Friday 29 April 2011

FUTURE OF MINISTRY

The last Round Table discussion on the Future of Ministry at St. Paul's Cathedral will be held following Sunday Services May 8th at 11:30 a.m. The topic will be Opportunities. All parishioners are encouraged to attend and participate in the discussion. There will be a session in the fall to review the outcomes of the discussions and input from the parish.

Wednesday 27 April 2011

ROYAL WEDDING PAJAMA PARTY

Put on your best p.j.'s and join the Cathedral family as the Royal Wedding is live streamed from London. Bring snacks to the Chapel at 11:30 pm Thursday, April 28th and be prepared to spend the night.

Tuesday 19 April 2011

CANCELLATIONS & CHANGES

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Holy Week Study has been cancelled. A new date for this series will be announced--watch this space.

Also, the two remaining Round Table discussions are being combined and will take place May 8th following the 8 am and 10 am services. There will be no June gathering. Topics covered May 8th will be Opportunities for Ministry and Associated Risks.

For more information, please call the Cathedral during office hours.

Wednesday 13 April 2011

TABLE DISCUSSION RESULTS

Summary of April 10 table discussions.

The topic was “ What are the opportunities for growth and improvement in Ministry at St. Paul’s Cathedral at this time. (What can we do better).”

Group 1
Hold Taize services?
Hold services on another day or night.
Is Evensong a possibility?
Let’s celebrate our resources: children, youth, families, and seniors.
Let’s focus on people rather than “stuff”.
How can we attract more people?
How can we prevent burnout of our leaders?

Group 2
The church must appeal to youth, so we will have to make major changes. In 20 years, youth will not be attending as adults. Be more flexible in what we are, and be willing to accept change. Liturgy has less appeal to young people. Use modern technology – Facebook?
Be more involved with Outreach programs in the Community.
Be more involved with other Anglican churches in our area.
Put up or shut up. We need to move forward with our building.
Aging demographics.
Music leaves a lot to be desired. It is not uplifting.

Group 3
Do we need a formal way of recognizing new people and making them feel welcome?
Name tags would help those of us who forget names.
Do we give lots of praise to those who do ministry quietly or where we don’t see it?
Encouraging personal discussions of how our faith affects our life and our life affects our faith.
More contemporizing of liturgy and music, ie the written creeds.
Something to attract younger families. We could ask them what they need.
Hold a Sunday morning open house at St. Paul’s and get it out via the media.
Articles on various activities and ministries.


Group 4
More flowers.
More variety and choice in music – use new resources (Sorrento music, faster tempo, Voices United, John Bell, Taize)
More musical instruments.
There should be no age restrictions for joining the choir.
Handicapped access,
Make bulletin more colorful.
Hall access for the Youth Group, as more youth are attending.
Paint the outside of the church.
Have a suggestion box.
Braving into the community.
Young families.
Can be intimidating outside of the service.
More potluck dinners.
Frontier Fair.
Youth services, with youth music.
Team building activities with the whole church (icebreakers).
Asking opinions.

Group 5
Hearing in the Cathedral is difficult for some people. We need a wired sound system that would allow people to use headphones.
Tape sermons so that others may hear them.
Worship space needs to be consistent.
At worship, most of us are the same age. What is our future?
Change the music. Cursillo music would be better. We need music that makes us feel better and more uplifted. There is lovely music available. The words of many of the traditional hymns are not great and do not make much sense today.
Use more contemporary music.
Passing of the Peace at 10 AM sometimes becomes a bit of a zoo.

Group 6
Have a welcome package for visitors. Recognize visitors. Give them a personal invitation and take them to coffee.
Combine ministry displays with various functions to which community is invited.
Invite your friends and neighbors to church.
Increase amount of contemporary music. Ask young people to bring instruments to play.
Use music that we can sing – not pitched as high. Put music on a screen.
Try other ways of reconfiguration – eg in the round.
Make more use of Lay Ministers of Word and Sacrament. There could be a rotating preaching schedule.
Advertise what we do - eg Confirmation and Baptismal classes.
Invite those outside our church community to our parish events and activities, such as bible study, movies, community gardens, youth group. Make personal invitations, big color advertisments.
Vacation bible school in the summer.
We have an opportunity to increase our ministry at seniors’ residences – eg healing services.
We don’t know who in the community needs prayers, because at the prayers of the people the names in the basket are not shared.
Hold healing services at St. Paul’s.

Thursday 7 April 2011

WORSHIP SPACE RE-CONFIGURATION

To complete the survey online for our Worship Space Re-configuration, please click on the highlighted area:
Survey Monkey.