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Where 20 or 30 Are Gathered: Leading Worship in the Small Church
(The Alban Institute, 2006)
Description
While worship is the primary purpose of all churches, worship in the small church is distinctive. Whether a house church, a new church plant, a rural church along a country road, or a city church whose neighborhood demographics have shifted, these small faith communities present unique opportunities and challenges for worship leaders.
Peter Bush and Christine O'Reilly draw on their passion and experience equipping lay people to plan and lead worship to answer the question, what makes for effective worship leadership in family-size congregations, where fewer than 50 people gather Sunday by Sunday to worship? Addressing the needs of small churches in rural, suburban, and urban contexts, the authors discuss the characteristics of family-size congregations, the variety of ways they are organized, the joys and challenges of worship and preaching in small congregations, and best worship practices in small congregations. The challenges of the multi-point or yoked pastoral charge and of congregations without clergy receive special consideration.
Read related stories:
Let the Children Come and Where 20 or 30 Are Gathered.
The title of this book comes from the article "Where 20 or 30 are Gathered" by Lisa Stracks, which appeared in Reformed Worship #71. The article won an Associated Church Press award for 2004 and was reprinted in the Summer 2005 issue of Leadership.
Authors
Christine O'Reilly has served the Thedford and Watford Pastoral Charge in southwestern Ontario for the last eighteen years as Teaching Elder. She has a D. Min. in Rural Ministry from Austin Theological Seminary.
Peter Bush has been the Teaching Elder at Knox Presbyterian Church in Mitchell, Ontario, for ten years. Christine and Peter have codirected three Worship Renewal Grant Projects that focused on training lay people to plan and lead worship services and to preach.
Endorsements
"Bush and O'Reilly have nailed it! Their analysis of small congregations is comprehensive and correct, and their suggestions for effective ministry in the small church are practical and vital. This is essential reading for every pastor called to places where few are gathered."
—Joe Smith, Rural Church Consultant
"Peter Bush and Christine O’Reilly demonstrate how small churches can worship God with excellence in ways that promise spiritual renewal. Gathering up a number of trends that coalesce into an emerging model of a lay-driven church, they use stories to suggest what this means for clergy leaders. Readable, practical, concrete!"
—Shannon Jung, Professor of Town and Country Ministries, Saint Paul School of Theology
Vital Worship, Healthy Congregations Series with The Alban Institute
This series is designed to call attention to instructive examples of congregational life and to explore these examples in ways that allow readers in very different communities to compare and contrast these examples with their own practice.
To find all the books in this series, go to Publications and under "Publisher," select "Alban Institute."