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passagewards from Saturday to Saturday... so I probably won't get to post to LJ during that time (so you'll all miss my regular, content-ful postings, wont'cha? well, maybe not.)
Last night we went to church for a Maundy Thursday Meal. This was *meant* to be a series of solemn readings, with a simple meal of bread and cheese. Well, the other groups managed the solemn readings, and the youthgroup managed the simple meal, but no-one quite got both...
Today we went to the Braintree Union Of Churches' (or whatever it's called today to pretend the churches in Braintree all get along) Good Friday Service. The turnout was, frankly, appalling. There were, um, five people from Notley, including us three; overall, there was about the number of people who come to Notley on a regular Sunday. Out of *every Christian in Braintree*, supposedly.
I'm not sure I can blame them, though. The service in the church was fine - traditional, but I don't have a major problem with hymns, especially as the majority of churches in the area like them best. Then we did the Walk of Witness through the town, which was fine. And then we came to the Open Air Service, in the middle of the town. A wonderful oppertunity to spread the word of Christ and be truly relevant to today's culture. Um, no. We garbled a few hymns with musicians that were trying their best with a really *bad* sound system, totally murdered the one modern song we tried to do (they seemed to think it was their duty to play it at 100mph; um, no, guys, this is Good Friday and there are *some* slow modern songs, and this was one of them...), failed to be able to hear much of what the speaker was saying because of the aformentioned *bad* sound system, then embarrassedly shuffled away.
It's not even as if we couldn't have had a decent sound system - it was merely because Notley are, due to being modern, relevant and - *gasp* - containing as many people below the age of 30 as above it (a henious crime that), somewhat pariahs in the Braintree Union of Churches, and hence our perfectly good sound system couldn't possibly be used, nor could we have our worship band there to do the song that they're familiar with and the others probably had never seen before in their lives. Don'tcha just *love* church politics to bits?
passagewards from Saturday to Saturday... so I probably won't get to post to LJ during that time (so you'll all miss my regular, content-ful postings, wont'cha? well, maybe not.)Last night we went to church for a Maundy Thursday Meal. This was *meant* to be a series of solemn readings, with a simple meal of bread and cheese. Well, the other groups managed the solemn readings, and the youthgroup managed the simple meal, but no-one quite got both...
Today we went to the Braintree Union Of Churches' (or whatever it's called today to pretend the churches in Braintree all get along) Good Friday Service. The turnout was, frankly, appalling. There were, um, five people from Notley, including us three; overall, there was about the number of people who come to Notley on a regular Sunday. Out of *every Christian in Braintree*, supposedly.
I'm not sure I can blame them, though. The service in the church was fine - traditional, but I don't have a major problem with hymns, especially as the majority of churches in the area like them best. Then we did the Walk of Witness through the town, which was fine. And then we came to the Open Air Service, in the middle of the town. A wonderful oppertunity to spread the word of Christ and be truly relevant to today's culture. Um, no. We garbled a few hymns with musicians that were trying their best with a really *bad* sound system, totally murdered the one modern song we tried to do (they seemed to think it was their duty to play it at 100mph; um, no, guys, this is Good Friday and there are *some* slow modern songs, and this was one of them...), failed to be able to hear much of what the speaker was saying because of the aformentioned *bad* sound system, then embarrassedly shuffled away.
It's not even as if we couldn't have had a decent sound system - it was merely because Notley are, due to being modern, relevant and - *gasp* - containing as many people below the age of 30 as above it (a henious crime that), somewhat pariahs in the Braintree Union of Churches, and hence our perfectly good sound system couldn't possibly be used, nor could we have our worship band there to do the song that they're familiar with and the others probably had never seen before in their lives. Don'tcha just *love* church politics to bits?
