Manda and I visited a church this morning (Tom has a long work day) and I have a lot of thoughts.
1) the church has beautiful stained glass
2) the church has a real pipe organ - I love pipe organs
3) the church has some very friendly people
4) there was a lot of Scripture read before the sermon
5) they sang beautiful old hymns
6) the church is CRC.
but...
(there was no choir loft)
5) the pastor was not "animated"
6) the pastor was "tied" to the pulpit - that's where the microphone was
7) the pastor read the Scripture the sermon was based on once at the beginning, but I don't remember any connecting Scripture.
8) the prayers were written out in the bulletin
9) the pastor gave (LOTS) of examples, etc., and did connect them to the Scripture.
10) the pastor gave (LOTS) of anctidotes, and did connect them to the Scripture
11) the pastor gave (LOTS) of stories, and did connect them to the Scripture
(Do you think I'm after more expository teaching?)
12) the congregation appeared to be more heavily weighted toward the older end of the scale.
13) I saw very few young people/teens
14) I saw one (1) person raise their hands during worship (not me)
15) there was no choir loft (my commitment to my friend)
A couple other thoughts:
On my old church: The whole FirehouseFamily thing was a result of (or at least brought to a head by) work trips to New Orleans. This had not clicked with me (don't know why) but the Christian Reformed Church has a great organization in place called CRWRC. In my previous (married) life, I worked with the American Red Cross and in our county they worked very closely with CRWRC, so I know that this is a great and effective organization.
Sunshine went outside the denomination (with its established connections) and ended up with a relationship with FirehouseFamily.
Why? My friend (and I) think that it's because they are deliberately distancing themselves from denominational ties with the CRC.
The other thought.
It's been a while since I've been in a church without powerpoint. That's not a good thing or a bad thing...just a thing.
Milly
Thank you for your story I stopped in our youth ministers office and asked her questions about our up coming mission trip. She reassured me that it was going to be fine and listened to my concers. I want my children to be respectful of other views, and still stand firm on the veiws they were taught and have studied about. (gotta back it up)
We use power point and a sound system the worship minister and minister can move around. I like to see him walk to the folks in the pews. Camera man up top has to lean a lot.
Thanks again you have sparked the fact theat sometimes we need to venture down the hall and see what's going on.
Ellen
😉
Atlantic
Ellen, I think I'm going to be fascinated by this. I have been to a few Protestant services over the years, but I know very little about Protestant liturgy.
I find the differences really interesting so far - it had never occurred to me that you would ever find PowerPoint in a church! (At least not during a service...)
I would certainly agree that a non-Trinitarian "church" is no longer Christian, and your current church being too comfortable with that is Not Good and that you are right to be doing something.
Ellen
Protestant liturgy varies from church to church. Some "shake it up" from week to week just to keep folks from sliding into a rut.
On Power Point. As we learn more new choruses they stick them on power point so that people don't have their noses in a book.
A lot of churches use powerpoint to display the "announcement" rather than interrupt the service for them (my feeling is that if the congregation won't read the bulletin, let them be in the dark about what's going on)
Some churches use powerpoint to display sermon points (for a note-taker like me, it helps keep me in step with the pastor.
Smaller churches usually use overhead projectors.
😉
Anonymous
We have power point or something. It it used to show announcemts, music (for the pew folks and our singers) plus helps our minister make points. He has also said to us up top it helps him to get back on track. When he preaches God has to lead, someting he can forget where he is.