A year in the life of St. Mary Magdalen, Sheet

Young Families Service Planning Group:
Angela Gilmour

This Planning Group meets approximately every month to plan the Young Families Service held on the third Sunday of each month. The main aim of each meeting is to share ideas, plan sketches, choose music and prayers and identify participants for each service. Angela and Nigel, with support from Rob and the rest of the team, then take turns to head up and lead the services.

During the last year we have continued to base services on the Lectionary wherever possible and used appropriate readings, drama, mime and music that will make the service both meaningful and accessible for the younger congregation. A Puppet led service and subsequent workshop led by Revd. Andrew Fordyce from Liphook was equally exciting for both children and adult!

Although popular with a wide age group the committee is constantly aware that the YFS target congregation is the under 10s. With this in mind the team is planning, in the near future, a critical appraisal of its successes and ‘failures’ in an attempt to see whether these targets are being met! Watch out for any developments that may arise as a result of this.

We attempt to involve families in the service, especially with prayers and readings, and have the excellent Music group (led by Sue Condrup) to support our worship. We continue to look out for people willing to be involved in services so if you have a burning desire to be involved please speak to one of the team:
Sarah Cairns, Sue Condrup, Rob Dewing, Jean Dowdeswell, Angela Gilmour, Lynne Hellewell, Jackie Ransom, Nigel Williams, Joan Wearn.

Family Service Planning Group:
Mike Knee

The main services on the first Sunday of each month, together with some services on special occasions such as Christmas Eve, are led in rotation by Gary Stanley, Lesley Leon and me. Each of us has a team which plans the services and does the necessary chivvying of participants and preparation of materials for what are often innovative, experimental and thought-provoking patterns of worship. The aim is to meet and challenge people of all ages and situations in an inclusive way, while maintaining reverence in worship and high standards in music and teaching. We hope and pray that this is being achieved and that we are helping to point people to Christ. This year, many of the services have been enhanced by music led by a worship band of guitars, bass, drums, other instruments and singers under the inspiring leadership of Jonathan Thompson. One service was entirely planned and led by the youth group and this was particularly moving and memorable - I hope there will be more.

Over the past year, some members of the Family Service teams have moved on to other responsibilities, often after many years, so we are looking for more enthusiastic people to come in and have fun planning interesting services. The burden is not great, maybe three or four services a year, plus a very small overhead of one or two meetings of the whole group each year to discern a direction for the Family Services in general. And you don't have to get up and do anything in public if you don't want to! The reward is the joy of making a solid contribution to sharing the Good News and lifting the worship of our church family.