Quakers

Today I did something for the first time. I went to a Quaker meeting [The Society of Friends].

I had walked past the Quaker meeting house earlier in the week and - as I knew I did not have a musical engagement this Sunday - I decided to give it a try. When I got home on Thursday I set about researching the Quakers online and found out what takes place at a meeting. I also looked into what they believe: it is quite embracing.

For me, some churches have become too noisy, too informal and totally lacking in reverence. What I like about the Quakers (so far) can be listed:

• No Creed
• No ritual
• Meetings last exactly an hour
• No sermon!
  
• No priests - nobody is in charge (= everyone is equally in charge)
• No chit-chat
• No passing the peace
• No distractions
• Sustained focus on one thing
• Peace (in the service)

There were only 5 of us present although there were chairs for 8. They have about 20 members. Like many churches they were hit by the pandemic and I think older people have never really got back into the habit of going out.

 

I can next go again in a fortnight. Let's see how it goes.

 

PS I just found this

 

 

Can a church service ever be perfect?

I doubt that one can go to church and not find a small issue with a service: perhaps just occasionally.

This morning was very close to perfect. I arrived in good time and found all the hymns (I had also looked in advance). The church was warm. I was able to set up some pistons and generals then I started to play 10 minutes before the service.

At 10am the church clock chimed: I had already stopped and we went into the first hymn. From that point onwards we followed the service book. There was no 'Show and Tell' and the sermon was very good (if a shade too long, perhaps).

I was struck by the confidence with which the choir and congregation joined in with the spoken parts of the service. At the end I played short voluntary and stayed for a coffee and a chat. These were nice people. There was no treading on egg-shells.

So often people go to church to act out a role. Some are persistently happy and expect others to be happy and jovial too.

It helped that it was a lovely day and that the church was light and spacious.

It mattered not that the organ was digital. In fact it did everything I wanted it to and I was not having to bother to avoid problem notes.

As much as I ever can I enjoyed church today.

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.

People and worship

Small congregations: fact.

This has to be seen in the following context. I played the organ at a local church flower festival this week for an hour on two afternoons. I am told that there was a constant trickle of people during this hour and there was certainly plenty of conversation and interest in the displays near the organ. When I went for my free cream tea the church hall was packed.

I conclude that people are not anti-church as such. In fact they are keen on supporting their local churches and would be devastated were the church to close. Hence, the problem must be that people are not interested in religion, the style of worship offered by the church or sitting in a building for an hour being brainwashed.

What is a church service? It is an hour in which people mumble a few words now and then, sing very badly, get told how wicked they are and spend a few minutes actually praising their creator.

They get told to carry Christ into their daily lives and show him to others. With so many misguided decisions and dishonesty in the world it is easy to get downhearted and fail to do this.

• Partygate and obfuscation from the PM
• The use of bee-killing pesticides
• The stupidity of government in the proposed return to Imperial measures
• Road building on good farm land
• House building on good farm land
• Immigration (unchecked)
  
• the NHS
• Huge salaries for CEOs
• The general malaise in society
• Oh, and war in the Ukraine
• Pollution
• Rising prices
  

What a world we live in. No wonder people do not see the relevance of church. We may pray for things to get better but people have been doing that since the psalms were written.

Odd then, that a few flowers can make then flock to a building.

All spread out

I mentioned that there were only 18 people at a one of the services on Sunday.

It has long been a bit of a joke that people who attend church sit at the back and they certainly spread out to use as much of a building as possible. This, of course, has been essential when folk returned to church when Covid restrictions were eased.

In some ways this is perfectly natural. The English do not want others to hear them pray and the art of mumbling is a skill oft found in the C of E. That said, I try not to mumble but I do vary in my level of participation on those rare times when I am not at the organ (and they are very rare). If I attend a service where there are great hymns, then I do like a good sing and I give it some vocal welly. Even as an organist I have been known to give a vocal lead in the spoken parts if I feel the congregation needs encouragement, and I sometimes sing as I play if the console is near the congregation.

At the first service on Sunday 8th I was near the (small) choir and I felt it only right to join in the Creed and other spoken parts of the service because we were a team: teams thrive on mutual support.

It was a hallmark of the worship at church #1 that conregational participation was positive and not feeble. To "The Lord be with you", the reponse "And with Thy spirit" was firm and confident (actually, I cannot recall if that one as actually used but it is very likely!). As I said before, I did feel this was an act of worship and, oddly (although I could not see the congregation very well) they were not spread out quite as much as one might expect.

I do find sharing the Peace very uncomfortable. It has not been done by people moving about during Covid - British Sign Language has been used in some places. Even before Covid I hated this aspect of the service and people would deliberately walk up to you and force a handshake on you. Hideous!

It is the sudden change of mood, the ripping one out of one's comfort zone, which is so disturbing. One can sit alone in church doing one's best to worship in solitude (with one's inner thoughts) and then one is expected to be all pally with several people for no good reason. Is it virtue signalling at its worst?

Church for Kiddies

My reader (!) will be aware that I favour a certain kind of churchmanship. I came across a video which sums up all that is wrong - from my perspective - with church worship in the 21st century.

I understand that the C of E wants to be approachable and welcoming: it may have been stuffy and remote in the past and a church style of the 1950s-1970s may not attract people these days. That said, I find plenty wrong with the video below (for as long as it stays on YouTube).

• A church service should not start with someone shouting "Good morning" as is so often the case now. Yes, this is not a formal service where the vicar has processed in; he has to get the congregation's attention somehow. Oh wait, I find that even if I try to set an atmosphere as an organist I have to contend with chatter and noise.
• At 57 seconds we see and hear the vicar leading the clapping. Again, one has to hear the reading just before this to set it in context but I would feel very uneasy in this setting. What is the point of clapping? This is not an old peoples' home where one is trying to get geriatrics to join in with enthusiasm. It all seems false to me. I accept that this may have been shortly after Lockdown (March 2021) and people may have not been too happy to sing in an enclosed space so clapping was an alternaive. See how I am getting to see the other side of the story?
• Then they go outside (this is obviously an edited service). I have never been a fan of singing outside and the trite "Hosanna" they are singing with a tambourine backing is less than dignified IMHO.

I have never been to Haddon and this was just one video which popped up as a result of some searching I have done in the area close by.

One must remember that, despite what derision I may pour upon this act of worship, the vicar may be extremely good with his flock, at the bedside of ill people, comforting the bereaved and everything else that an incumbent does. It is not his fault. He may have had a job before entering the priesthood and be quite worldly wise: I do not know. He will have been trained for his role and will be relying upon what he has been taught is the correct way to lead worship in the 21st century. It may be that he comes from an evangelical tradition; who knows.

So apologies to Haddon; this video just illustrates a point or two.

My question is, "Where does dumbing down stop?"

Good Friday

These days Holy Week passes me by much the same as any other week. This is because I am not involved in 'the church' or Christianity for a multitude of reasons. In my youth Holy Week (culminating in Easter, obviously) was a busy time and, when I became a regular organist, there were several services to play for.

One feature of times past was the Three Hours Devotion. One cathedral website says -

This is the traditional preaching service for Good Friday...Very often, the three hours is interspersed with hymns, prayers and silence so that our reflection can take many forms. This service aims to finish at 15:00, the time that Jesus died on the cross.

So it still goes on but I have not attended one since about 1975. It was a real marathon and my only duty was to play 3 or 4 hymns during the time. People were permitted to come in for a part of the service but I had to stay the whole time. I found ways of filling the time; these days I guess I would take my mobile phone!

I have attended Easter Vigils on Holy Saturday too. A small bonfires is lit just outside the church and there is a slow procession into the church, stopping three times when the priest sings "The Light of Christ", gradually rising in pitch each time.

The Holy week services make me feel uncomfortable and I suppose that is the point. We are meant to share in the passion of Jesus and his suffering. It is also the case that people like me want their religion to be nice and easy and slotted in to a convenient 'window' of the week.

To attend a 3 hour devotion service requires discipline which even the disciples of Jesus lacked: it is significant that the words are similar - discipline and disciple. Being religious requires staying power and I think I used mine up years ago.

One ex-chorister friend of mine used to say that he doesn't go to church any more because he feels he is 'in credit' after all the services he had to attend as a boy.

Sacraments

Yesterday I wrote about Evangelical churches and those groups who, to me, appear to set up their own religions and who want to 'play at churches'.

For a while I attended an Evangelical church but I will not bore you with how this came to pass. I was surprised that I enjoyed the services once I got used to having no music to look at and not knowing the hymn tunes. [ASIDE: I picked up some useful repertoire which I then introduced at school and which has been useful in the years since, such as "In Christ alone"]

The reason I left this church was because, after several weeks (months?) they wanted me to become a full member and the only way to do that was to be baptised into their church. Woah! Baptised for a second time? My friends were horrified and I too thought this was a bit 'rum'. I had been taught that baptism is a once-only sacrament. (A priest had once told me that when he was newly ordained he baptised twin boys and swapped their names by accident: it could not be undone. How the family resolved the issue I am not sure.)

Many people only go to church to be Hatched, Matched or Dispatched. Of these the first and last can only occur once! It is a fact that the C of E used not to allow divorced people to remarry in church but I believe the hard line has softened (it could be up to the local vicar these days): it is certainly possible to get a church blessing on a 2nd, 3rd or 4th marriage. I know a lady who remarried in Coventry Cathedral.

My point is that at least the C of E has regulations (even if they have relaxed somewhat in the case of marriage) and it is very wrong of Evangelical churches to make new rules and demand obedience to them. At the time I joined I was in a bad place so I was vulnerable. Luckily I was not in such a bad place that I had lost my wits. I realised something stank and I left soon afterwards.

At the time I was attending this church it was very clear that they abhorred homosexuals but it seems they have now changed this to hating the acts which might occur in such a relationship whilst supporting LGBTQ people in their flock.

The trouble with churches is that they are attended by people and people - humans - have so many different ways of behaving that one size does not fit all. When I was a child in the 1960s I was made to believe that one size did fit all ("At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow" and all that).

Ah, the church: changing to adapt to popular trends so as to keep bums on seats?

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!