Last Sunday I toddled off to London and took part in two
very different evening services.
My first port of call was Choral Evensong at St Paul’s
Cathedral. Those attending the service
were greeted by smart looking ushers in morning dress handing out the
beautifully printed service booklet.
Their welcome and helpfulness was exemplary.
As I took my seat underneath the dome I looked around to see who else had come. There must have been between two to three hundred of us. We stood as the choir and clergy entered – in fact Choral Evensong has a lot of standing up and sitting down – all marked up in italics in the service booklet!
The St Paul’s service lasted just over the hour and contained wonderful music, great formality and a ‘university’ like sermon. In many ways I loved it – it felt like a good tradition worth hanging on to and participating in – and perhaps as a piece of ‘ecclesiastical theatre’ it couldn’t have been done better than in Wren’s church at the top of Ludgate Hill.
Yet...I’m just not sure of the reaction of my fellow worshippers – or even if they were actually worshippers at all. In that largish congregation probably no more than six of us tried to sing the two hymns and join in with the various responses. The rest, either because they didn’t want to or because English wasn’t their language, just kept silent – and that made it feel as if we were spectators watching a service rather than worshipers taking part in one. I just wonder what the clergy must feel about all this non-participation?
So I left, grateful for the moment but asking a few questions about what was really going on.
Having walked along Fleet Street and The Strand I stopped off at Trafalgar Square and watched a huge Hindu Festival being celebrated with dancing and free food! And then on to the ‘Informal Church’ evening service at Bloomsbury Central Baptist.
As I took my seat underneath the dome I looked around to see who else had come. There must have been between two to three hundred of us. We stood as the choir and clergy entered – in fact Choral Evensong has a lot of standing up and sitting down – all marked up in italics in the service booklet!
The St Paul’s service lasted just over the hour and contained wonderful music, great formality and a ‘university’ like sermon. In many ways I loved it – it felt like a good tradition worth hanging on to and participating in – and perhaps as a piece of ‘ecclesiastical theatre’ it couldn’t have been done better than in Wren’s church at the top of Ludgate Hill.
Yet...I’m just not sure of the reaction of my fellow worshippers – or even if they were actually worshippers at all. In that largish congregation probably no more than six of us tried to sing the two hymns and join in with the various responses. The rest, either because they didn’t want to or because English wasn’t their language, just kept silent – and that made it feel as if we were spectators watching a service rather than worshipers taking part in one. I just wonder what the clergy must feel about all this non-participation?
So I left, grateful for the moment but asking a few questions about what was really going on.
Having walked along Fleet Street and The Strand I stopped off at Trafalgar Square and watched a huge Hindu Festival being celebrated with dancing and free food! And then on to the ‘Informal Church’ evening service at Bloomsbury Central Baptist.
It was quite a contrast to St Paul’s.
Bloomsbury start their evening service with an open table
of food and those attending find a plate, fill it and chat with each other
whilst eating. It’s such a generous and warm-hearted way to begin a time
of worship – a real attempt to show hospitality.
The service itself was well planned and used provocative modern hymnody and liturgy from the Anabaptist tradition – yet it provided numerous spaces for the congregation to verbally participate: offering up a one sentence prayer of thanksgiving, taking part in the discussion, naming a place or person in the intercessions. And this congregation did participate! Silences were honoured but quite rare – because by and large it felt to me people wanted to contribute and be involved. No time more so than in the discussion that was opened up around the theme of ‘hospitality’ based on a bible passage about guests at a banquet.
As I walked to get the train home from Baker Street I started to – as they say on exam papers – ‘compare and contrast’ these two services. Both were excellent in their own way, beautifully put together by competent ministers. Yet however much I loved the music of St Paul’s it was the ‘authenticity’ of Bloomsbury than struck me most last Sunday evening.
It was great to be part of a congregation that was generally much younger than me!! Obviously this type of service rings true for the twenty and thirty year old age group especially.
It was great to be part of that ‘multi-voiced’ experience hearing God speak through my fellow worshippers.
It was great to be part of an evening service that wasn’t just a re-run of the morning but was genuinely ‘different’. And most of all it just felt real – it was the integrity of it all that I liked best of all.
The service itself was well planned and used provocative modern hymnody and liturgy from the Anabaptist tradition – yet it provided numerous spaces for the congregation to verbally participate: offering up a one sentence prayer of thanksgiving, taking part in the discussion, naming a place or person in the intercessions. And this congregation did participate! Silences were honoured but quite rare – because by and large it felt to me people wanted to contribute and be involved. No time more so than in the discussion that was opened up around the theme of ‘hospitality’ based on a bible passage about guests at a banquet.
As I walked to get the train home from Baker Street I started to – as they say on exam papers – ‘compare and contrast’ these two services. Both were excellent in their own way, beautifully put together by competent ministers. Yet however much I loved the music of St Paul’s it was the ‘authenticity’ of Bloomsbury than struck me most last Sunday evening.
It was great to be part of a congregation that was generally much younger than me!! Obviously this type of service rings true for the twenty and thirty year old age group especially.
It was great to be part of that ‘multi-voiced’ experience hearing God speak through my fellow worshippers.
It was great to be part of an evening service that wasn’t just a re-run of the morning but was genuinely ‘different’. And most of all it just felt real – it was the integrity of it all that I liked best of all.
Don’t get me wrong – I suspect you have to ‘get used’ to
Bloomsbury’s evening service – but for me on Trinity Sunday that was the place
where I felt ‘my heart strangely warmed’!
With best wishes,
With best wishes,
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