Getting To Know You

I just found the record of an old Church Meeting -- an executive meeting of members -- the highest, in fact only authority in a Congregational Church. An important issue we discussed was the fact that so often I, as minister, was the glue that held people together in the Church, while the congregation were not as familiar with each other as I was familiar with the congregation. We wanted to remedy this. A number of possibilities were suggested for helping the congregation to get to know and serve each other better. OBSERVATION: We agreed that a priority was the priesthood of believers, or ministry by members. Apart from anything else that this achieves, it helps congregants to get to know each other a whole lot better.