If you are hoping to attract people to a church service, the music on offer matters. Just ask Hillsong or Planet Shakers! Even high quality preaching and well-thought-through liturgy can be derailed by inappropriate or poorly rendered music.

As well as in the text of prayers, there is great value in maintaining consistency in the style of worship offered on Sunday morning from week to week.

Those on the Catholic wing of the Anglican church often complain that those of some other traditions have destroyed the ideal of common prayer and “don’t even use an authorised prayer book” for their services.

What are the elements of worship that might engage you in such a way that you are not merely entertained, but instead drawn into something that is positively life-giving; something that you simply cannot bear to live without?

It is this idea that not only Christ, but the people of God – the Church – might be so “attractive” or “magnetic” that I believe warrants revisiting. At a time when the adjectives most often applied to the church are “irrelevant”, “outmoded”, “boring”, “repellent”, and sometimes even “evil”, what is it that might still compel anyone, let alone an articulate educated person, to join the Church? And in a post-pandemic environment where many of those who have had a past affiliation with the church struggle to identify anything of true worth that might renew their commitment, what might make them persist as a member?