The Worship Team has 5 lay members and 4 staff members. For each service, all year long, there is careful planning based on the seasons of the church year, the lectionary, scripture, appropriate preludes, postludes, hymns and anthems, children’s learning themes, the life and work of the church and so on. Our professional staff deserves our respect and thanks for doing this work so prayerfully and diligently. The rest of the Worship team supports and assists these leaders in any way we can.
Lenten and Easter season –This was a busy time for Liz who coordinated closely with Anne for the children’s part of each service and with Colleen and Madelene for the musical offerings, the Lenten symbols and general flow of the services. The sanctuary was open for meditation during Holy Week and there was a Good Friday service. At least 98 people attended our Easter Sunday service!! The addition of the Lenten lecture series planned by Liz and Faith Explorations really enriched our time during Lent.
Musical Offerings – as a team we are very much aware of the recommendations of the Music Task Force and we strive for a variety of musical offerings. The choir, piano and organ are the backbone of each service. Since January we have also offered vocal solos, chimes, saxophone, harp, drum and a wonderful trumpet accompaniment to our Easter music. Next week we will be welcoming the Knox Strings and Winds. Many thanks to Colleen and Madelene for arranging for, and working with, all our musical guests. Our recent djembe drumming workshop arose from having Milton Randall play at one of our services last year. The workshop was a good start to reaching out to our neighbours as we attracted folks from outside the Knox family.
Pulpit Supply -We are responsible for finding, welcoming and thanking our pulpit supply guests for the Sundays that Liz is away.
Pew Bibles – We have just completed the replacement of all our sanctuary Bibles with a set of NRSV Bibles. We are now going to request that the scripture readers announce the page numbers of the readings each Sunday. Gloria is also responsible for finding the readers each week.
The Communion storage area is in the midst of being reorganized. Mary E. has updated the instructions for those preparing the elements. Mary and Marnie set up for communion but may ask for your assistance on occasion. Mary E. also finds the servers.
Mary G. and Gloria choose the bulletin covers that need to be ordered for each service or ask Josie to create a cover for us if we cannot find a suitable one in the catalogue.
The chapel has been tidied and we are working with Property Management towards the restoration and protection of the altar.
Dave is in the Narthex each Sunday as he ushers and finds people to process the Bible and candle and bring forth our offering gifts. Dave has been coordinating with the Welcoming Team as they work towards developing a program for greeters at Worship.
Worship has developed a roster of small jobs that need to be done periodically in order to keep our sanctuary looking its best. As a follow up to the Gumboot Clean up, please consider adding your name to the list of volunteers for these small tasks.
Two of us participated in the Leadership Retreat and our team is now working on our Goals for the 3 year plan of Knox, Neighbours, Next.