We can't go on meeting like this!

In these days when ordained ministers are getting thinner on the ground, the churches of all denominations are encouraging congregations more and more to 'do it themselves'. It is presented in idealistic terms as 'unlocking the hidden talents' of the congregation, or 'whole body worship'. The reality is usually less exciting. Members of the congregation are coerced into taking a reading or a prayer, or getting together in a group to plan a service. Individuals may be urged to get some training and become lay preachers. But, let's face it, many people need a lot of persuading to take part in servives, and even if they consent they do it very nervously, convinced that they can't do it like a 'proper' minister.

What's the answer? To let churches close if they haven't got a trained, ordained minister? To leave them to book anybody, no matter how ignorant or eccentric, who thinks they can preach? This is a problem in some of the smaller Nonconformist chapels, where the question of who leads worship is not regulated by the wider church.

But hang on a minute: what is it we are doing? Why is there this mindset that assumes that in order to worship God we have to 'have a service', and in order to have a service we need someone to 'take' it? It's a mindset that has been nurtured in the churches for generations: the Quakers, and perhaps to some extent the charismatics, are the only ones who have escaped it.

The problem is that, in encouraging lay participation, we are assuming that lay people will learn to do the sort of things ministers do: the ministers are their role model. To lead worship, you have to 'know how' to pray the way ministers do, and preach a sermon the way ministers do. But surely if our faith is real to us we will express it in our way, not someone else's. Somehow we have to break down this clergy-centred mindset and begin to see worship simply as believers, and seekers as well, getting together to celebrate, explore and reinforce their faith and to find the ways in which they can practise it in the world. This could mean forgetting about 'Orders of Service', dispensing with preachers - and with organists for that matter - and just meeting. The clergy must learn that they have their own place, and that lay people have their place alongside them as lay people, not as second-class clergy.