I must be getting old and conservative here. After the prelude (done with drums, but we are modern of course) they have ANNOUNCEMENTS, sort of breaking into your preparations for worship. Then instead of announcing a dicipleship program this silly lady does a skit that includes ringing a telephone... then a bunch of clowns (literally!) come out to sing and dance about a "Carnival" that they are putting on next weekend as a fund-raiser.
Adults, kids all singing and dancing in church. I debated either marching back down the aisle or standing up to inquire loudly if I had made a mistake in my choice of venue this morning. Chicken little that I am I kept my mouth shut (I'd never have been able to drag my son out of there, he was positively enchanted!) so I just berated the preacher afterwards.
He sort of shrugged, said it keeps people coming back, he has attendance of 1000 at 3 services so he must be doing something right. I made a snide remark that I was not sure if this was worship or entertainment and broke off with a nasty "just wanted to share my thoughts with you on this."
Even more disgusting is the renovations to the church building. The choir used to be traditionally left and right so one had a direct line of sight to the cross. Now the choir is ACROSS THE FRONT, between the altar and the cross (which is almost hidden from view with a big spray of flowers behind the choir). During the service we get to watch 20-odd (and odd they be) people yawn, fan themselves, scratch, pick their noses and look at their watches. And what do they do? Sing one anthem and a seven-fold amen. They could sit in the front pews and file up for the song and let the congregation do a 3-fold amen after the benediction, like we do at my church in Germany. Sheesh.
The service was the most passive one I've ever attended. As a congregation we had one response, 2 hymns, a Lord's Prayer and the Apostle's Creed. Oh yeah, we got to put money in the plate. Everything else was done for us. I raised this point with the preacher, too, he said that folks under 45 aren't very good at reading aloud and singing and they don't like Psalters.
Next thing you know there will be AWMs, Automatic Worship Machines. You drive up, stick your debit card in, key in the offering, get a 15-second video with a blessing and an amen and off you go, got that worship stuff done for another week.
I'm cranky. I'm sarcastic. I'm going to bed.
Written in Jacksonville, Fl on Mon, 15 Sep 1997 00:00:50