Enjoyable church

I played for a service this morning - I shall not say where - and they had a stand-in vicar (I'll call him George) because the usual priest was on holiday. He was excellent. He was a retired RE teacher (ordained) who knew how to give the service both pace and dignity. His sermon was one of the best I have ever heard as it was pitched at normal people yet had something profound to say which he illustrated with pertinent examples from his own life, but without banging on at length. I loved his style, vocal modulation, and his strong sense of authority which was blended with pastoral empathy and an obvious humility.

It turns out he plays the organ occasionally so he appreciated my playing, which was a bonus.

When I arrived the church heating was on but the door was wide open: this is for Covid ventilation - I get it - but a waste of money in some ways and not very environmentally friendly.

The service was introduced by one of the churchwardens who did not use the microphone and she had to restart having moved nearer the congregation. Another lady read the intercessions but her first action was to push the microphone stalk away from her by 90 degrees!

The congregation was small but the choir had some 8 members who sang a communion hymn, alone, quite well, although the sopranos were weak.

All in all, this has cheered me up but I fear George is a rare 'animal' in the church these days. It was so nice to have things done correctly.

Do your own thing

A few times, recently, I have had to play at services where there has been a baptism. (To me this just makes the service longer but I suppose I get bored easily and Christians are meant to welcome new members of the flock.) My children were baptised in private ceremonies.

What has got my goat is the way that some churches add their own little bits into the service. It used to be the case that a baby was anointed with the Oil of Chrism and then baptised with water. All fine.

A few weeks ago the vicar (who was the baby's grandfather and invited to perform the ceremony) got ALL the Godparents (and parents) to anoint the infant AND say the short verse which goes with this procedure. Clearly, some of those involved were uncomfortable with this but did it anyway.

Then there is a church which has extra bits in the Eucharistic prayer. They break up the long prayer of consecration with "Why do we do XYZ?" and the response from the congregation "Listen and you will hear."

All kinds of services

Having worked at a boarding school for 16 years I have only just started visiting other churches on Sundays. I have noticed that all sorts of weird services have been invented. Here are a few.

• Messy Church (I think this has been around a while for children)
  
• Cafe Church (sit round a table and munch while you worship?)
• Cupcakes and Fizz (another for children)
• All Age worship (well, not so weird)
  
• Forest Church (Hug a tree?)
  

There will be more!

Typo

I played for a funeral this week. There was a typo in verse 3 of the hymn below (vv.4-5 not shown). "Yeah" should be "Yea". Why do people not check? Also, I was due to play Handel's "Largo" at the start and I asked for a cue from one of the funeral directors as the start of the service was to be different to normal. Although he said he would let me know, he didn't, so the vicar launched into the service after I had stopped improvising (after proper pre-service voluntaries). Anyway, the congregation stayed to hear the closing piece and I played the "Largo" after that as they departed.

Beginning with G

"One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God." [Luke 5:1]

This line occured in the Gospel reading at a church where I was playing the organ a couple of weeks ago. Clearly, the reader had not had time to prepare the passage. The place name 'Gennesaret' caused a stumble and was replaced with "a place beginning with G"

A year has passed

I see that it is a year since I last posted on here [there was a February 2021 post but I have deleted it] because I had started a different blog. I didn't get far with that because Covid meant I was put on furlough. Thus, tracing the last year in which I was employed as a teacher was rather pointless.

I am mulling over using this blog to comment on the state of the church. I'm too tired to start tonight though.

Still here

I am not blogging on here much because I have started another anonymous blog (which only friends can see) on which I am recording the events during the last year in my job before I retire.

I notice that Priti Patel wants the borders closed and says they should have been closed in March 2020.

I wonder if she reads my blog. SEE HERE!