Let me share with you a good news story in youth, children’s and family ministry. It’s a good news story with a strong interface with contemporary worship and the music as part of it.
It’s a story that arises out of youth ministry at my church at Indooroopilly Uniting in Brisbane seemingly having reached a dead-end. It’s a story that arises out of many earnestly believing that something better than recycling the last 20 hymns in Together in Song was indeed possible.
It’s a story that has at its core, the Great Commission of Jesus in Matthew 28: 18-20 … to go … to disciple … to baptise … to teach …
It’s a story of hope, that seeks to reclaim what our congregation, informed by the scriptures and provoked by the Spirit and graced by Jesus … sees as its core business – namely, that first and foremost if we are called to be community of Christ, we need to know with heads and hearts who this Jesus Christ in fact is. Before we look at what is … we need to look at what was
Worship history
Indooroopilly Uniting Church is a large suburban congregation in the western suburbs of Brisbane. The congregation has 600 on the pastoral roll and at the end of 2005 had about 60 at its first traditional i.e. Wesley hymn service, 150-200 at its second allegedly family service and about 30 at its evening service.
Historically, its evening service was much larger. In decades past, well over a hundred would come – uni students, young people and young-at-heart galore. The young adult- aged youth group was huge … we’re talking well over 100 at one stage. Many of them were involved in cutting-edge street ministry, social justice activism abounded, and there was no shortage of leadership. This was a great worshipping community to be part of.
Then – for reasons I still don’t fully understand – the foundations of all of this began crumbling in the mid 1990s – numbers started dropping off – new leadership no longer was being ‘brought on’. So when I come in early 2005, we have the ‘remnant’ … and an interesting remnant at that.
In effect the bulk of that remnant were married couples, in most cases with toddler-age children … babies galore. Most of these had been the teenagers back in the 1980s and early 90s. Very Indooroopilly-like (and I speak from personal experience here) many had married partners from the same church, started having kids and then … no, rather than ‘migrating’ to the morning service which had an established Sunday School and a timeslot one would think far more conducive to family routine, they decided to stay on, kids, crèche and all in the evening.
This is the first church I know that has had an evening crèche. This of course led to the inevitable sometimes-heated debate, can we … should we be running two Christian education programs for kids – morning and evening? The evening service was well and truly the problem child of Indooroopilly Uniting’s three worship services.
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About the Author:
David MacGregor is an ordained UCA minister working with young people and families at Indooroopilly in southwest Brisbane. David has served in school chaplaincy, urban and regional contexts, having begun working life as a primary school teacher. Throughout his entire ministry journey, David has shared, studied and explored passions in worship, music and Christian education.
In 2007, David received a Master of Theology degree from Brisbane College of Theology, focusing on the role of music in shaping faith within the worshipping community.
David is currently a member of the Uniting Church’s National Worship Working Group, the UCA in Queensland’s representative on Education Qld’s Religious Education Advisory Committee and a member of the Uniting Church Schools Commission.
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