The Reader's Letter - 17/09/2023

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

On Tuesday I had my first face-to-face meeting with the Deanery Advisors for Readers. We had a lovely supper including a warm chocolate brownie with ice-cream, the best part in my opinion. As we followed the agenda, there was one item I was looking forward to discussing. One of the advisors (John) had been on a course which included a section on understanding the issues involved in planning and leading multicultural worship. We were given a summary to read before the meeting. The discussion was thought-provoking; there were three points that were highlighted and would be a challenge for all of us: 1) Church is for everyone not just for those who got there first. 2) The Arts are a valuable resource for enabling dialogue from diverse voices in the congregation. 3) There needs to be an intentional strategy to build a local identity. I like the idea of helping different cultures to take part in Sunday service through the Arts and language. There was a good idea from John which we could include in next years’ Pentecost service, or at Christmas. I will be writing a reminder in my diary. In our parish we have a traditional Eucharist service, but numerous different cultures are also represented in the congregation. So, I give us a challenge: in these changing times, do we have the courage in our Sunday service, perhaps occasionally, to include the presence of the rich cultures in our parish?

Janna Bond