Leave church happy

I think there is a feeling amongst some that a congregation ought to leave church in a good frame of mind having had a 'nice' time. (Although this conflicts with my other belief  - which I hope to follow up - that going to church means we are made to feel less worthy people than we actually are).

To create a feeling of a good time, modern vicars are - as I have observed before - rather chatty and familiar during their services.

From my point of view, I will leave church happy if I feel [a] that I have done a good job on the organ and [b] if I feel worship has been carried out correctly. Setting aside [a], factor [b] does not happen a great deal especially when the sermon is too long. When will clergy realise that the human mind can only focus for a certain amount of time? They seem to grab (hold hostage) their captive audience and want to give a lecture. If I read a book (i.e. one which is not just a story) I may need to go over a sentence to ensure that I have understood it. One cannot do that with a sermon.

Sermons need to be shorter.

Younger Clergy

As a man of a certain age it has just struck me that most of the clergy I interact with are younger than I am: sometimes by a few years but sometimes by many years.

Reflecting on this I felt that my introduction to church was under the guidance of older (male) clergy and that I am probably not as willing to be taught and preached to by younger people. This is very reverse-ageist of me. I admit that, in the past, some older clergy have banged on in their sermons and I have thought them to be past their sell-by dates. Unfortunately, young clergy are full of new ideas. They are still enthusiastic about their beliefs and I am set in my ways.

Confession

For some reason I was dwelling, today, on my Confirmation in 1970 and I remembered how, a few days before the service, we were required to go to confession. A large group of school pupils were prepared for confirmation (many of us were choristers) and the then Chaplain of the school and the Precentor of the cathedral had us all in the cathedral during the school day for an hour or two. The rehearsal was on a different day.

We were told that we each needed to have a pure heart before we were confirmed and that we needed to make our confession. We were all sent to sit some distance away from each other and think about what we would confess.

Now for Catholics I would not be surprised to learn that this is normal; even these days. However, we were Anglicans and although the rite of confession does exist I doubt it plays as large a part in church-goers' lives as it does for Catholics.

For a child of 11 to be sent into a corner and told to come up with some things to confess strikes me as a form of abuse. I made some things up such as Greed (eating too many sausages!) but I threw in a bit about Hate, as there was a boy I did not like.

I didn't feel any more pure afterwards. In fact I felt the whole things was an excuse for the priests to hear our darkest thoughts!

Avoiding Cognitive Dissonance

I recently cut back on my bellringing and yesterday I decided that I need to cut back on some of my organ playing.

I like playing the organ but that is about all I enjoy about church in the 21st century. I have blogged before about Show and Tell, chatter and other aspects of services which bore me rigid - SERMONS!

I have tried to rationalise, in my head, that an incumbent can run a service how he or she likes (actually I wonder if this is the case) and that I am only there to provide the music: the service is not being run to keep me happy. Still, it is fact that I am not happy and I put this down to cognitive dissonance.

I believe my mind struggles to balance the fact that I dislike a lack of order and decorum with the fact that I realise the world has changed and that styles of worship need to appeal to people who seek entertainment from church services. I see, far more, that church is a place where people go to engage in social activity at inappropriate times. I have always disliked the passing of the Peace in services.

So there we are. After September (I am committed until then) I shall reduce my church-going. I still have to consider what I am going to do about church #1 in the benefice as the services are taken by the same vicar. I have not taken to this person. I don't suppose it is the vicar's fault any more than the fact that I don't care to eat fish or play football: neither are things I like.

It is not my place to judge if the priest is good at their job but for someone to assume that everyone is as happy as Larry and run services with such an upbeat and 'game-show' atmosphere certainly makes me feel the job could be done differently.

Time for God

"Vicars only work on Sundays" is a thought which passes the minds of many people. It is not true: if fact most have one day off a week. The Sunday schedule of the incumbent who took yesterday's services was exhausting. When I arrived at St. John's at 08:40 she was already in the church having had an 08:00 Communion. She stayed on for the 09:30 Sung Eucharist, we went to the next village for the 11:15 service and I knew she had a baptism at 13:00. Later the same day there was an Evensong (18:30) back at St. John's. How she filled her afternoon I am not sure.

The sermon was about finding time for God each day: just 15 minutes. "Even I can do that" she said which is not to say that is all the time she finds in a day for the deity. The introduction to the sermon concerned those who have lost their faith and she postulated that people lose their faith because they do not maintain a relationship with God. This is certainly true in my case following my dalliance with an Evangelical church and a few major life issues.

The congregation was encouraged to find ways of engaging with God through private prayer and/or Bible reading. There was an A4 handout to take home with a list of low-tech and higher-tech methods. Here are a few.

• https://www.brfonline.org.uk/collections/our-notes
• https://content.scriptureunion.org.uk/bible-reading-guides
• www.thegoodbook.co.uk/daily-bible-reading/ 

Then there are the apps and websites

• https://www.sacredspace.ie/
• https://www.prayermate.net/app
• https://www.northumbriacommunity.org/offices/
• https://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/centering-prayer-mobile-app/
• https://pray-as-you-go.org/ie.php

This is the first time I have taken away from a church something to investigate in my own time. I have attended many services which have been only perfunctory.