From 4th October:
The Choral Eucharist will run weekly, still starting at 9am.
The contemporary service will run weekly (including the first Sunday of the month), starting at 10.45am.
The monthly 8am and Evensong services will continue as before.
This will be on a trial basis, until Easter 2027, at which point the changes will be reviewed.
The change to weekly services is considered essential in order to grow both the Choral Eucharist and the Contemporary services. The change in time to the Contemporary service is necessary because with services happening weekly, the current timings (9am & 10.30am) are unworkable. The band don’t have sufficient time to set up and sound check; there is insufficient time to pray before the service; and the end of the choral service feels rushed, because everyone is desperate to get in and begin setup for the next service. These timings are not conducive to the either service being the best that it can be.
In some cases this is true; however, a) 9am services vary in style, content and length, and b) through chatting to clergy at another local church where this is the case, it is clear that the lack of time between services causes a number of challenges that they struggle with, and which would be more severe in our situation.
Digging into this question, the main problem is not service start time; it’s service finish time. With this change, we will tweak the service content with the aim of ensuring that it finishes by noon each week, including on communion Sundays. Past experience also suggests that whilst some families might prefer an earlier start time, others who don’t currently attend might now be enabled to attend by the marginally later start.
With CYF team and volunteers in mind, we will tweak the service running order so that children go straight to groups when they arrive (rather that starting in with the adults), but then join the adult service for the final ~10 minutes (earlier on communion Sundays). This will allow the CYF team and volunteers to start tidying/packing down prior to the end of the service, helping them get away quicker.
Research over recent years consistently shows that churches that are growing tend to be those who are either contemporary and informal in style, or those that have much more traditional, cathedral-style worship, which taps into ancient traditions. In order to grow a vibrant, lively church at the heart of our town, we are fully committed to holding two very different styles of worship service at Church Street each Sunday; hence the choral and contemporary services.
At the same time, the reality is that 10am or 10.30am tends to be most people’s preferred service time. For this reason, having two services in the same location, on the same morning, will always involve a compromise. Many churches struggle with this. The choral service is already earlier than its congregants would like; choir rehearsals start very early; and when the Minster was formed, some former attendees left because of the (then new) early start time. We recognise too that an earlier start time would best suit some contemporary worshippers. However, we believe that these times represent a compromise that is worth making, and that will facilitate growth in both services.
Yes. SLT has extensively discussed other options, including moving one or other of the morning services at Church Street to a different location; moving one or other service to the afternoon rather than the morning; combining services; swapping services around; tweaking start times; and more. However, at this point, all of these options are considered unsuitable for various reasons.
Yes! We are aware of challenges around heating, lack of space for children’s work, a need for cooling in the Octagon/corridor area in the summer; and the need to upgrade the space for young children at the back of the nave (main part of church). We are aiming to address all of these issues in the coming months. Some of these will be temporary fixes before the major building project, reordering Church Street, gets going; but we realise that these issues cannot wait until that project is complete.
In addition, we are wanting to make more of the coffee time between services. This is a great opportunity for members of different congregations to meet and get to know one another; so we are aiming to encourage engagement with this, and upgrade the refreshments accordingly.
The recent ‘Autumn Update’ leaflet set out some other things that are either happening now, or in the pipeline. We are really excited to see where God will lead us in this next season of the Minster’s life; and we’re so glad that you are with us on this journey!
