Tradition in Meetings
W hen I attended the BMAA annual meeting, the president of the association preached on the first night. The president’s message has become a tradition in recent years. There has always been an annual message. That is also traditional. But on the first night, one of the vice-presidents got up and did another traditional thing. He expressed the appreciation of the association for the sermon. It is traditional for someone to be asked to get up in front of the association after a sermon, shake the preacher’s hand and express gratitude for the sermon, usually summarizing the message as he does. There is also a tradition of someone getting up to introduce the speaker before the sermon. I’m not sure how these traditions got started, but they have become a part of nearly every church association I’ve been involved with. At the meeting, a group of us were sitting around discussing a few things and one of the things that came up was the level of planning of the worship services. Considering th...