Here are the most interesting things I’ve read this week.
I wonder if the church has thought sufficiently about making it possible for someone who is in a 9-5 job and perhaps is out of town on weekends to attend church? Should early evening weekday services, or early morning ones not be more in evidence?
There are churches which have early morning services – if I’m honest I know of none that is terribly well patronised by people who are heading out of town for the weekend.
The question has certainly come up before as to whether it would be possible to establish a regular congregation in a city like Glasgow which met for a main weekly service at a time different to Sunday morning. (There are one or two services like this in the City of London, I think).
St Mary’s tried for a time to use the 5-7 pm weeknight slot for events and services. This had been dropping off before I came here and it was hard to see a way forward for those slots. Good things came out of the experiment but it is interesting that the ones which continued and took on on a life of their own were not liturgical. The poetry group, for example, came from this time.
I’m aware of a city centre church in Edinburgh which has just started to have a Saturday vigil mass like many Roman Catholic churches have. That doesn’t answer the question about people going out of town for the weekend but it is interesting that they are experimenting with that at the current time.
I do recall a church adjacent to a large factory that managed to hold a lunchtime communion service on a weekday. Only really works if everyone takes their lunch break, and has it at the same time, of course.
On the wider point there are those of us who would be regular attenders at Episcopalian services were it logistically feasible. I would certainly consider myself an Episcopalian even though it would take a 28 hour round trip to enable me to attend on a Sunday. I can’t imagine there are more than a few dozen folk in that situation nationwide, of course.
Thanks Jo – I’m aware of a number of people who regard themselves as members of St Mary’s who can’t physically get here for reasons of geography. I’ve been trying to think through what might be done to make such links stronger for a while.
Oh yes, and I nearly forgot. I saw a brilliant flash of blue darting over the River Kelvin yesterday. The sight of a glorious kingfisher. The kind of sight that makes you so glad you live in the city.
To Mother India Cafe yesterday for lunch with E. He does have a way with a curry menu.Then to Kelvingrove again. Still gloriously packed with people, many of whom had children with them. It is astonishing to make such a success from a object focussed city museum. I was wondering whether it will calm down…
I wish I had the time to do a research project on building healthy decision making processes in church life. It seems to me that a fundamental question is how we use patterns of democracy in decision making. People often pray for the involvement of the Holy Spirit or for God’s guidance at church meetings…
By the way, Archers fans, can someone tell me…Has Jazzer always been such a Pantomime Glasgwegian or is it new? The BBC website seems to suggest that he was born in Borchester in 1984. How come he sounds like he does?
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