News from the Development Group Christmas 2005

The Development Group had its fourth meeting in November when we continued to look at joint worship during 2006 and agreed to put to our respective Kirk sessions arrangements for, Transfiguration Sunday (26 February), Lenten Bible Studies and Holy Week. Stephen, Elspeth and John will meet together to take this forward. It was also agreed to suggest a service for Pentecost in St Mark's on 4 June. Rev Stephen Taylor was tasked with arrangements for a joint ecumenical service, to be held in CrownTerrace MethodistChurch to mark the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (18 - 25 January).

Despite our wish to move forward on a joint basis we agreed it was important for each congregation to retain its identity and therefore services for Christmas and Easter Sunday will be held separately. Nevertheless we also agreed to ensure that our three congregations were kept advised of other services and to be encouraged to support the Grouping Churches wherever possible.

Queen Street Church extend a warm welcome to their 6.30pm Service of 9 Lessons and Carols on 18 December 2005, where there will be a joint choir. The Kirk of St Nicholas Uniting will hold an 11.00am Christmas Eve service, Queen Street a Watch night Service at 11.30pm and St Mark's a Carol Service at 10.45pm, followed by a Watch night Service and tea and mince pies to follow.

On 12 November representatives from all three churches met with Rev Malcolm Rooney who updated us on the work of the Ministries Council of the Church of Scotland in relation to developing Team Ministries and we have agreed to make use of the Council's facilitating services.

Autumn 2005 Update

The Development Group has now met three times (February, April and September) and John Watson has been agreed as its first Chairman.  The initial meeting decided that a start should be made to see how many of the aims set down in the formal agreement could be achieved or at least set in motion and the second meeting has made some real progress. For details of the September meeting and subsequent meetings and latest news read on below.

We have decided to arrange for three joint services, one in each of the member churches.  Subject to agreement of each Kirk Session we will meet for a Summer Service in the Kirk of St Nicholas Uniting, a Harvest Service in Queen Street Church and an Advent Service in St Mark's.

A small sub group (where St Mark's is represented by Anne Donaldson) is looking to the arrangement of a joint social evening and the main Group will discuss the possibility of marking the centenary of the Queen Street building in September.

Arrangements have also been made for a joint section in each of the three churches magazines to provide details of the work of the Development Group and to share news and events organised by the individual congregations.

This is an important development in the witness of the church in the city centre and it will only work if every single member of all three churches plays their own individual and joint part.  It has to be said that on previous ocassions of e.g. joint worship support has not been all that it could be with many members (from all of the churches involved) staying away because "it's not in my church".  The City Centre Grouping is something that we have all agreed to be involved in so when we decide to get together for worship or a social event please don't stay away.

Remember, the church is the people of God, the building is only to keep us out of the rain/snow/cold/heat/somewhere to sit, so when we worship together as a Grouping please come to "Church".

Nothing is as constant as change and that includes the plans made by the Development Group.  Although you will have read of a possible joint Harvest Festival Service that was finally arranged as the Centenary Celebration Service in Queen Street Church.

Although Queen Street are continuing their search for a minister, the Kirk of St Nicholas Uniting have almost reached the final step, which will be the induction of Rev Stephen Taylor on Saturday 1st October 2005.

The latest meeting of the Development Group was held in St Mark's on Wednesday 14th September when we heard about the meeting of the Sunday School leaders of all three churches.  Although it was planned to try to bring together the separate teaching syllabuses of the churches the leaders agreed this was a major task and that it would be more appropriate to wait until all three ministers were in place.  It was also thought that the work might even justify an additional children's worker.

We all agreed that it was important that the children are involved in our worship and that timing and accommodation issues at our first two joint services had been a bit of a problem.  Arrangements for the service on the first Sunday in Advent at St Mark's would learn from this and the Sunday School leaders agreed to begin to plan the service and to speak to John as soon as possible.

It was also agreed to further explore the involvement of Rev Malcolm Rooney from Kirriemuir in relation to the development of our approach to Team Ministry and the Grouping.