Life of a church
What’s in a name?
This month we begin a series about people who have particular roles in the church. Job titles are bandied about in church as if everyone understands them and it is not easy to admit you do not know a server from a sacristan. Some of the roles are changing as well so read on and become an instant expert on the Church of 2006!
Acolyte
A candle carrier. In many churches young people carry candles in processions, as the ministers enter and leave and as the gospel book is carried down to the middle of the congregation. The candles contribute to the drama of the worship, they are part of a whole presentation appealing to all our senses as well as to the mind. Worship with light, music, movement and colour often helps us meet God through our senses without the barriers our mind sets up.
Carrying candles gives young people a sense of purpose in attending church and helps them feel they belong. A famous low church bishop once came to a church where lots of children were carrying candles. At the end of the service he asked the vicar’ What were all those children carrying candles for?’ The vicar answered ‘The children weren’t carrying the candles – the candles were carrying the children. Giving them a job to do in church encourages them to come and it helps them a lot more than just sitting fidgeting in a pew.’ The bishop never complained about acolytes again!
Our acolytes are also Servers. They help the priest or deacon set up the altar at communion and literally serve at God’s table.
Churchwarden
Churchwardens were originally parish officers as well as church officials and they had the job of keeping the peace in the parish – hence the churchwarden’s staff, which is now just a badge of office but used to be a real staff used for tackling troublemakers. They were elected by the parish vestry – the meeting of all those in the parish who were registered by the civil authority to vote by virtue of owning property – not by the congregation, and though nowadays only the congregation may vote the part of the AGM at which wardens are appointed is still called the vestry meeting.
There are legal duties which wardens have to perform – they are the bishop’s representatives in the congregation, and as such work with him when there is a vacancy to find a new priest, and they ‘own’ by virtue of their office all movable furniture and objects in the church and have to account for this annually at the AGM by presenting an inventory. They cannot however sell anything without the agreement of the vicar and PCC!
The legalities of the churchwarden’s job are nowadays very much secondary to their role as members of the leadership team in a congregation. They work with the vicar and with other key people to move the church forward, sharing the discussions about worship, mission, pastoral care and other areas of church life. What they do is far less important than who they are – men or women committed to developing the life of the congregation, people who have come some distance on their personal journey of faith and who are willing, in the words of the law setting up PCCs, to:
“work in co-operation with the minister in promoting in the parish the whole mission of the Church, pastoral, evangelistic, social and ecumenical; and to share with him or her in t he consideration and discussions of matters concerning the Church of England or any other matters of religious or public interest”.
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