In the Mid-Lachlan Mission Area all the village congregations were invited to participate in a trial of Project Reconnect. All except one congregation agreed to the trial. It was very important from this point that the congregations felt an increase in support and not a decrease!

At the beginning the increase in support was through creating training sessions for each congregation. This was usually immediately after normal worship. We spread all sorts of nice food around, including lollies, soft drink, coffee, biscuits, cake, and so on. This was to help people have an enjoyable learning experience. By way of interactional, or inductive, learning we explored the structure of worship. This was important because it would not be long before they were organising worship and they would need to understand how to put the church service together in a way that would flow. While we did everything we could to make the training occasions light (and almost decadent with food!) we did not anticipate the response. It was like a switch had been turned on. People made comments like, "We have been doing church this way for all these years and never knew why! It makes so much sense” “I can see for myself how it works and what I have been doing all this time!" It was indeed exciting for the trainers to watch people enter into this discovery process.

Training is not yet over. As congregations increase in skill and confidence further training will be required. An example from the NSW Synod is the Lay Preacher, Lay Presider, and other worship courses offered by the Elm Centre. For more information, be in touch with the Elm Centre www.elm.org.au .For those who would like to learn about the structure of worship there are various places to find this information. For members of the Uniting Church the "Uniting In Worship 2[1]" leaders book has a concise explanation.

The Structure of Worship (not including the Lord's Supper)

The Gathering of the People of God
The Service of The Word
The Sending Forth of the People of God

In these pages, those items marked with  *  are considered essential for Worship in Uniting in Worship II and those marked with  #  are considered essential for Project Reconnect to reach its maximum potential.

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October 10, 2006 - December 2009