Arlen Goff, Worship Team Leader

High Street Church takes worship seriously. Each Sunday it takes a minimum of 7 persons to plan, prepare, and produce a worship service that is inspiring, creative, innovative, and transformative. At present, our Worship Team has 13 members, some of whom do double duty by performing more than one task or role in worship.

We are always looking for additional persons to help with the tasks associated with worship. At present, we are in desperate need of additional tech persons, both online and onsite. The tasks involve hosting Zoom sessions, managing our sound needs in the sanctuary, and helping with the slides which appear on our monitors. Anyone interested in joining our Worship Team should contact me and I’ll be glad to put you to work.

On another note, I appreciate the feedback (both positive and negative) we’ve received about the changes in how we handle Joys and Concerns. I’ve heard it said that “Joys and Concerns” is the third rail of Unitarian Universalist worship. Change is always both resisted and welcomed, but is often necessary. Our present status is to continue offering an opportunity each Sunday during the offertory for folks to express a silent passage or milestone by dropping a glass pebble in the container of water at the front of the sanctuary. Then, on the 1st and 3rd Sundays (and in those months when we have a 5th Sunday), we’ll offer members and friends the opportunity to voice their Joys and Concerns from the platform.

There may be times when a critical event occurs in the lives of our members and friends that needs voicing on a Sunday when we are not scheduled to have spoken Joys and Concerns. In those circumstances, we request that you share the information with Rev. Amanda or the Worship Leader so that appropriate mention can be made in the context of worship. 

Worship does indeed matter at High Street Church. Your feedback is always welcomed and taken into consideration. We trust that you realize that planning, preparing, and producing quality worship is, at times, a daunting task and that all involved are doing their best to meet the needs of all our members, friends, and supporters.

UBS (the financial services company) has a tagline stating “Advice is our craft.” At High Street, “worship is our craft.” We want every Sunday morning to be a welcoming, affirmative, transformative experience for those present. We invite you to join us in this important work.