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Suggestions from Methodism for how to win more Local Preachers and Worship Leaders
Preparing with prayer
There is no doubt that when people are challenged at a special event about Local Preaching or Worship Leading, some do hear and respond to God’s call. A Sharing Day is one such event. Preparation for any event naturally begins with prayer, probably at the Local Preachers’ Meeting:
Lord God, your Spirit has called and challenged many to be prophets and preachers. As we thank you for this high calling, we pray that your Spirit may move with encouraging power within our Circuit, that more people may hear and respond to your call.
Use us, we pray, to reveal the working of your Holy Spirit. In faith and hope we ask this, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
To win more Local Preachers, the Local Preachers’ Meeting needs to be convinced that a Sharing Day is an appropriate initiative to take. Preparation will take time and will need the active support not only of the Local Preachers’ Meeting but of the Circuit Meeting too.
The active support could involve all preachers including a prayer at services they conduct, in the weeks before the Sharing Day for more Local Preachers, and to speak in their own way about the call to preach.
Inviting the people
Those who come to a Sharing Day are only likely to come if someone offers them a personal invitation. People respond better to a personal invitation than to a general appeal. There may need to be an offer of transport too. All this means that even with advance publicity for the event, publicity alone is not enough.
Circuit staff, Local Preachers, Church Stewards and Church Council Secretaries all need to consider who might be a potential Local Preacher. There will be some who will immediately spring to mind, but there are many Local Preachers who would have counted themselves as rather less than obvious at this early stage. We need to consider all sorts of people.
As we do this, we also need to identify which people might be best placed to give a personal invitation. For some people, two or more invitations from different people might be encouraging. For others, that could be overkill (and a turn-off). Should the invitations be in writing as well as by word of mouth? Again, that might be right for some and not for others. We need to be sensitive to those we are inviting. A sample invitation might look like the one shown below.
An invitation (whether written or verbal) must not suggest that a person is being placed under any obligation. It can only be an exploration of what preachers do and an opportunity to consider the possibility of being called to that service.
Planning the day
A programme for the event could include the following:
- Opening devotions 12 mins
- A brief summary of what is planned 3 minsMy story of a call to preach 3 people with very different stories 45 mins
- The help we offer new preachers
- The Mentor and the student 15 mins
- The Local Tutor and the student 15 mins
- Faith & Worship and ‘testing the call’ 15 mins
- Food and refreshment shared in small groups (each a mix of those invited and Local Preachers) 30 mins
- How we prepare for a service 2 preachers tell contrasting stories 30 mins
- Your questions answered in smaller groups 30 mins
- Closing devotions, with an invitation to make an offer (no matter how tentative) 25 mins
The programme should include clarification that the ‘On Note’ period is a time for exploration on both sides while a vocation is examined and prayed about. It is a time for testing the vocation and for checking if the calling might be answered better in another type of lay ministry.
The event could have a bookstall with resources for sale and/or loaned by Local Preachers for browsing through on the day. It is worth having current examples of study units for Faith & Worship as well as other books useful for worship and study.
All Local Preachers and ministers are invited to the Sharing Day to give expression to the fellowship of all preachers. This is a very important aspect of the day.
Encouraging further interest
Some people will appreciate having a quiet conversation after a time of prayerful reflection about the Sharing Day and about the possibility of being called to preach. We need to be ready with space in the diary for this.
Some people will not have made any immediate response to the Sharing Day. It is good to show that the Local Preachers’ Meeting is interested in them and caring for them by contacting these people within two weeks of the event, but not applying pressure on them in any way.
Some people who were interested may not have been able to attend the Sharing Day. We need to have a Plan B for them that introduces them to some of the ground that the Sharing Day covered.
A Sharing Day every two or three years helps some Circuits build interest in considering a call to preach. It is sensible to think of Sharing Days, not as a one-off event, but as a series of events over a period of time.
We can invite those who express a provisional interest to accompany a preacher to a service before they are given a note to preach. A ‘taste and see’ approach with no strings can be most helpful as no loss of face is involved.
As part of encouraging interest in Local Preaching, it is good if a person can receive their note to preach at a service in their own home church. This encourages support from the local congregation, but it can also invite others to ask if they too have a call to preach.
Being ready ourselves
When we are inviting people to consider becoming Local Preachers, we need to ensure that we have appropriate support in place for them. There will be an immediate need for Mentors and soon a need for Local Tutors too. The Methodist Church website and the Formation in Ministry office have resources for Mentors and Local Tutors.
Mentors and Local Tutors offer opportunities for people to grow spiritually in fellowship while they also grow in skills and understanding. If we treat this process as a chore or as a hoop to be jumped through, we are missing opportunities to grow. We need to make this a really positive experience for all involved.
Part of accentuating the positive is to find ways to keep reporting demands to a minimum – for the sake of the students and also those who are doing the reporting. If one report can serve two purposes (Circuit assessment and Connexional assessment), then that is certainly worth doing.
Likewise, if there are several Circuit Interviews that need to be held, it is worth holding a special meeting in order to keep an appropriate balance of worship, development and business in the quarterly Local Preachers’ Meeting.
Worship Leaders
In contrast to Local Preachers, Worship Leaders are Church Council appointments. The initiative for inviting people to consider becoming Worship Leaders rightly belongs with Church Councils.
In some Circuits, Church Councils have agreed that the Circuit could offer a similar kind of Sharing Day where Worship Leaders share their stories of how they became Worship Leaders, describing what they valued about their training and preparation and how they approach leading worship.
You might like to adapt the template in this article for your own circumstances so that more people can be invited to become Worship Leaders.
The Local Preachers pages of the Methodist Church website have templates of fliers for you to adapt and make your own. There is one for Local Preachers and another for Worship Leaders. Each is titled: ‘A call for you’. The website address is www.methodist.org.uk Move your cursor to ‘Get involved’, then (on the drop-down menu) to ‘Training & Vocations’ and then (on the new menu alongside) to ‘Local Preachers’. Click on the flier you want.
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