Finding informal/all age CofE worship hard to connect with

[Olinguita]

Wondering if anyone else has experienced the same or if I'm just a massive fun sponge....
I attend a middle-of-the-road Anglican church that has a very casual/informal approach to Sunday worship - think lots of silly skits, audience participation, regular all-age services. I totally understand that it's great for families (I have a toddler myself) but sometimes I come out of church service feeling like I've been to a baby sensory class or game show. I miss a sense of reverence and mystery and don't really feel like I've had an encounter with God. I feel like a really horrible person even thinking this as the church congregation are genuinely good, Christian people and our vicar works very, very hard.
. A low point was a Christmas day service in which the vicar did a quiz for the kids called "Who wants to be Christiannaire? " (As in who wants to be a millionaire). She called the kids up to the front of the church and asked them questions like "who was the mother of God - was it a) Pam b) Karen c) Mary?" ( kids ranging from 4 to about 10). Admittedly it's not this bad every week but I often find the tone of services patronising and excessively dumbed-down, and it's something I've seen elsewhere in the CofE when visiting other churches that are low-church or middle-of-the-road.
I know churches have to work hard to appeal to families and to keep kids engaged, and can imagine it's a very tough gig for vicars these days, especially building up congregations again post-covid. But I just find it all really hard to connect with this style of worship on a spiritual level.
I'm genuinely curious to know what other people feel about this (especially those who also have small children)!

Completely agree that children don't always need to have it toned down for them. As you say, we have youngish children as altar servers and it's not dumbed down for them.

I struggle with this myself OP. It feels like assembly at school rather than "mass". I was raised Catholic but have recently started attending an Anglican Church with DH. The people are absolutely lovely and I've been made very welcome so I feel a bit mean saying this but I never leave feeling like I've been to church. I find the all age services really infantilising and I particularly struggle with those. The youth provision is incredible though and the children are always engaged. It's just me, I think I miss the reverence and the ceremony of mass as I am used to it. I hope with time, I'll feel more comfortable there because everything else is fantastic. We don't really sing traditional hymns either, it's more "songs" if that makes sense? But the church is very well attended, doing great things in the community, so I just thought it was me and my guilt over "defecting" as such.

@CrackersDontMatter - an option may be to see if there are any short weekday/evening services with a more traditional feel. It’s tough with kids (as I am permanently exhausted), but there may be some zoom/YouTube services you could listen to (I quite like compline). I believe radio 3 or 4 may broadcast some traditional services by radio.

we are the other way round - go to (fairly) traditional church; but I still sing some happy clappy songs to my kids at home.

Radio 3 still broadcasts Choral Evensong once a week. Do t think it's live anymore. But it's lovely. I'm RC and adore Evensong!

@Toddlerteaplease still live — a relative sang in one recently.

Writing as a parish priest, all-age services are a complete nightmare (and most of my colleagues agree). In trying to be all things to all people, most of them end up offering nothing to anyone.

However, the reality is that, numerically, it is these services, rather than the more traditional sort, that are growing.

@whyhere I always took 'all age' to mean aimed at children!

It usually ends up that way....

This is an interesting thread. I'm sort of the opposite of you I think OP. I was bought up with the informal style (not C of E) so I found the local C of Es relaxed services aimed for the children very comfortable and the teaching very accessible for them. Recently however they switched to an "all age" format, which turned out to be 10 mins at the start for the children and then 45 mins of formal organ/hymns/readings and so much to recite from them screen they couldn't follow it, 3 of my children were not of reading age at the time and the others were struggling to keep up. my children politely sat through the whole thing. My 2 youngest sat on my lap with one whispering to me every so often "please can we leave", "when can we go" whilst I'm trying to explain the context to the older ones.

I didn't get anything out of it because I couldn't focus on it and the children didn't either. The eldest 2 now politely decline to go to that church, so we've had to start trying out others (we are rural and a large family so it's not as easy as just walking down the road)

Other families had the same feedback, which wasn't taken well and I didn't feel very welcome. They said the C of E have told them it has to be this "all age" format now, which I don't think is suitable to young children (and their parents). I wish they'd go back to having a lovely children's provision once a month and traditional the rest of the time.

Oh, OP- you have put into words EXACTLY my dilemma. I grew up in a Pentecostal church which one might think was all hootin' and hollerin' but was in fact profoundly reverent, BCP at Communion, substantial and lengthy exegetical teaching and proper preaching with an emphasis on personal holiness of life as a requisite of evangelism.
Then went off the tracks for a couple of decades, doing the 'single in London' thing, but came back to faith a few years ago and have been struggling with this since then, to the point of (almost)!despair. I've gone quite High Church and sing in the choir at evensong but find the upper middle class snobbery quite inhospitable and I'm definitely not one of 'them'- lots of in-jokes and subtle intellectualism along with the red trousers and nice woollens. Also, seems like no emphasis on one's own need to change, and actually talking about God is 'not done' But the dumbed down family services at my local CofE and the crazy fawning over children in a really sycophantic way, plus the 3 chord songs in the same key make my teeth itch! HELP!

I really enjoy the informal family services. However, occasionally I do go to the earlier formal service if I just want some quiet contemplative time.
Does your church offer a variety of services?

I'm curious who decides on what style of services are offered? Does this come from the clergy preferences or from the congregation? It must be tricky to be a vicar, you can't please everyone or anyone!

Sorry I laughed out loud reading your OP your vicar sounds like David Brent! This would annoy me as well - I feel like the push to makes churches ‘user friendly’ and ‘welcoming to all’ means they’ve lost their main purpose and don’t offer much for people who want a more focussed approach to their worship. I would change to another, it’s not like you can suggest they change, and even less that they would do it

PS - not that I’m trying to ‘poach’ you but have you considered converting to Catholicism? I know a few people who have crossed over because they find CofE too diluted and ‘woke’ now. There’s definitely no kiddy game shows at mass… lol

A mixture of those, usually. An individual church tends to have a tradition it belongs to (eg more Anglo-Catholic, more charismatic). Which tends to attract a vicar who fits with that ethos. If it's a more than one church parish (which most of them are now) then it can be a juggling act with what each church in the group is used to and one vicar covering it and having to be all things to all of them!

Then they'll want to attract new members so will tweak things but some existing congregations are reluctant to make changes (it's quite common for them to express a wish for a larger congregation but also a refusal to change anything) so maybe a separate family service etc will be introduced, or a once a month thing. Sometimes there's heavy congregational pushing for that, sometimes more clergy-led.

Bearing in mind too that with vicars stretched so thin across many churches a lay-led family service may be all that can be done some weeks as there isn't someone ordained available as they're also at five other churches!

And it takes a particular skill set to make something inter generational work well. I've been to some wonderful reverential but also all generations friendly services but also many where it doesn't really work for anyone!

Would hate to be a vicar...

Ooh, I'm really interested to find this thread. I feel very similarly to you, OP. I grew up irregularly going to a "high church" village church. I think my C of E school (connected to a different church) was, in hindsight, very Anglo-catholic. So that's all I grew up really knowing - my spirituality is very connected to that "feeling" more than anything else. I have a 1yo and I want my children to be part of the church community as I was growing up - I never had any issues with not feeling included in the formal high-church worship whilst growing up.

I now live in a nearby village to my childhood village, and the current village I live in is the "main" church in the area - the main village church and the smaller village church of my childhood now share a vicar. The problem is that the main village church is very low-church and informal in style. It does absolutely nothing for me - I went to a Christmas Day service and it was honestly so disappointing that I have vowed not to bother with that church again. The problem is that the fact the two churches share a vicar means that the informal style is creeping more and more into the smaller church I'm starting to feel like I don't have a spiritual home, and I'm finding myself drawn to Catholicism. For many reasons I feel like an Anglican at heart, but the informal worship style just gives me no spiritual feeling or sustenance whatsoever.

As the rector of two churches, one evangelical in worship style and one traditional, I feel your pain! Thank you to those of you who feel mine 😉

I feel for you OP on this. Would it be worth going to see the vicar and discuss the lack of spirituality in the services?

My village church does the usual adult type communion service each week, with traditional hymns, organ music and readings, and a more or less elderly congregation. There is a monthly family service - quite well attended by the adult regulars, but with very few children! That is in spite of the screechy recorded modern hymns and screen graphics supposed to appeal to the young.
Hope you fibd a way to connect to God in your church.