A hive of activity

A lot takes place before a service in the C of E. The list below will probably omit things which even I do not see as they take place in the sacristy.

• Lights turned on
• Coffee ladies prepare cups, milk, hot water
• Hymn boards are prepared (and checked - there was an error this morning, put right in good time)
• Notice sheets made ready for 'greeters'
• Bells rung up
• Candles lit
• Sound system turned on
• Streaming equipment made ready
• Screen lowered (the church I am playing at project what YouTube viewers see)
• Choir members robe and practise
• Eucharistic prayer choice conveyed to organist so the correct 'twiddly bits' are ready
• Readers find their places in the lectern bible (and bookmark)
• Communion wafers located
• Flowers will have been arranged the previous day
• Cantor selected for the psalm (well it isn't quite a psalm, just a verse)
  
• Many other things!

One does not just turn up and hope for the best.

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.

Going to church today?

For many years, as a young child, I did not go to church but - occasionally - my parents would decide to drop me off at Sunday School in the afternoon. I have come to realise that this was because my grandmother may have had a say in the matter and they felt guilty: also I suspect they wanted some time without the children about.

Still in my childhood and as a chorister, I used to have to go to Peterborough Cathedral on a Sunday morning for two services: Eucharist and Matins. I went again for Evensong in the afternoon.

When I became an organist I had a 0930 service to play for and, from that point (in the early 1970s) I hardly missed a week. I went from there to university as an organ scholar. Now, I did have a year or so off when I was doing my PGCE but I used to go to bellring for Evensong and stay for the service at a church a short drive from my hall of residence.

When I started teaching I did not have an organist position at first but that was soon rectified and was the case until 2005, with a few breaks. After that, going to church was part of my job at a boarding school.

Now I am retired my life has changed. Yes, I do get up and go to play when I am doing deputy work (although this has evolved into my having become the regular organist at 2 churches on 2 Sundays).

On my Sundays off I have the option of going to ring at the local church some 5 minutes walk away but, to be honest, I do not have the motivation. As I have implied before, I am pretty bored with what I call 'low level' bellringing which is the wrong attitude to have. Ringers ring to call the faithful to worship and we can do that equally well with round & call-changes as we can with difficult methods.

I do not think this is the Ringleman Effect, but perhaps a variety of it. I think the only reason I have been keen to go to church - as an organist - is because I am so obviously contributing and essential to the service. It also keeps me interested. I get bored very easily. New methods, new opportunities and recognition all spur me on to do better. Getting into a rut has the opposite effect - CBA as the acronym goes.

These days there is a lot of CBA about. People can attend virtual church online, or watch later (and skip the boring bits). For me, going to church is not about meeting other people - I LOATH 'The Peace' like Mrs Beamish, as I've said before.

The whole point of this blog is really for me to explore the C of E: after all, nobody is reading what I write. So I am not at church today neither have I gone to bellring. Have I thought about God? Yes I have; as well as my mortality, spirituality, my place in the universe and so on. Isn't that what church is about? So, do I need to go?