My hubbie and I were away to York over the weekend. While there, we went along to St Michael le Belfrey church for Sunday worship.
It's the proper parish church right next to the minster. Not being fully knowledgeable of Church of England practices, I'm not too sure of the distinction. Anyway, we arrived shortly before 11am and the praise band were warming up. We did get a really good welcome from a member of the congregation who explained what went on etc. Unfortunately, with the praise ban warming up, it was hard to hear her at times, but fair play for making the effort.
For some reason, which I'm not too clear about, they serve refreshments mid-service. That gave my hubbie and I a good point to depart semi-discreetly.
Why, you may ask. Well, it didn't feel as though worship had started, although it had apparently been going on for 35-40 minutes by that point. The two people leading worship had introduced themselves and let everyone know the order of things (useful for visitors) and we'd sung a few songs. We'd even been invited to discuss with someone next to us something we didn't understand (my hubbie and I looked at each other and in unison said "Quantum mechanics").
Yet during those parts, members of the congregation still chatted among themselves. It just felt like we were waiting for something to happen. Like, when you were a kid and you were waiting on a visitor or a bus to take you on a trip and they were late. The teacher would get you to sing songs until they arrived to keep you occupied and entertained. It felt very like that
Or, put another way. The hymn "As the deer pants for water" has the line "I long to worship you". That's what the part of the service we endured felt like longing to worship. Well,get on with it then!!!
To there credit, the church was pretty full, but I couldn't and still can't keep thinking it felt more like a white (almost all) 30-40 something middle class club. Perhaps I'm too harsh. If that's what brings them closer to God, fair play. I felt further away.
Judging from their website, you just spent too long in bed ;)
ReplyDeleteShould have been up for the 9am service. It sounds like the 11am family service is more like an extended all-age talk. I've been to a church where this sort of format was followed over the summer (although it might have been the other way round) - an early(ish) family service that was pretty much just an extended children's address, which allowed families to make the most of a summer Sunday, then there was the more traditional worship service. It worked quite well in that context and there is a lot of merit in following that style at certain times.
It's becoming more of a challenge to engage all ages at a single service nowadays. I realise that there are issues with splitting things like this - we should be worshipping as a 'family', but those are often just good intentions and shouldn't dictate how our worship is constructed. Contextual and relevant, to grab a couple of key words from Emerging Church, and that often means tailored worship.
Yeah, perhaps we should have got out of bed earlier ;-).
ReplyDeleteI can see the merit for having different types of services at different times. I think churches have a bad habit of services must be at 11. But this service wasn't even a long children's address. There was no talking with us, just talking at us and there was little of us. And, in the time we were there not 1 prayer or mention of God or Jesus had been made by those leading worship.
Call me old fashioned, but that's why we're there and not mentioning God, in any guise, even in a very informal service, to me doesn't make it worship, but a singie songie social club, maybe with a side portion of God mentioning in passing at the end.
Glad I got that off my chest!
I wonder what might have happened after you left...? How do you know you hadn't missed the 'best bit'? Or that the seeming randomness was given some coherence/ made sense in the overall context in the latter half of the service?
ReplyDeleteWhile that style of [half] the service you attended wasn't your thing, it sounds as if it had meaning to the folks who were the regular worshipping faith community... it's always a tricky thing visiting another worshipping community 'cold' as it were - you don't know that communities story and with the best will in the world, will feel a little 'outside' of things. Just a thought.
Nik
ReplyDeleteFair point, very well made. Sometimes that's the trouble with church. There's so many rituals each denomination has and each church within that and we expect strangers to "get it" strainght away.
What I can definately say, it wasn't for me, but one man's meat's another man's poison, so to speak!
lol, and that is totally fair enough too, Mrs G :)
ReplyDeleteWhich does open up a possibility for an interesting discussion sometime on 'liturgical poison' doesn't it? *grins*
Liturgical poison...yeah, I could see that being a very interesting discussion, though I don't think I'll be using that as my discussion point at selection conference ;-)
ReplyDelete