Religion Chat thread number 1

[nickelbabyjesus]

I wanted to put some random thoughts and stuff regarding church, without it having to be a debate or a specific topic (and not prayers, either)

It's basically, a "what happened at church (or in my musical/spiritual life) this week" thread.
Please join me!

I'll start:

We had Midnight Mass (on Christmas Eve, would you believe!), and it was half past 11, everyone was sitting and ready for the service to start - I waved the organist to give me my notes: he was just about to plat them when:
" TAXI FOR suchandsuch " came blaring out of our speaker system.
There's a Wetherspoon's over the road and looks like the DJ's mike was on the same frequency as our radio mikes.
So, all the congregation started giggling and we had to wait 5 minutes until everyone was calm and collected enough to carry on.

I like this thread, I like the way it normalises regular church attendance and people talk of it being an important part of their week as a family.

Although my DCs go to a Catholic school, surprisingly few people we know are regular church-goers, so it's nice to read about other people's experiences.

I was proud of my 3 in Mass this weekend (they're 7, 6 & 4) - the older two were really making an effort to join in the prayers and the little man has at least learned to sit pretty much still and quietly, which is a huge step forward from where we were this time last year!

at your dh, nickel. Reminds me - somewhat irrelevantly - of the first time my dh tried to dress our newborn PFB. She screamed, and I accused him of breakiong her arm! To be fair, she was only 4lb 12oz and her little arms were like matchsticks. (How things change!) Well done to you too, on your first 'trainee'!

So, have posted this elsewhere, but thought I'd share it here too. Dd2 came to church with me this Sunday and absolutely loved it. I was slightly surprised but very happy. Just have to work on dd1 now. I wasn't sure whether it was the right church for us (local cathedral - I sort of wanted to be more part of a community, although I know that my most local church is not really my style, so it's a bit complicated...) but since dd2 is so happy I will stick with it for a while.

Hello RubyLennox... your post is interesting. I am just back from the US where my dds went to a Catholic school (though we are Anglican) and there everyone but everyone attended Mass regularly (plus Mass twice a week in school... and a prayer service once a week... and liturgical singing once a week... and...!). Well done to your dcs!

I think in other parts of the country, regular Mass attendance would have been essential to have got their children into the Catholic school in the first place! In our area, the Catholic schools are always full, but there isn't the same over-subscription problem that I believe there is in London, for instance.

Our church is always full, though, which is heartening.

that's brilliant, Ruby! isn't it lovely when children join in with it all? I like the way it shows us that they can enjoy church the way it is, and don't necesarily need all that extra stuff the more upbeat churches offer (which is an equally valid form of worship disclaimer)

Totally, I'm glad to hear that your DD2 enjoyed church too.

I started going to church when I was 4, so it's always been a pretty much every-week experience for me. I think the earlier you go, the more likely you are to see it as normal routine.

Great news about your new chorister nickel :)

We do Messy Church. Just started it in last few months and it is a great formula and we have people come that are on the edges of church, so a really good way of bringing them in and making them feel welcome. We want everyone to enjoy it, not just the dcs, so aim it as a family time together. It's good. I went to a messy church training day with the original author of the books, very inspirational and some good stories.

TUO so glad dd enjoyed church with you. :)

I'm finding my church hard going at the moment but as the curates wife want to support him and support the church also. Lovely people there, mainly elderly, the church is unfortunately dying :( I find it difficult as it's not my 'style' but learning a lot about appreciating different forms of worship and how different people need different formats.

hopefully your messy church thing will help with the falkling congregation - we've got the same problem ourselves (and cos of it we've not got a vicar/priest), but we're all working together, and that's the most important thing.
In a way, it's nicer not to have a priest to answer to - we just seem to be closer because of it.

different people definitely need different formats, that's true. The best way into church is through children, i think, so if you can get them in, and get them to invite their friends and families, that's great. I take it by your "style", your church is mainly traditional? don't lose sight of the need for traditional alongside the modern stuff: my main comment on that would be not to try to mix it up too much! nothing wrong with a few 20th century hymns in the traditional services, but nothing too modern.

One thing BaroqueAroundTheClock has said they do in her church is that when they do the readings, the person reading it can choose their own translation - maybe in one of your more modern services, you could try that? it might make it a bit more lively, and get volunteers to do readings!

Good idea nickel. You're right, it is mainly traditional and I am an odd mixture of post evangelical charismatic low church with elements of mysticism and contemplative type of stuff. Not easily pigeon holed, me I definitely do appreciate the need for the traditional stuff and have learned to value it, it just isn't where I am personally most comfortable/close to God or whatever but I know well that it is for some.

The best churches I have come across I think are those that cater across different services. I went to one when we were at theological college which had a 9.30 more traditional flavour with robes, organ, choir et al, then 11.00 lively modern anything goes ting (in a good-ish way) then evening studenty thing going on. Worked well, and they encouraged the morning congregations to mix over coffee between services, which worked to a certain extent - the cell groups were also cross services so there was some community going on where it could easily be lost.

Not easy - you're right, mixing it up too much can be disastrous, and we are too small and don't have the resources to go multi service, so we are wondering where to go. This community doesn't seem to find the traditional services helpful (in general.) But the congregation do, in the main, and the last thing I would want to do is upset or ostracise anyone through pushing change. It's so difficult.

MHD... love your description of where you 'sit' (though I am not sure what 'post-evangelical' means?). I guess one of the reasons why I love the Anglican church (you are CofE, aren't you?) is that it covers all bases!

See, I have the opposite problem, in that I really like a traditional service (though not Anglo-Catholic... I want traditional/high-ish but ultra-liberal in terms of all the sexual-/gender-politics stuff!), but I suspect that my dds might find my local church which is very evangelical/charismatic more conducive. My own sense, the few times I've been, is that it was all a bit too literal - it took all the mystery out of everything (so would not tick your mystical box!). So if there was a song that said 'God made the earth' a picture of the earth would come up on the powerpoint... For me that takes all the awe and wonder out of everything. Still... I should not complain, since dd2 seems happy at the moment. There was a distinct absence of older kids/teenagers at the cathedral though (except in the choir).

Difficult situation with your church MHD. I guess it depends on the nature of the community where you're situated, but the more traditional services need not necessarily be offputting... indeed they might be reassuring. I guess that one of the reasons why I like a traditional service is that the words, the prayers, the hymns, the whole format of the service is familiar to me from my church-going days some - ahem - 30 years ago, and from my very traditional CofE school. So I felt that I could just 'slot in' as if the intervening years of non-churchgoing had never happened. So if you want to reach out to lapsed churchgoers like me the format could be OK. In some ways the small congregation itself can be offputting. You feel very conspicuous walking in as a 'newbie', don't you. Our church in the US had a kind of disclaimer in the service sheet which said something like 'If you are new here and would like to know more about being a part of our church, please leave your name and address and we'll contact you. However, we promise that we will not hassle you [don't think it said 'hassle', but you know what I mean] unless you specifically ask us to.' A good website can be helpful too. I have been looking for a church here, as you know, and have been actively put off places with no website, as it was hard to get a sense of what the church might be like without it.

Eeek... I seem to have written an essay. I am putting off doing 'real' work, as you can probably tell. Well, I won't delete it... I'll leave my ramblings in case they are useful at all. And if they are not... sorry .

Thanks TUO. Hard to explain post evangelical, if you have time this book is fantastic and goes a long way to merging with somewhere I am, though I disagree with him lots too - all very healthy! It's something to do with getting outside the 'box' of evangelicalism while retaining the good bits, especially getting away from the whole extreme right thing which many think of as associated with the word 'evangelical'. Evangelical to me only encompasses what we all are called to be as Christians, ie tellers of the good news in deed and words. The word has become tainted by the ultra conservative and sometimes incredibly toxic fundamentalist lobby who seem to at times place rules over the freedom we have in Christ, literalism over grace. Hence post-evangelical - retains the good, rejects the ugly. Do you see what I mean?

Oh dear, I seem to be writing an essay. Having one of those evenings I feel as sitting in bed with chest infection and tummy bug

Good points about local community and coming back to church as such. There are a few this applies to but the general demographic of the local area is other faith communities followed by unchurched young families. There is some history of the church being much more active in the community and some talk fondly of when they used to come etc, but then many of those who have tried to come back have commented the service is 'archaic and not relevant to now' which is what gives me the feeling about it turning people off. It's so hard, because you're right, for some it will be comforting because it is as it has always been, for others it's just irrelevant. How do you bridge the gap? Can you, or do you just choose one or the other way and run with it?

Website - yes completely agree. I would, as I have developed and run our church website which recently got in the top 10 diocesan websites so I am a little bit smug that our website is a good one and am also v judgy over many other church sites (or lack of) See, I'm not perfect in the least, far from it

Sorry...will shut up now

Don't shut up... it's nice to talk to you! Sorry you are feeling rubbish, though. Get well soon...

Yes, I get the post-evangelical thing, and I like very much the attempt to reclaim the term from the fundamentalist Right. Will have to read the book! [Adds to other nine gazillion books on 'to read' list!]

Well done on the website, too!

I am odd [in many ways - don't comment! - but also] in that (partly because of what I do for a living - which includes medieval religious poetry, quite a lot of Latin, etc.) I am not put off by abstruse language and that kind of thing... in fact, the more the better! But I know that I am not mainstream in that... It does also make me not very good at being 'relevant'... Ha! In fact, I'd say I am often defiantly irrelevant! But I think it's often very hard to know what people actually want when they demand relevance... Hmm! I'm a bit of a chocolate teapot here, aren't I?

Get well soon, anyway! Take care of yourself...

Exactly, though! What do people mean by 'irrelevant' anyway

I like archaic language too. I'm exploring ways to bring the ancient and mystic into the modern. I'm very much with you on the whole 'too obvious' aspect of some evo-charismatic services ie world pic on the PP etc. Takes the mystery out, makes it dull and commonplace. I'm into producing powerpoints for worship and enjoy searching for images which subtly hint at something of what the song words are describing rather than just doing what it says on the tin.

We did a stations of the cross thing last Easter mixed in with a liquid worship session and modern-ish songs. Was interesting and in that case the mix worked. I'm really interested in how we can do this and attract the new while gently loving and leading the current lot.

madhair, hope you're feeling a lot better

I'm finding your discussion about the ancient and modern forms of worship very interesting.

As a Catholic, I tend to joke that I like my religion with a bit of fire & brimstone! However, I do think that the homily / sermon / preaching / call it what you will gives you an opportunity to balance it up a bit.

For example, our parish priest is very good at picking up on something that we say 'by rote' during the Mass and then talking about what that really means in practice, and how we can put it into our daily lives.

For example, in the Mass the priest says 'Jesus said I give you peace, my peace be with you. Let us offer each other a sign of peace'. A few weeks ago the sermon was about signs of peace, what could we offer to our family, friends, colleagues, strangers as signs of peace.

I like this approach as it lets me combine the prayers and routines I learned as a child with an opportunity to really examine what I'm saying and whether it's relevant to us today. It seems to satisfy both the elderly die-hards and the 'church isn't relevant to me' parties.

Loving the idea of 'defiantly irrelevant'. I can apply it to so much of my life .

talking of websites...I took over maintenance of my church's website 12months and I've just about got it into an "okay" state (eg update and complete information, added a picture gallery etc) so TUO and and MHD what are your top tips for me to make it into a good website?

MHD - we do a stations of the cross for children on Good Friday morning - where we get the kids to act out each of the stations (complete with a hammer & nails, although we don't actually nail a child to a cross of course!) followed by hot cross buns & squash for kids tea/coffee for grown ups - is very popular :) We rope in the "trad" oldies on hot cross bun/tea duty - they love it! (we also do a trad Good Friday service in the evening)

TUO - very similar experience here in that I grew up with "high" church so after many decades years absence I could just slot right back in with something "comfortable". I like "high" :)

Getting new people to come to church is always difficult - I know I found it quite scary returning to church after a very long absence - tis very easy to forget this when you are on the "inside". Our priest calls it "threshold fear". That's why messy church is so fab, gets people into church in a non-threatening way. We also do a monthly children's group for 0-5s where we join the last 15mins or so of the main Sunday service, a great way for "unchurched" kids (and parents!) to get used to church, 15mins is doable, and hour and 20mins is a looong time when you are a newbie.

forgot a bit...

I'm always amazed just how much young kids can actually "get" from going to church.

3yo DS was singing "Gloria, Gloria" over and over earlier today. When I finally twigged what he was singing & asked him if that is what it was, he said "yes Mummy, I'm singing to God like at church" Aw Bless :)

This has been a very interesting discussion. I am going to have to think some more about the relevance issue, I think...

On the websites, Betsy, I was looking for something that made it very clear what kind of service(s) I could expect if I went to that church - something by which I could gauge what the atmosphere might be like. Sometimes it's clear but sometimes not (and certainly not to the uninitiated). For example, my second-closest parish describes itself as 'a resolution A/B/C parish'. I like to think that I am reasonably well-informed, but I had to google that in order to find out what exactly they were trying to tell me. (This may be a bad example, since I know that the whole women priest thing is a hot potato, but I am not sure that being cryptic about it helps anyone.) I am sorry to bang on about the US, but there seemed to be a standard bit of blurb that the Episcopal Church provides to churches for their websites which is about 'what to expect if you attend a service in an Episcopal church'. (I am assuming it's standard, as I've seen it on several different websites.) Something like that would be helpful, maybe. Then maybe something reassuring about it being OK to just sort of show up. Personally, as a 'recent returner', I would find it a bit offputting if I felt that it was expected that I not only attended services but also joined a cell group or sent my kids to the church youth club or whatever... My local church website is a bit like that (as in 'members of XXX church are expected also to be members of a cell group which meets weekly'). Well, if I were nervous about going (back) to church, I'd want to feel that it was OK to just dip a toe in the water at first, without being signed up to do something church-related every day of the week. At the same time, though, you do want to flag that this stuff is available for those that want it.

I have seen some websites where sermons are made available via podcast. I don't know if that's also helpful for getting a taste of what the church might be like. (I have to admit that I haven't downloaded any...)

Maybe something on the music too? Again because I am an old fart more traditionally-minded, anything that mentions a 'band' or shows pictures of youths with guitars immediately turns me off. But for others this could be a big draw... Either way, it's good to know.

Is any of this useful?

Forgot to say... that is very sweet of your DS!

I found the 'what to expect' thing. You may already know it. It's available here.

I particularly like this sentence:

"When you visit an Anglican church, you will be our respected and welcome guest. You will not be singled out in an embarrassing way, nor asked to stand before the congregation nor to come forward."

thanks TUO that is really, really helpful :)

I hadn't seen that "what to expect" site before, I think I'll be stealing using some of that

You are right, websites must cater for potential newbies as well as the existing congregation, in particular bearing in mind that there are a lot of families out there now that are "unchurched" (I hate that term, but it's handy shorthand ) and really don't know what to expect in a "normal" Sunday service as they've probably only ever been to baptisms/weddings/funerals. I definitely need to do some more work on our site to make it more encouraging for those folks on the cusp to come & give it a try. (I know I fannied about deliberated for a good few months before I finally took the plunge & went to a service & I knew roughly what to expect!)

(I know what A/B/C is now as my church is res. B church, but it seems an odd thing to put on your website without at least clarifying it, or linking it to the FiF website )

Totally agree TUO re websites

On our site we have done the 'what to expect' thing as a slide show as well so showing various scenes like going into church, communion, hymn books etc just to give some familiarity. I will PM you my website address and you can have a browse if you want - don't want to post here as I'm too easily identifiable!! :)

I think just having information on what is going on, the people in the church, contacts, where we are etc, and an attractive site visually helps. Welcoming is really important and easy to navigate. Good idea re the music, I'm opposite to you TUO and like the whole youths with guitars thing (though helps if they can actually play without cringe factor of course) and get turned off by the choir/organ thing- so shows it's good to have some flavour of what you are so people know what to expect, if you see what I mean. :)

ooh, some lovely discussion points since yesterday!

I'm a firm believer in websites too - our churches' (we're a united benfice so we have 2 churches - more on that in a minute!) website went rubbish for a while, when our vicar left ( ) and we were left in limbo - we still had a part-time minister, but the diocese were pressuring her to find a full-time job elsewhere (ie if you don't leave we'll stop paying you anyway cos we can't afford it), and part of that limbo meant that the website was left untouched for ages (it's still a bit out of date, but it's being dealt with). Anyway, I got annoyed with the fact that it was out-of-date and wholly unhelpful, so I made a website for our choir. It basically bigs us up, and shows how important the music in the service is (St Augustine said "those who sing pray twice")
We still have the choir website, and are waiting for the churches' website to link us...

United Benefice- we have two churches in town, St michael's and st mary's. The last Vicar made great moves to make St Mary's "family friend;y" and happy-clappy, and was trying his best to do the same to St Michael's, but eventually conceded that St Michael's would be traiditional and St Mary's Modern. All very well and good, but it seems like we are completely separate churches! We very rarely get new people in St Michael's because St Mary's is aimed specifically at families. Not that it is, and we will welcome anyone, but all school holiday activities are done at St Mary's, all the clubs and groups etc for kids are there, and they have the clapping, music group with guitars and over-head projector, that kind of thing.
We used to have a sunday school at St Michael's, but it dropped off, and more and more families are pushed to St Mary's. (i know they don't intend to do that, but that's what happens!)
the MAIN reason for the problem, as far as i can see, is that the two churches act very differently, and to the publis, they are different places, so there is little or no crossover between the two.
St Mary's has an evening/tea-time service every week and we have the sunday morning 10o'clock service. sometimes St Mary's does lunchtime stuff on a Sunday (like at Harvest), so it all flows nicely, and they always get the evening quiz nights etc.
I truly believe that if we had one building offering all the different stuff at different times, it would be a different story. I reckon there would be a much bigger crossover in congregation, and it would welcome more people.
Unfortunately, because both churches have their own staff, congregants, feel and look, that's not going to happen unless it's forced by the diocese.
I will favour St Michael's being the one to use, because it's got the Organ and the space (it's huge) and the town centre presence(st mary's is hidden in a row of terraces, whereas St Michael's is bang smack on the High Street), and the history.
whereas others favour St Mary's because it's carpetted, has a joined-on church hall, (therefore toilets that you don't have to traipse down the path for!), free-form seating, a better sound system... (no organ, though, and the acoustics are Rotten, which is why it doesn't work for the traditional services, whereas St Michael's can be used for modern services, and can cater for the large number of school children and memorial services' guests.)

god, sorry about the waffle!

I don't mind posting our websites - I'm easily identifiable anyway

choir website

churches website

see, even from this thread, we can see how we need different forms of worship in every church!

MHD, can you put some feelers out and find out how likely it is that you can have/go towards a multi-service sunday?

St Mary's evening service starts at 5 o'clock, and once a month there is a Tea beforehand, so it means that lunch can be done at home, and family sorted before having to come out in the the evening, and St michael's sunday morning is at 10o'clock, which means that it's out of the way before lunches start.
If you can put the two services into one church (morning traditional, evening your sort. ), then it would draw more people in, because they know that whatever they want can be catered for.
no need to look elsewhere.

I like your sites nickel, the choir one gives loads of good info. :)

We've sort of started what you suggest, we do have one evening service a month 'our sort' which is in its infancy but going well and seems appreciated, we get people coming to that who won't come to the traditional service (and vice versa) so seems good at the moment. Just not the resources to do it every week as yet though (we are in a team of 5 churches and draw from that to form a band which thankfully has some excellent musicians in it so works - at the moment we have lead guitar, bass guitar, keyboard and oboe and african drum intermittently!)

I can see your difficulty with the dynamics of your 2 churches and the one drawing the families etc, it does seem a shame it is that way, although I suppose that if the families are drawn in by the one then see that the other would be more their cup of tea they would hopefully come over to find out? Doesn't always work out that way though. Also can see both sides re the venue for multi services - acoustics and setting sounds great in St Michaels but the other with hall and toilets etc can be more practical and child friendly etc...difficult. Sounds like we're facing similar issues in some ways. Good to think it through. :)