peer group, I never thought of worship being so flexible and how you can respond when something comes up as it did for us,” said Jory.

Jory’s peer group, which had three people, was one of several that met across the CRC in the U.S. and Canada and in the Ukraine in 2015. This year, 10 peer groups are meeting, and four others are forming, to discuss ways to develop worship services that reflect the varying needs of congregations.

“Some churches that convened a group mainly with their own worship volunteers/leaders last year reported having good conversations and learning that helped them plan worship, discuss worship together, and ask questions that they hadn't been asking,” said Diane Dykgraaf, who is coordinating the initiative for Worship Ministries.

“Groups that formed with various worship leaders from different CRC churches in their communities formed new friendships and bonds and enjoyed a place of sharing ideas,” she said.

“One of the benefits all the groups felt was the level of support and pastoral care that was extended to each other.”

Groups meet in person or via Internet to support each other and study an aspect of worship guided by suggested books. They meet over a period of 10 months.

Two books are being provided by Worship Ministries for study this year. One is Accessible Gospel, Inclusive Worship, by Barbara J. Newman. This book helps the reader think about designing worship in which all people, including those with disabilities, can connect with the gospel message.

The other book is The Next Worship: Glorifying God in a Diverse World, by Sandra Maria Van Opstal. This book explores approaches, forms, and styles of multicultural worship.

Claire McWilliams, worship planner at Loop CRC in Chicago, led a peer group last year and is leading another one this year. She has found the groups to be very valuable, she said.

“They promote learning and growth as churches within the Christian Reformed Church. As a denomination, we have a lot of growing to do in ensuring our worship is hospitable and accessible to all people,” she said.

Rachel Bouwkamp, worship planner at Lee Street CRC in Wyoming, Mich., was part of a small peer group last year and is leading a group this year that involves five people from three churches.

“This peer-group effort is a good thing because learning about God and his world should never end,” she said. “Getting involved is a healthy opportunity to evaluate/discern one's own context, to see how other communities worship.”

Joe Hamilton, pastor of First CRC in Thunder Bay, Ont., led a peer group last year that initially involved two new leaders in his church. But then he invited members of two other churches to take part.

While reading Stilling the Storm by Smith, they went far beyond how best to organize Sunday worship. Meeting in the peer group gave them a chance to get to know one another and to discuss a wide range of issues related to healthy leadership in the church, said Hamilton.

Stilling the Storm is a vital resource to any and every congregation, so it would be impossible to have a peer learning group on it and not learn from or apply it,” he said.

As they talked, they realized there is conflict, of one kind or another, in nearly every church.

“Either we’re moving into conflict or coming out of it. Either we’re entering into it out of healthy growth or unhealthy immaturity,” he said. “But no matter how we come about the conflict, every leader needs to learn to be a nonanxious leader in the midst of the storm around them.”

Hamilton is leading another peer group this year. Using the book Accessible Gospel, they will focus on faith formation and worship and seek to find ways to care for one another as leaders, said Hamilton, “so that they are fit and able to care for others.”

For more information on the peer group, email: [email protected].