How was church today?

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Jae said:
It's interesting to me to consider different regular orders of worship. This is something my class group and I discussed in the Spiritual Formation course I am just finishing up...
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...In what I would say is the most unusual order shared, at one church they stop the service after the first set of songs and everyone goes on a 10-minute coffee break.
 
Jae said:
...In what I would say is the most unusual order shared, at one church they stop the service after the first set of songs and everyone goes on a 10-minute coffee break.
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Sounds like something UUs would do. :rolleyes:

I actually enjoy mixing things up a bit at times. There's a place for a set liturgy but I like it as a starting point, not as the be-all and end-all. Of course, there's a bit more leeway to do that in UU'ism. My old fellowship is kind of all over the map liturgically right now. First "service" of the month is a brunch with discussion of the monthly theme. RE takes one service so that there is one intergenerational a month now, instead of two or three spread over the year. And in the "off season" from late June to Labour Day, they use a format with the congregation in a circle and lots of interaction between leader and participants (shared readings, short discussions, and so on). So, really, only perhaps 20 services a year now that follow a more traditional liturgy (the default UU liturgy tends to be a much simplified Protestant one), and maybe not even that since the minister and lay worship leader may choose to mix things up, too.
 
Our service seemed a bit 'off' yesterday. We just got word that one of our choir members (who is also chair of our board) was called to the hospital as her husband was moved from a regular hospital room to ICU. Our minister was going to head there right after the service. It set us all off a bit, and our choir anthem turned out awful.
 
Jae said:
...In what I would say is the most unusual order shared, at one church they stop the service after the first set of songs and everyone goes on a 10-minute coffee break.
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Actually this sounds delightful to me - perhaps it could be tried once a month for awhile and see how it flies. Recently at our church we've been discussing the time of service - we have always had it at 11:00 am but it has been suggested that we move it to 10:00 or 10:30. One of the arguments for the change would be that more people would stay for the social time after service if they weren't rushing home for lunch and afternoon activities. Someone suggested that the social time be scheduled for before the formal worship.

I think your idea even better.
I envision it like this:
Greeting, call to worship, prayer, and hymn sing
Introduction of the theme / time with the children
Break for refreshments and social
Children go to classes and the rest of the congregation, possibly still with coffee in hand, return to the sanctuary for the rest of the service.
 
Seeler said:
Actually this sounds delightful to me - perhaps it could be tried once a month for awhile and see how it flies. Recently at our church we've been discussing the time of service - we have always had it at 11:00 am but it has been suggested that we move it to 10:00 or 10:30. One of the arguments for the change would be that more people would stay for the social time after service if they weren't rushing home for lunch and afternoon activities. Someone suggested that the social time be scheduled for before the formal worship.

I think your idea even better.
I envision it like this:
Greeting, call to worship, prayer, and hymn sing
Introduction of the theme / time with the children
Break for refreshments and social
Children go to classes and the rest of the congregation, possibly still with coffee in hand, return to the sanctuary for the rest of the service.
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Seeler - I really like that! It may work out well for you.

At my church we have a prayer meeting with coffee and/or tea at 10:30 a.m., followed by the worship service at 11 a.m., and then a fellowship time from around 12:15 p.m.-2 p.m. with many treats such as coffee, cookies, sandwiches, roast chicken... one time someone even brought in an entire roasted pig!

This past Sunday I was at a wonderful church service of my former church. There was really great music and a good video about Palm Sunday. Then I preached about finding significance in life through being a suffering servant. It was so great to visit my former church. There was such a warm welcome and great friendly chat. There has always been so much love, energy, and enthusiasm in that church.

On Good Friday I'll be going to my own church service, and on Easter Sunday I'll go to the United Church across the street from Yobo's flower store.
 
This morning I attended worship at Cochrane Street United Church in St. John's.

It is just off of Military Rd and on the beginning of the steep descent down into St. John's harbour.

Celebration was huge this morning for a number of reasons apart from Easter (as if a Church needs more than that but I digress).

Cochrane Street United Church has been holding services for the past 15 months across town in an Adventist Church which is vacant on Sunday mornings for obvious reasons.

The vacancy was necessitated by a renovation of the Churches Education wing (every big pre-Union Methodist Church had one) which has removed classrooms and converted them into 10 independent living apartments. One of which is designated accessible. Apart from that renovation the Sunday Church School Hall has been renovated into community space for meetings and such. It is augmented by an industrial kitchen which is amazing and will, in turn, allow them to become a teaching facility as well as easily pull down some community meals with ease while respecting safe serve requirements.

We got a sneak peek on Tuesday, while a crew was dusting the Sanctuary because of construction dust.

So, apart from Easter Cochrane Street was celebrating a homecoming worthy of any Prodigal coming to their senses.

And if you like quirks of history here are a few more . . .

101 years ago on Easter Sunday morning the congregation of Cochrane Street United celebrated the opening of that very sanctuary after losing the previous building to fire (find a Church below military rd in St. John's that has not been rebuilt because of fire at least once--yes, the city did suffer a hugely devastating fire once upon a time). Neat don't you think?

Shortly after opening this sanctuary 101 years ago an infant was baptized. Today Cochrane baptized the great-great nephew of that first baptism. And that infant wore the Christening gown (I wince at the name because we don't christen we baptize) that his great-great uncle wore 101 years ago. True it is really more family history but in this instance the intersections with the congregation up the meaning somewhat.

The Reverend Miriam Bowlby gave a delightful Easter homily that was far too brief and then we celebrated the sacrament of Holy Communion together.

I count that all to the good.

Now the nitpicks.

Tremendous crowd and great excitement and anticipation, this being Newfoundland you would think a crowd that size could raise the roof during congregational singing.

Not so.

Ordinarily I get to belt out a hymn and with a handful of voices I am not too obvious. I could have drowned the whole crowd. I have never seen such timid singing in all my days. I can't describe my profound sadness over a packed congregation that will not let its voice be heard.

Gobsmacked! I'm still reeling.

Also, the Minister is away for the next two weeks so they have some hangashore Come From Away taking services.

Doomed.
 
Ah so - pick some good well known hymns for the next two weeks preacher john!

Occasionally - our congregation would tackle a new hymn with the help of the choral director - teaching was light hearted & voices gained confidence.

The music was but one thing I loved at GC42 - to be surrounded by several hundred people who knew & loved singing the hymns - and a great band too - was a fantastic experience!
 
We are going to a new church since the house was sold in January.
I was a little disappointed with the service today, although the message of hope did come through. It's a church full of young families with lots and lots of children. A good mix, the young ones do outnumber the older adults, which is okay, I absolutely love having kids around.

They had to hold two services today to accommodate everyone. Easter,for the past month, was touted as something so special at this church that even other churches came to experience it. Well, about the only difference I saw besides the obvious importance of the message, was that there was a corner set up in the church where you could get your picture taken with the Easter Bunny. The day before they had a giant Easter Egg hunt in the city for anyone that could make it.....600 showed up. I felt like an old fogy.....thinking that "don't we get enough of this junk without bringing it into the church too?" Oh and there were chocolate Easter bunnies put under some of the chairs.:confused: I can see the Easter Egg hunt as a sort of outreach.....but the Easter Bunny pics in church.....Cringe worthy IMO.....what do you all think?

@revjohn, with regards to the music at your service.....I like to hear the congregation belting it out too, but the church I am now attending, all stand to listen to the band sing 4 or 5 songs without nary a peep coming out of the peoples mouths. I recognize none of the songs and it's my suspicion that the music leader writes them all himself.....which might explain why he is the only one singing within the band too. We do have the words on screen....and yes they are mostly 711 songs. The tune for every song sounds the same. I love modern Christian songs and there are so many out there....just wish they would find them. Rant off.

Now despite my complaints above, I did enjoy the message for Easter based on how the Hope of Jesus, still lives in all of us....especially for what's happening in the world today and in our personal lives.
 
I've told you about some of the little tiny churches that I do some lay worship leading at. Well....revjohn...if you're ever up this way, I'll bring you. You would love the singing. Sometimes 12 or 14 people can really raise the roof. And when I look at the faces while they are singing...it does my heart good.
The service at my church was great, and pretty packed...over 60 people. Our choir sang an old standby because two of our best singers were away, so we didn't want to tackle anything too hard. We sang "He Lives" and a trio (including me as alto) sang "The Old Rugged Cross". My very honest sister said that we did a 'perfect' job! I love singing.
 
Very nice morning. Surprised by arrival of mum, two sisters and an auntie. They heard we give free cookies!

Weather was fun. Cloudy damp morning after drizzly night. Clouds cleared just as we began our service. Sky stayed bright and blue as we celebrated the victory of life over death. Then clouded over and began raining.

Still drizzling.

George

 
Ok "sunrise service" at the beach-given the ever increasing age of congregation it was at 830. Clear flat lake. an eagle flew by, landed on a tree and flew off, a loon called. Service was ok. Then picked up hockey billets for breakfast at church and 11 am service. Hotcross buns, eggs, and hot cross buns. I did the scripture reading, and a quote about balnce from Suze Orman and then led the kids in sunday school. 7 age 3-18 which is high for us. Now the 16 and 18 year olds were my hockey billets. I had hidden 12 easter story eggs and 12 plastic eggs I had put some candy in, So I re-told the Easter story using Ralph Milton's lectionary bible. The all the kids did a combined egg hunt with a shared basket. Then each child chose an egg with candy-like 2 tiny foiled wrapped eggs, and I opened the story eggs and re-told the Easter story with the props.

Interesting idea from our minister in a personal conversation as we walked to the lake this morning-Why is the cross our symbol? The empty grave should be. It's not the death we celebrate but the resurrection.
 
Haven't been to a sunrise service for several years, used to go every year when I was a kid. They were always amazing if a little chilly waiting for the sun to come up. Today went to worship with my sister at her Presbyterian church. The patriarchal language of the hymns was a bit disconcerting compared to what I am used to at my United church. A nice day all round though.
 
One of the things that I like about the church that I am attending is that there doesn't seem to be the "must be done in an hour" requirement.

Today's service was long, the sermon was great, the music was fine (had my dad a tap & a clapping), and communion was as it should be.

I like that the focus is on worship rather than the clock.
 
My church has 2 services so a bit more of clock watching panic with the 9:05 service to be sure it is over in time for the 10:45 service to start. Kind of a mixed bag though as the folks at the earlier service are a bit more laid back and yet is is nice to worship at the second service as it can run a bit late with no panic and rushing.
 
Pinga said:
One of the things that I like about the church that I am attending is that there doesn't seem to be the "must be done in an hour" requirement.

Today's service was long, the sermon was great, the music was fine (had my dad a tap & a clapping), and communion was as it should be.

I like that the focus is on worship rather than the clock.
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While I agree that this is a good thing, I also think one must be careful with length nonetheless. The problem becomes that certain people lose focus if you run too long. Some may last 90 minutes, some may be nodding after 45 minutes. I've been to services where they packed a large baptism and a communion into a service without making room anywhere else in the liturgy and no matter what they did, even my attention started wandering. If you are going to run long, you have make sure there is a reason to do so; something to keep the focus. Simply running long because you can't be arsed to plan your time well is no better than keeping to an hour because it "must be done in an hour".
 
Understood. In this case, it was Easter, there was an unexpected but welcome and accepted/unhurried announcement/thank-you, and passing the peace is truly a thing of beauty at this church. So...all in all good
 
Length of service has been an issue for us. We have quite a few seniors living in places that serve lunch and so service is supposed to be over by 12. (It starts at 11). We tried starting 10 minutes early with announcements etc but that wasn't consistent.
Our minister has been doing 2 churches us .8 and a neighboring town (.2) but they ended his appointment based on fiances.
Our congregation voted and moving our time to 10 am was the overwhelming choice. Running over the hour will not be a problem.
 
Mendalla said:
While I agree that this is a good thing, I also think one must be careful with length nonetheless. The problem becomes that certain people lose focus if you run too long. Some may last 90 minutes, some may be nodding after 45 minutes. I've been to services where they packed a large baptism and a communion into a service without making room anywhere else in the liturgy and no matter what they did, even my attention started wandering. If you are going to run long, you have make sure there is a reason to do so; something to keep the focus. Simply running long because you can't be arsed to plan your time well is no better than keeping to an hour because it "must be done in an hour".
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I confess right off that I am not a "60 minute in and out" pastor. My question: isn't having a large baptism or communion a reason to run long? Personally I don't make room somewhere else in the liturgy when we have a baptism or communion. People know that baptism or communion generally means 15 minutes longer. To "make room" for it by cutting something else out implies that what's being cut out isn't that important. If so, why have it there in the first place then? To me, what's interesting about the "in and out in 60 minutes" would be to know exactly where and why the one hour service became the standard expectation. And, of course, it's not universally. To an extent it's cultural - even micro-cultural in that it varies from denomination to denomination and even congregation to congregation.

A few years ago I attended worship at Trinity United Church of Christ on the south side of Chicago. That, of course, was Barack Obama's home church until politics forced him to quit because the pastor - Jeremiah Wright - had made some remarks in the course of a sermon that Obama's political opponents managed to twist out of context so that Obama had to distance himself from the church. In any event, on the Sunday I went (it was a routine summer service) the church was jam packed. It was interesting being one of the few white people in an overwhelmingly African American congregation in an overwhelmingly African American neighbourhood. But the greeting was tremendously warm. The service lasted three hours. It was loaded with wonderful music - some congregational, some choir. There were prayers, there were dramas, there were (as I recall) two different sermons (each was at least half an hour in length.) No one left and I had the impression people would have stayed a lot longer. People hung around after the service for refreshments. The atmosphere was joyful. I actually went away wondering what was wrong with most of the congregations I've experienced, where someone's going to complain if the service runs to 62 minutes or the sermon is going to be called repetitive if it goes more than 15.

Yesterday, our Easter service ran 70-75 minutes. It was very well attended, as usual on Easter. It seemed more culturally diverse than usual - a lot of visitors from what you'd call "minority" populations. (It's fair to say that even on a normal Sunday our congregation is usually more racially and culturally diverse than most UCC congregations I've experienced.)
 
When I was growing up in the United Church, services were generally kept to an hour but on Communion Sundays they were about 75 minutes. In those days we did not have the passing of the peace or make announcements within the church service.

Announcements were printed in the bulletin and it was expected that you would take the bulletin home and read it later.

Passing of the peace and announcement time can both become quite lengthy if not managed well. I have also noticed that having a lay presider in addition to the minister tends to make the service run a little longer.

These days I am happy with services that run between 60 - 75 minutes. Any longer often seems unnecessary to me and I find my attention wandering.
 
I suspect the length of service was fixed to approx. one hour when ministers frequently served multi-point charges and led worship in three services each Sunday. The 11:00 am time for morning worship was set when farmers had to get their morning chores done, harness the horse, and drive into the village for church.
For myself, I like the 11:00 time. I can get my house tidied, preparations for cooking dinner started, etc. and then go to church - generally the highlight of my Sunday. Running fifteen minutes over for something special, and then staying another half hour for coffee and community are fine for me. Except -- often people have commitments (work, hockey, expected company, music recitals, volunteering). They start fidgeting and looking at their watches (phones) as the service runs over. They quietly sneak out during the last hymn and miss the benediction.

The question of time of service has come up (again) in my church. I suspect that it will be changed to either 10:00 or 10:30. The person I know who brought it up likes the idea because 'you get it over with and still have the afternoon free'. He is also the person who complained this week about 'intellectual' sermons.
But it has been pointed out that it will be easier for older people who lives in residences to get home for their noon meal; and harder for the older people who have trouble getting started in the morning with meds and personal care, and for families with young children or teens. I suggested a time of coffee and fellowship before the service but the idea floated like a lead balloon.

Back to 'how was church today?' It was fine. Seelergirl and Pete and Grandson were there to fill our pew. Unfortunately Granddaughter was working.
A little mix-up at the beginning. Seelerman and I went early to serve as greeters at the door, only to find someone else there. As more gathered we discovered that we had too many greeters, and not enough ushers. Somebody goofed! Seelerman went up to our pew. I agreed to usher (something I don't enjoy doing; I like greeting). It was OK. I assisted with communion; something I consider an honour and hope to continue doing off and on as long as I can hold the tray of bread.
 
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