So much to do...
Not a question about whether to watch the election coverage on Twitter or listen on the radio, nor about where to start with the housework (the answer to that, of course, is ‘ANYWHERE. NOW.’), but a question about church. This Sunday I played the keyboard for 3 of the 4 songs in our morning service. This was a big achievement for me, as I failed Grade 5 piano over 20 years ago and haven’t improved much since.
Thankfully, Happy played flute to give people the tune and the Queen and lovely church member BigVoice sang, so my fumblings weren’t too exposed. Happy found it a little stressful, tho’. He was also leading the first half of the service, so he was hopping up and down from the front to grab his flute after introducing the songs.
This is a typical dilemma for us on a Sunday: who should be doing what? In the last year since we arrived in parish I have prepared after-service refreshments, operated the sound desk (and played the cds which usualy provide our musical accompaniment), led services, run youth bible studies during the sermon, operated the computer that projects our songs and liturgy and played the keyboard for songs (this is the latest string to my bow). Almost everything apart from preaching and communion, really. I’m so thankful to be unqualified for those. I’ve not yet helped in the creche or Sunday school either, but not because it’s something I don’t feel able to do.
Obviously I can’t do everything I’m able to every Sunday. But sometimes it feels like I should be, as existing leaders are tired and worn out, or just don’t exist. (Anyone know a pianist who fancies joining a friendly inner city West Midlands church?). Somehow we need to work out what’s important and do that well first, and train others, before moving onto the next thing. So we need wisdom AND patience. As does our congregation, who do so much aswell, not just on Sundays, but throughout the week.
My old friend MacGirl is also a vicar’s wife. She wrote to me the other day about their church, where nearly everyone is over 65 and her husband is slowly trying to bring in the changes needed if the church is to live and grow again.
I can’t be in more than one place at a time…So we are taking decisions we hope carefully and wisely so as not to over commit my time…Our brains run through all kinds of scenarios that we would like to implement, but we can only go at the pace the church can cope with. I’m really learning to be patient.
Patience and wisdom always feel like they are in short supply here in our Vicarage. I’m praying that we grow in both these spiritual fruit as we try to make our Sunday services a place where believers and non-believers alike will feel welcomed, built up and challenged. Phew. At least I’ve not just been appointed to the government. Now there’s a job that’s going to need wisdom and patience (from the rest of us).
The Vicar's Wife 
When I was doing this job in East Anglia and Wales it was normal to encourage every one to review their giving of time and talents from time to time. This avoided overload; allowed people to stand down (churches are not very good at that) and also to allow people to rededicate what they do – even if it is the same. I am sorry, but what you are doing is not helpful for the long term growth of the church – what happens when Mr Vicar moves on? Instead of a huge gap it is an enormous one. I am sure that it is possible to work with some one on each of the tasks you outline and train them up to take your place – you then develop a Barnabus type ministry of initiating and then moving onto something else once the initiated area of work shows signs of rooting (it does not have to be fully rooted).
Two or three suggestions.
1. Use the first Sunday in June to celebrate and thank for service. It is UK volunteers week every first week in June and you could extend invitations to vol groups in the area to come and celebrate.
2. Sound desks and c.d’s can be operated by almost every one once they over come the ‘fear of buttons’. Spend some time making labels to mark levels etc and then work with two or three people over the coming weeks.
3. Ask two other adults to look at leading the youth bible studies – which provides you with space and maybe them with an opportunity to learn as well.
4. Allow your self- time for worship and prayer within a corporate context. If there is no powerpoint because you are being fed does it really matter?
I am sure that there is some one in the Diocese that can assist with this. If there is not start a campaign to get one!
It would be good to have a good discussion on this.
I’m sure Vicar’s Wife knows that for the church to grow long term others need to come and fill the gaps … but what to do in the meanwhile?
We have been praying for eight years for more musicians! In our case, the vicar himself fills in, while the vicar’s wife (me) fills other gaps … notice sheets, website, digital projection … because there is no-one else to do it and if we don’t it won’t get done.
Or perhaps we should simply let those ministries go? We’ve already suspended the children’s work in one of our churches through lack of leaders.
Our constant prayer is that God will send more workers into the harvest … it’s so very wearing in the meanwhile.
((((Vicar’s Wife)))) I know just how you feel!
3 years ago we moved from a church where we struggled with finding ways to serve, since there always seemed to be so many people more capable than us (and with more tume), to a church which has a real dearth of help, and that was one of the reasons we moved.
We’ve always tried to have an attitude of not sitting back when a need is clear, but praying that God would equip us for what we’re about to volunteer for. But trying to balance that with the needs that come with a young family has been very difficult.
It’s hard to say ‘If no-one volunteers then x will not happen’, especially when physically you could probably do it, but at what cost.
I suppose one of the benefits that the gift of singleness brings is time to volunteer. The 20’s & 30’s group at our former church is the engine that makes pretty much everything else possible. They tend to have more time, and it keeps them out of trouble!
No easy answers. God is soverign and has prepared the good works for us to do, but we must guard our hearts, so that we rest in God’s provision for us, rather than our acts service.
Thank you all for your comments and encouragements.
NS (or is it NAS…?) you are right. There is no point in doing everything in order to have it collapse in years to come. We’ve always tried to have someone to take over everything we’ve done before (eg when the Vicar was pastoring a congregation in Singapore). In many ways I think technology is a curse because of the extra bodies it requires. It’d be so much easier w the BCP and a hymn book! We are trying to pace ourselves, train others and model good practice all at the same time, as a few other church members already do, but it’s choosing where to focus that’s the challenge.
The youth bible studies have fizzled out of late…but there wasn’t anyone at all able (or with the time) to lead them. Or they would have been happening before we arrived in the church. We have a few sound desk/computer folk but the challenge arrives when they are all away. But more training is definitely on its way.
More workers is our constant prayer too, LB. Our ministry trainee, Happy, has been a huge blessing in this regard. And we’ve had a good few folk join the church in the last year or so. It’s just finding areas where they’re able to serve in small ways as they mature in faith.
PeterB, our 20s and 30s are nearly all single mums. Our demographic doesn’t have that blessing of young professionals who are keen and able to serve. But if anyone is working in or west of Birmingham and would like to serve a small church where the housing is INCREDIBLY cheap, do send them our way! And there’s a KS1 teaching job going in our church school…
Praise God that He is sovereign and knows how much needs to be done and will send us and grow us the workers at the right time.
I hear you! Our little church has similar struggles. I agree that you have to wisely use your time and not wear yourselves out.
God is gracious and will use all our faithful efforts, even if there’s some ministries that cannot continue.
Until three months ago I worked in West Brom and my wife is a KS1 teacher – now working in a Church school down here.
The cohort of single mums is probably the way forward. They will be techno-savvy and involvement will assist in developing “community”.
As for focussing on the challenge who says that every thing has to happen all of the time? Maybe the fizzling out of the youth bible studies is God speaking. There is a cyclical pattern to such things (and groups involving older people) and there is a huge amount of interesting stuff regarding group dynamics (the most powerful thing that I have learned is that new member = new group because it is not the same group as it was). Welcome Training often concentrates on meeting and greeting – what about welcome training for group leaders. In order to take up something something else has to be put down.
Vision Days don’t have to focus on the next five years – a Church enVisioning Evening can look at a far shorter period and some may find that more manageable – both in terms of looking forward and in terms of making a serving commitment.
The other blindly obvious question is have you articulated this at Church. There just may be some one thinking “she must enjoy doing all of these things and I don’t want to upset her by volunteering myself”. I have seen that in even the smallest Churches – some one labouring (as opposed to serving) for years because no one cam forward and the person provided did not come forward because it had been done by some one for years! The answer to that is being brave enough to teach about responding to God now – and not as things were X number of years ago.
Your final line is the key. God will provide at the right time.
I recognise something in all these posts – and I think at the end of the day it’s about balance – after all life is one big balancing act, especially in a parish! It’s about balancing things in our own lives (both as an individual and the whole family) and what’s right in the church. In one parish I did loads – started a second youth group into two, set up a music group, set up a toddler group (and I really-don’t-like – and I mean REALLY – don’t-like toddler groups). In the next a combination of personal circumstances and a more established parish meant that I did less, and I did different things.
Your parish sounds a bit like the first one I mentioned above (although without the inner city issues) – where it needed a clergy family (the whole family!) with lots of energy and bounce to get things going, but with a view to moving these on to other (mainly new) people when they are ready to take things on, and before you leave. We left there 10 years ago, exhausted and ready for an entirely different setting, and I think one thing (a toddler praise service) completely stopped, the youth work moved on a bit, the music group is still there – and as for the toddler group, it’s now being run by a mum who was a teenager in the youth group back then! And she told me recently she is thinking of starting a toddler praise service! Best of all, the church is growing in numbers and faith. That is really encouraging!
I would like to pass a message on to NS through this blog, though. Thanks to his disappearance off to the West Country, this Rector’s wife is editing the parish magazine. That was NOT in my plan of things I might do in my “spare” time! And does not fit in with his comments above about clergy wives! And it’s all his fault! I now need to find someone else to hand this on to – might take me a while…
Oh dear! My foot is well and truly shot.
We’re in a very similar situation where we do most things. Our church family has (just) one person in each decade age wise until you hit the 60s where there are 4 and then a handful at 70+ (The Vicar and I are the 40s!)
There simply aren’t the people to run these things. During the interregnum the church warden ran as much as she could despite working full time as the Head of Dept in a large Secondary school.
We’ve started things that were sadly lacking here (including the toddler group which I too have an aversion to) and ‘praise God’ there are older ladies who are more than willing to help but can’t take responsibility for it. We desperately need someone to take on the powerpoint/sermon taping/stage moving when our only teenager goes off to Uni in September.
But…we’ve come to the conclusion that we need to stop doing some things. The older youth group has had to stop which breaks my heart because there were 4 teens who came along with no background in church at all. We can’t do everything.
We are praying hard for more workers and fundraising for a parish worker at the moment to help out. The other issue, of course, is having people who have an evangelistic heart to be at the groups. There are only 3 of us in our church family who are able to get alongside folk and have these sorts of conversations. We’re teaching them though!!
Pray on! For both West Brom and us.
Another vicar’s wife here who can really relate to all this! I just feel so frazzled when I am rushing from one “role” to the next with no time to stop or receive spiritually myself. I think you can do it for so long, but not forever. Last year I became quite ill; I think I was just exhausted and operating on deadlines and adrenaline. It made me realise how frantically I had been living; give, give, give.
I think it’s much harder work running a small church than a larger one. There are a few large churches with talented people everywhere, often not using their gifts fully, but those are the churches that people tend to be drawn to. I know; I was one of those people once. I really enjoyed belonging to churches like that and I learnt a lot. Now that we’re leading a smaller church, it is such a blessing when someone comes to our church, not because the worship is wow etc, but because they want to be used by God and develop their gifts. They can then end up leading, or preaching, or discovering all manner of gifts, which they might never be able to use in the huge church.
I would like to encourage people who have worshipped and received great teaching at the mega churches for, say, five years, to really pray about whether God would have them move out of their comfort zone and become a “big fish in a small pond”. They may be surprised at what a huge blessing they could be to a smaller church that is seeking to grow and do mission. (I am not suggesting they join a church that appears to be dead, though I have known God tell people to do that and He does raise the dead sometimes!)
I have just been contemplating recently whether I need to volunteer to fill a vacancy for churchwarden. I have concluded that, though we are desperate, this is not an appropriate role for the vicar’s wife to fill for legal reasons, but I do end up acting as verger.
Given that clergy often work 60 and more hours a week, and their spouses often put in time voluntarily as well as family and employment, there is a massive pressure on clergy households. We somehow need to be leaders in prayer, peace and reliance on God, rather than rushing around like idiots and being as stressed as everyone else is these days. We are to be “spiritual leaders”. Lord of the Harvest, please send workers and show us how! Jesus frequently said “no” and did not meet people’s expectations. Lord Jesus, give us the wisdom and strength to only do what we see the Father doing.
Rector’s wife, it’s fab to hear all those ministries continued after you left! Praise God! You didn’t just work hard, you left Kingdom DNA behind you growing! And as for the parish magazine, if you don’t feel called to it, pray about whether you should be doing it. Maybe God doesn’t want the magazine right now / any more. Just because somebody started something once, it does not mean it should continue forever. Or perhaps the person whom God really is calling to do it has their hands over their ears right now. If you simply give notice, something will happen. People will moan, and it will either die or someone else will take it on.