Today will be the 4th of the 5 Sundays, and frankly, we didn't do too much to this service. I don't remember it being so normal when we planned it. Normal isn't such a bad thing and since the last 3 Sundays have been rather far flung because of all the different seasonal things we were dealing with, it might be nice to have a quite Sunday. At least for me. I won't be running around with my head cut off this morning. Nope, I'm saving that for this afternoon.
As I look through the questionnaires for these services (and surprisingly I've gotten quite a few back), I'm beginning to wonder how much information I really will get from them. Participation is a tricky thing, you know. Many of the questionnaires indicate that the person participated as fully as is humanly possible and everything in the service helped them to that end. I'm a little inclined to believe that they are just trying to be enthusiastic for my sake and that they're not taking the time to really think about what it means to participate in worship. Then, there are those (few in number but loud and clear) that indicate that they don't care for much of what was planned and "why can't worship be like it used to be when Mike (former minister) was here?". With these people (who also have said things like "that song belongs around a campfire, not in a church"), I wonder if there is anything that could be said or done to get them to possibly look at something from a different angle. They are very decidedly set in their ways and want things a certain way, the rest of the world be damned. A friend warned me about these questionnaires, that they have a tendency to be answered by two extremes of people - those who really liked the service and those who didn't like much at all. The problem is that I don't really care about whether or not someone liked it or not, I just want to know if they participated and what helped/hindered them in their participation. But, if we're not all on the same page as to what participation means, then what's the point anyway?
These are all things I'm sure will be dealt with in chapter 4 and I'm glad that I'll have other stuff with which to measure the project. Oh, it's gonna be a long few months....
As I look through the questionnaires for these services (and surprisingly I've gotten quite a few back), I'm beginning to wonder how much information I really will get from them. Participation is a tricky thing, you know. Many of the questionnaires indicate that the person participated as fully as is humanly possible and everything in the service helped them to that end. I'm a little inclined to believe that they are just trying to be enthusiastic for my sake and that they're not taking the time to really think about what it means to participate in worship. Then, there are those (few in number but loud and clear) that indicate that they don't care for much of what was planned and "why can't worship be like it used to be when Mike (former minister) was here?". With these people (who also have said things like "that song belongs around a campfire, not in a church"), I wonder if there is anything that could be said or done to get them to possibly look at something from a different angle. They are very decidedly set in their ways and want things a certain way, the rest of the world be damned. A friend warned me about these questionnaires, that they have a tendency to be answered by two extremes of people - those who really liked the service and those who didn't like much at all. The problem is that I don't really care about whether or not someone liked it or not, I just want to know if they participated and what helped/hindered them in their participation. But, if we're not all on the same page as to what participation means, then what's the point anyway?
These are all things I'm sure will be dealt with in chapter 4 and I'm glad that I'll have other stuff with which to measure the project. Oh, it's gonna be a long few months....
posted by Amy Stewart at 5:40 AM
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