The pastoral team, in consultation with a number of different people and groups, has made the following plan for Informal Family Service (IFS) and Young Children’s Service (YCS) for the first part of 2024.
- Starting January 7, YCS will begin the service at 9:30 am (instead of 10:00 am).
- IFS will move their services to the Cathedral undercroft (instead of Heilman Hall). The service will begin with warm-up music starting at 10:05 am (instead of warm-up music at 9:20 am).
There were many factors that went into the formation of this plan. Below are some of the major aspects of the plan and the benefits that we see in them:
All our worship services are in one location.
- This allows for overlapping social time between the people attending different services.
- It makes it easier for staff and volunteers to serve at multiple services on Sundays (ministers, musicians, people offering refreshments, etc.)
- It makes it easier for new people to know where to come for our worship services.
Keeping YCS and IFS as distinct services.
- We considered trying to combine these two services, but it became clear that each of those services has unique features to offer.
- There is not a lot of extra space if we combined the people who currently attend YCS and IFS. Keeping the services separate allows extra space if needed for larger attendance at each service.
Rearranging the timing of YCS and IFS so one minister can do both services.
- One piece of feedback we have received numerous times is that people want the IFS to get back to being well-suited to children. One way to help ensure that is by having the minister who does the IFS also be the one who does the YCS on that same Sunday. Whatever props and interactive things planned for YCS can be reused at the beginning of the Informal service.
- This reduces the need to have only two ministers each Sunday, instead of three.
This is a new plan that we are trying out in the beginning of 2024. There will be challenges and we will need your help figuring out how to navigate them. We welcome feedback along the way about how best to implement this plan. We have scheduled a meeting in March/April for those attending YCC and IFS to get feedback.
More Details
For a more detailed explanation, please visit brynathynchurch.org/ifs2024.