What does your Church do, that you really wish they didn't?

[Sausagenbacon]

I'm obviously not going to do a flounce on the basis of this, but..
We used to have hymn numbers in the service sheet (there's no boards). But they've stopped doing that, in the aim of inclusion. Instead, the hymn numbers are announced during the service.
Which is ok, except when we stand to offer one another a sign of peace.
So the clergy say 'you may now offer each other a sign of peace, and the next hymn is xx'
Written down, it doesn't sound that bad, but it actually feels like an interruption in a lovely part of the service.

We were in a church with a prayer chain. At first it was a phone number one where in your home group the first person was told, then they phoned #1 on the list, who called #2 etc.
This worked reasonably well until the evening we had 5 individual phone calls between 7 and 8pm, none of which for prayers that were immediately urgent. I seem to remember the last was along the lines of "please pray for X's next door neighbour's uncle whose hairdresser's son was in a car accident yesterday and is recovering well."
As a group of young mums, all of whom were trying to do bedtime at this point, we agreed that any prayer chain messages after 6pm could wait unti, the next day unless they were urgent prayer needed now (eg someone currently in surgery level).

We then moved onto an email chain, where you signed up for it (and could withdraw at any moment) and so the emails would be sent out and read at your convenience.
That worked better.

However we had an elderly lady who I never worked out if it was her or someone that helped her that used to send the funniest messages, often with different meanings.

"Please pray for X as she has no one to take her to the hairdressers tomorrow" (aka "can anyone take X to the hairdressers tomorrow?"
My favourite was
"Please pray for X as she was feeling unwell yesterday, but is better today."
(did she want to be unwell? Is she disappointed she feels better?")
But we also had
"Please pray for X's neighbour whose cat went missing last year."
and
"Please pray for X as her Christmas decorations come down"
and occasional just
"Please pray for X" with no explanation.
or
"X would like us all to pray for world peace..."

It was greatly entertaining. 😁

I agree. I would leave and move to a different church if this was happening at mine. Surely thats obvious though? I assume the issue is how do you know because it appears to be covered up so often.

Organ and Latin and chant.

Would love some modern praise songs so I could actually focus on Jesus and pray rather that sounding out some letters with no meaning. Also chant needs real concentration as it's so irregular, so that takes up my brain leaving no room to pray.

But it seems to be what most people, especially the young, want these days, so for the sake of the kingdom and bringing people to meet Jesus, I will put up with it, and pray at home.

@isittheholidaysyet would you consider another church? There are lots around that have what you would like. Lots of young people in many of them too.

60's child here too, and I only remember singing one version at our school. I was brought up Anglican, and parents watched Songs of Praise on the telly every week.

In more recent years we began going to our local Methodist church, and they often use different music to the ones imprinted in my DNA!

No. Because the church is really good.
Loads of teenagers and their parents.
Evangelisation happening actively.

I'm catholic and believe that theology. There are no other catholic churches nearby which offer what I would like. They might not have the Latin, but also don't have the young people, families and sense of mission.

I'll continue here and drop in charismatic events now and again and protestant church occasionally!

This

Support archbishops who didn't protect children .

Have you asked the vicar if it might be possible to run more informal, modern worship services alongside the more traditional ones so there is something for everyone. I could see that if someone was new to faith, the use of Latin could be quite off-putting. Traditional organ music and Latin isn't for everyone and in most churches it's possible to accommodate different worship styles.

We do some, but to honest, I think it's only me who wants it!

@Zippea

That's awful. I would have been really hurt by that.

@TheyCantBurnUsAll

The Baptist church I went to said that SEN was a devil attached to your child. I had two children with asd.

Modern hymns, the wrong Lord's Prayer and screens

I work there and do get my way for some services, I'm leading the fight for hymn books, trespassing and a diet of the Wesley's and George Herbert!

I'm a traditionalist, but I think screens are a great idea, making people look up and sing, instead of mumbling into their hymn books

You should tell someone in the church rather than leaving. I work in a church and would welcome this feedback

Gender is a social construct

Preaching during weekday Mass. people are there in their lunch break. Get on with it! Especially as both priests are terrible preachers anyway. Wish they'd get moved to another parish. And the bishop needs to go too, he's a disaster!

At the start of covid the diocese sent a letter to all the church wardens. It didn’t offer support or explain how they would / could support parishioners. Instead it was a list of ideas for how to continue fundraising, the first of which was to write to all parishioners asking for money.

My second annoyance is when the vicar attends services but just sits there and lets a lay person do pretty much the whole service - including the sermon. And just hops up to do the communion.

A failure to clearly stand by their beliefs and to keep trying to keep everyone happy, changing fundamental things because of current social fads, without any proper consideration.

I’m getting increasingly frustrated with the Church of England. On the ground it’s a dying institution and I think they should be acknowledging that and planning around it. The wealth it has at the top levels is just not being used in ways I think are going to move the CofE forwards. I’ve been going to a happy flappy charismatic church and although it’s not necessarily my natural spiritual home I love the positivity and practically changes it
makes in our community instead of just worrying about heating bills and roofs.

It’s very frustrating. The upper echelons do absolutely nothing to engage with or support the majority of their parishioners and local communities (whether they have faith or not). Instead they focus on niche groups and discussions which just put most people off.

I bet she would have been good on Countdown.

If you look into the Strategic Development Fund and the concept of resourcing churches, you will see that the Church of England is already doing what you want them to do. They identify churches and groups of churches that have a real heart and vision for church growth, community work and planting new churches and invest in those churches and plough extra funding into those churches so that they can then take what they have learned and apply it to other churches.
In my city, this funding has meant that a dilapidated nightclub has been transformed into a vibrant city centre church. A church with a congregation of 12, mostly elderly, people that was going to be shut down, received funding and a church plant and is now a thriving church with over 60 people there each Sunday.

I left church because the vicar was pressing me to pray against gay marriage.

I will never pray against someone’s right to be in a loving, committed partnership, protected by law.

I felt free when I left. I worship in my own way now- out in nature.

@NannyR i wish we could see some of that in our rural parishes. There is nothing like that going on anywhere near me. I think there is a big difference in rural areas and we can not keep churches open much longer.

We're having a big unification of small churches by 2027. All the smaller ones will close and we'll all have to go to the main one. We've got an average of 20 attending each week in a church that could hold about 600.