How was church today?

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Must be a recent change? I never heard of it until past discussions about it on here. My family church was very much Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday in that order.
The decision by liturgists that everyone had to experience Good Friday before Easter Sunday feels patronizing and disrespectful to me.
OTOH, it is arguable that Easter Sunday is a bit meaningless absent Good Friday so perhaps they were thinking that it was important for Christians to understand that, something that wouldn't happen if they took a pass on Good Friday? Just a thought that's a bit more charitable to the liturgists.

Personally, I think each of the Passion Week events is meaningful in the story and can be the focus of its own service so the whole Palm/Passion Sunday thing doesn't sound like it would work for me.
 
Must be a recent change? I never heard of it until past discussions about it on here. My family church was very much Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday in that order.

OTOH, it is arguable that Easter Sunday is a bit meaningless absent Good Friday so perhaps they were thinking that it was important for Christians to understand that, something that wouldn't happen if they took a pass on Good Friday? Just a thought that's a bit more charitable to the liturgists.

Personally, I think each of the Passion Week events is meaningful in the story and can be the focus of its own service so the whole Palm/Passion Sunday thing doesn't sound like it would work for me.

Face it Mani are UNA WOKE and thus God sleeps ... causing Man Geez ... partly abstract ... few can see the other halves perspective ... because they are not that intimate even if they believe so ... thus extra Mates ... ghno shites ... leads to a lot of chewing like in theis tory of the Sandpiper! Very CLOES to Virginia wolf NG it down ...

Ordinary époque find such extraneous items hard to swallow ... like some have trouble with grits and cream of wheat ... even buttered ...

Époque is really about time and age and few accept maturity ... very child-like ... naivete ... go Tae read intuit ...
 
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I sort of agree with the philosophy that Easter Sunday means something rather different without the deep grief and mourning of Good Friday.
 
It used to be that a large part of the congregation on Easter Sunday was last in church at Christmas time. Pushing the passion story into Palm Sunday has no effect on them. The Passion story belongs on Good Friday. The grief of Good Friday is important to be used for setting the context of Easter in the message on Easter Sunday.
 
A church I used to attend drew a bigger than usual crowd on Christmas Eve. The minister always put a lot of effort into creating something new & relevant every year.

I found this quite silly.

Some of these folks were just looking for traditional readings and carols. Others were there to be with their family members who were regular members. They really didn't care about all the innovations.
 
Ah yes, the infamous "Christmas and Easter Christians". Always interesting how my family church went from maybe 2/3 to 3/4 full to overflow seating in the narthex when the big holidays came around. Not a new phenomenon, on other words, but probably exacerbated by the decline of church attendance since my day.
 
About 15 to 20 years ago, Christmas and Easter services started having decreasing attendance. I wonder how kuch of that was due to worship leaders striving for current and relevant services? Since traditional services did not lead to those people getting more involved, it was not a great loss. The people who came and felt connected to relevant services matter more.
 
As a congregation, we don't have a huge ebb and flow of attendance. It gets low in the summer, busy christmas and easter services, but not huge.
 
Look beyond the Modern Christian "one-way" perspective of the Golden Rule ... it is TU's Ide 'd ...

Whatever happens will come back at cha' ... especially when believing in control, control, control ... that's avarice ... pay attention to strangers and alien ... they may carry fresh thoughts! Messy free-for-all unless moderated with a kuch ... domain in the Egyptian twist! Got it? Amon crossing a dry place ... potentially in a daze ... or alternately out-of-ide ... deux 've a item of contention! The mortal phenomenon is similar to this ... pure chaos! Potentially due to excess desires, etc. little thoughts ...

Imagine all those pompous personalities with gardens on their head having all else stripped away ... natural Ephraim ... well packaged at the source ...

There that's whetted ... what else can we divine? Dan, can you see that big green tri? It starts with alei ph' ... a shot in the dark ... spore, or shrove Eire ... it's al EI Va! D' roué 'L yah mist ... 'L Ayah 'n ought there ... phonetic scramble ... God Games?

Just W'rd projected ... raising query about RD's ... and arts ... not absolute! Word rush ... some cannot receive all that fast ... with consequence they choke ...
 
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We had a beautiful church service yesterday. We only have Sunday School once a month now, but yesterday we had 6 children, one of whom was my 5 year old grandson. They got to open the box....a big deal in our church. We put away the 'hallelujahs' at the beginning of Lent and let them out on Easter Sunday. When the box is opened, balloons rise up. The kids are in awe. But before that even happened, we have one choir member who has an outstanding singing voice and she sang the Easter Hallelujah at the beginning of the service. She puts much emotion into it and it is stunningly beautiful. The Sunday School kids were all sitting together in the front row, and they were staring at the singer in absolute adoration. They know the tune from Shrek. So when the final Hallelujahs were being sung, they all spontaneously joined in...singing with confidence and reverence. It was beyond beautiful! On our chuch's website, I posted a little bit of that story, just as a reminder about how beautiful Easter Sunday was. Also, we had 10 members join our church. Most have been coming for awhile, but finally made the big decision.
 
a short session
started by me greeting the Anglican Cats...5 of them now? Two of them were on their home's roof lol

One is a cuddle suck

Signed up for readings
I got positive feedback from some people for last reading

fellowship had our resident German bring his awesome raisin oatmeal cookies. mmm mmm
 
The mathematical potential of describing a hollow sphere in a formula was discussed and how curiosities come up an released anger ... vents in des phere?

Quite upsetting to those that thought everything was down Pat ... and we don't even know what we don't know! It is outa the image ... without a spot of abstract ...
 
Last preaching until June for me. Service was well received. One young man told me the service was spot on. My message was about courage to doubt, courage to change based on Thomas in the reading. I think I will post it on WC2
 
We had a wonderful presentation by two members of the Jewish Christian Dialogue of Toronto. The United Church rep is a retired minister in our congregation.
 
What was the focus of their presentation @P3?
They talked a lot about the common roots of present day Judaism and Christianity going back to the first century.

A few basic things were explained like the Tanakh and our Old Testament. The roots of antisemitism in John's Gospel got a mention.

There were some funny moments like when the Jewish woman asked if singing ability was something we screened for in the United Church. She talked about the Psalms as hymns of praise.

The present day threats Jewish people are receiving were touched on briefly. She commented on how free she felt walking into our church. There is a security detail on her synagogue these days.

Our common roots were the focus more than present day commonalities. But we have them as well.

It was a meaningful service.
 
I skipped church today because it was a busy day yesterday. I watched on YouTube. Everyone was wearing masks and the camera angle was different from usual. Turns out there was a covid outbreak in the choir. They were supposed to have had an event that was cancelled "because of illness". Events that were supposed to happen this week have been cancelled.

I'm glad I stayed home. I wish there had been some kind of warning. I wouldn't have been happy if I'd gone.
 
Today was awesome. Camping Sunday. So in Memorial Hall instead of the sanctuary, many people in camping clothes, lots of fun tunes, very well done. We have a very authentic looking little campfire, ingeniously constructed by one of our handy Dutch guys, our music director has a great little portable keyboard, the choir had a blast and our Emily (the grown up daughter of one of my fav women) did some great warm ups and ice breakers in FULL camp counsellor personality, right down to the tie-dyed t-shirt... Big guy was away, but my friend D who I usually drive (and the three of us sit together in 'our' pew), was back after being sick for three weeks.
 
In the presentation yesterday was an excellent article about story tellers of mythical quality ... a great spread of sacred and unknown matters to raise con science ...

N' esse's Aryan ... hidden messages because real folk are difficult listeners! Like worms in the great apple 't ... it fell! Sigh dere evolved ... Ci? The word is thus worked ... creatively! Assists in hiding items that the general populace doesn't desire to know that well ... thus depth! That's the word ...

You never really know until really sinking ... and alas, out of sight!
 
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