styles of church worship- can you explain?

[glitterkitty]

Hi

Bit of a silly question- I have only been to one church (our local one). Curious about how different CofE churches worship- different styles etc? Only been going about 2 years.

It says on my churches website that its style of worship is 'Modern catholic'- but the church is CofE.

Can any kind person tell me what this means? Whats the difference from, say, a baptist church? Just asking out of curiosity, and ignorance!

Thank you very much!

Catholic vs Evangelical - this is a theological set of values. Catholic means that they put a lot of emphasis on church tradition and heritage. Evangelical means that the emphasis is on what it says in the bible. There is another branch of Anglicanism which puts emphasis on modern day interpretation of the teachings of Christ (eg love one another), so how to make sense of the gospel in our modern world.

Every church should value each part of this three legged stool, but in reality, more emphasis is put on one of them. I would worry about a church that only had one set of values, however.

Worship Style - high vs low.

High means with all the trimmings - candles, bells, smells, vestments, processings etc etc. Low means no vestments, very casual, no signs of cross etc. And there is everything in between.

I would imagine that modern catholic means an emphasis on church tradition but with low worship (modern songs, casual traditions).

Baptists are typically evangelical (bible focussed) and low worship.

What you find in the CofE that you don't really find in the Baptist church is active liturgy, meaning that the congregation is active in all parts of the service.

Thank you! I'm going to take the time to read that over carefully, and do some internet research. Its all very interesting.

I appreciate the time you took to answer MmeBlueberry, - not coming from a church going family, I sometimes feel a bit like everyone else has read the book and I'm just pretending to know what I'm doing!

You are welcome, glitter.

I love the diversity of church worship and doctrine. I love the Church of England. I am always happy to share my experience with others. I am an evangelical Anglican by choice, but have been 'forced' for several years to be in a liberal, moderate-high church. It was quite an eye-opener - hard from a worship side, but easy from a church family/relationships side.

I don't like descriptions that talk about CofE churches in catholic terms - normally it's used to say the church is more traditional, with "bells and smells".
In my experience of catholic churches, a modern catholic church doesn't differ that much from a modern CofE church.

I know my preferred form of worship (age-old hymns, robed choirs, organs, kneeling and crossing onself, and preferably incense, but i know that's not practical these days (esp as DH has asthma and although it's dormant, incense sets it off)) is classed as Anglo-catholic, but i hate it - if i wanted to be catholic, i'd be catholic.
mine has roots in traditionalism, and shoots off from the book of common prayer.

I think the best way to find out exactly what the church means by its description is to go to a typical service.

Given that you regularly use 'happy clappy, not as a favourable terms, I think you have to accept 'bells and smells'. It is pretty descript and represents the overall package 90% of the time.

And catholic is a fine theological term, that can be used by any orthodox church. Because the Roman Catholic Church uses it in its name, doesn't mean others can't.

Catholic worship means that there is great emphasis on holy tradition, and also on being connected with Christians worldwide and across the ages. All churches should have an element of cathlothicity, imo. I am very skeptical of churches who are only one thing on the churchmanship triangle of evangelical, catholic, liberal (scripture, tradition, reason).

mme my dh is a very unusal mix: anglo catholic charismatic. He is very hard to explain to friends who ask what type of church he is from/how we worship

Catholic charasmatics used to be quite the think.

At our last church (liberal-catholic), DH & I introduced a contemporary service, and we did have some teaching on spiritual gifts. We thought service would appeal to young people, but there were quite a few very elderly (talking 80+), who remembered charasmatic revivals back in their day.

I think that the terms are descriptive - the "bells and smells" description says "we have bells to mark various parts of the eucharist (during the eucharistic prayer/breaking of the bread etc, a bell is rung at various parts) and we have incense which is thrown around the room using an orb on a rope"
"happy clappy" means "we are a happy, upbeat, modern church where you'll hear worship songs rather than hymns, quite often with guitars and music groups rather than an organ, and we mark our worship using clapping and waving arms and flags"
"traditional" in the shape I have seen means "we normally have an organ leading the hymns, some of us have a choir, we use Common Worship for the words, but normally have the old words of the Lord's Prayer. No incense, but normally the church is cold and unheated"
"modern" is "very middle-of-the-road: we are normally in late victorian-mid 20th century church buildings, with a few changes in the building eg inside, accessible toilets, some carpetting, comfortable(normally free-form) seats and heating. WE sing a mixture of worship songs, old hymns and new hymns, we mix our worship between the organ/choir and music group/guitars/singers. we use a mix of words from Common Worship and normally use the modern words for the Lord's Prayer"

I would say that today, most of the churches are aiming for "modern" as above, as they will get the biggest demographic. (people can make compromises on the wods they use, as long as they know they can get their choice in some things too).

MmeBlueberry, I only use Happyclappy in a derogatory way in my own thread, mainly becuase I was trying to get across my meaning in the most extreme way I could think of - normally, when I say Happy Clappy, i don't mean it horribly, I just mean it as a general description term for very modern/pentecostal (if we're using other denominations to describe ourselves worship. Please don't take offence - none is ever meant - I just like to be forthright and not beat around the bush. :)

but, as far as OP's description goes, I would assume "traditional" from my descriptions above, but it's quite a condradiction-in-terms.

contradiction i knew it looked wrong

when I think of "traditional" - I always think of the joke

How many Anglicans does it take to change a lightbulb?

CHANGE????? We don't DO Change

I do think that high/middle/low (in the Anglican context) went out a little while ago as many modern (CoE) churches have an element of/a service which is "high", "middle" and "low"

hee hee, i love that one. Describes the elderly at our church to the letter.

ironically it actually describes some of our "younger" congregation than the elderly.

just reading the posts about church backgrounds - I don't really have a "background"

My mum was a preacher in the Methodist chuch, but we defected to the Baptists for a while, then back to Methodist, then CoE, then it got interesting as we went to various different non-denominational churches, then I went up to Edinburgh and did everything from Sung Euachrist at the Cathedral to the happy clappy of some of the pentecostals.

Meanwhile my parents had totally left the Methodist church and were CoE.

Then in Zim I refound my faith again in the Pentecostal churches - via the Anglican church

As a child I went with my parents to Hollybush, Cliff College (still very firmly Methodist at that stage) and Ellel Grange.

wow, tocc, you've been everywhere!

I have to confess that I went to the same church (a bit high, but apparently not allowed to be called "high" - that was bells and smells) until i went to uni, then i went to a happyclappy church at uni, which was largely students, didn't really enjoy it that much, but it was the best there was that was local.
then i went back to Nottm, where i moved away from parents to other side of town and couldn't be bothered to go all the way back to my old church (also felt a bit daft after having been away for 4 years), and went to a local church that had tape-recorded bells in the tower . I was put right off that because the priest asked me on my first visit "how long have you been a christian?" I honestly didn't have a clue what he meant! (hadn't been exposed to conversion/born-again-ness)
then i moved to a house where the church was over the back wall (but i never dared climb over the back wall and had to walk round the block! to go to it. but i did like it.

then i went to my friend's church (lots of late Saturday nights out at the pub with her), and got to join the choir there. that was a modern church (as per my descriptions above)
then moved to sittingbourne, joined St Michael's because they had a decent choir and here i am, fighting to keep it going.

that's a longer story than i thought it would be!
sorry

the first time I wintessed "sharing the peace" was at the tape-recorded bells church.
it was the worst thing i'd ever done at that point!
i was horrified! how dare people interrupt my time with god!

(still don't like it - i only share with choir, because it's lots of faffing around and could take all day)

I know I'm a bit of a church/denomination slut really

Think that's why I comfortable with just about any style of worship/music/service. Apart from proper bells and smells - especially if in a small church - the inscence gives me a headache LOL

i miss incense :(

my old church still has it - we went there at Christmas (well, sunday after) and DH played their organ - said it was a nice organ but needed some work on it (loads of stops didn't work and he spent most of his time shutting them off one by one until he found one that wouldn't kill the congregation!)

I go to a conservative Anglican church, and love it. Lots of good bible teaching, and modern songs mixed with a few old hymns.
It was interesting reading this though, because i went to funeral in a high church a few weeks ago, and was baffled by the incense, and robes etc.

Our church is described as modern Catholic. We have high church beliefs, but prefer to use the modern liturgy (Common Worship). If a church said it was traditional Catholic, I'd expect high church beliefs but 1662 Book of Common Prayer Liturgy (or at a push, Common Worship, traditional language). We still use robes and occasional incense.

One of our team vicars is also an incredibly high church bells and smells stroke charismatic - one of the most Godly men I know. He's taught me a lot about appreciating other traditions - agree with Mme Blueberry about churches needing to embrace different strands and there being a breadth in that which can be lost when only being defined as one 'type'.

I'm generally happy in an Anglican/charismatic type setting but worship at a pretty middle of the road common worship church at the moment - mainly traditional but with more contemporary elements, and we have introduced a contemporary worship service which seems to be going ok.

Wow, this is great, thank you all- interesting to read! We do sharing the peace- does not every church do that then?