Posted on 07/06/2011 7:07:50 AM PDT by Bed_Zeppelin
One church leader says worship services today are too time consuming, speaking out during an era when discussions about long church services seem to be a touchy subject for many Christians.
The Rev. Jonathan Gledhill, the Bishop of Lichfield, told a group of clergy in a speech in his London diocese this week that church services have become too long, recommending “clergy should aim to keep the time of worship to no more than 50 minutes.”
The bishop continued to say that worship has become “too complicated, leaving people who are not regular churchgoers feeling confused and excluded.”
"One of the reasons for our recent decline in churchgoing is we are not making the occasional worshipper feel welcome," he said.
"You have got to be quite tough to come to some of our services if you are not a regular attender. We're praying for longer and we're singing for longer."
Most religious leaders say Sunday morning church services already have to compete with shopping, lying in bed, or taking the day off, and the idea of spending two hours dedicated to worship is not very appealing in today’s society.
One blog reported that people who are in favor of longer church services frequently use the argument that “we need to give God the time that he deserves. If we can make time for everything else, we can make time for God.”
“In my opinion, being in service for 3 hours on Sunday is not a badge of honor. It means that there are a lot of people in your church that waste a lot of time during service,” said Clifton Holmes, a Christian writer for the Gospel Blog.
“There is no point in any of us bashing people for how much or how little time they spend in church on Sunday. If you really want to score points and find favor with God, then focus on how much time you spend with him outside of the walls of your cathedral, worship center or sanctuary.”
Research conducted over the last year by anonymous worshippers for the church website Ship of Fools found some Anglican clergy are preaching for as long as 42 minutes. Throw in songs of praise, fellowship and prayer and the worshipping public spends about two hours in church.
Bishop Gledhill said there had been a tendency to devise "more and more intricate and beautiful services for our own use, forgetting those who might come if we made things simpler for them to start with."
He said that clergy need to make sure that their sermons are not too long, arguing that people's "attention spans aren't what they used to be."
Attention spans remain a major area of investigation within research for psychology and neuroscience. Medical professionals generally believe that there is an"epidemic-level shortness in the attention spans of American citizens,” according to a federally-funded study on improving attention spans of Americans.
Kirk Johnson, a behavioral psychologist at the University of Minnesota who took part in the attention span study, said one explanation for the plummet in American attention spans may be, in part, an increasingly intrusive overabundance of often irrelevant and distracting information.
“From reality television to advertising on mobile phones to giant screaming headline broadsheets on every street corner contributes to the problem,” he said.
In another recent poll conducted by City Data, nearly 20 percent of those surveyed said their church services were timed just right.
Others surveyed for the poll, reveal 50 percent saying they spend about 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes in church.
Recent research shows only 26 percent of the world attend church services.
Last year, the Vatican told Catholic clergy to keep their sermons under eight minutes to cater for people who found it hard to concentrate for long periods.
According to Christian Research, there is no doubt that the long term downward trend in Church attendance continues as does the increase in average age of Churchgoers.
So far, research shows nothing the Church leaders have done seems to have brought about any change in the decline in church attendance that started in the 50's.
The length of the sermon isn’t always why people get bored or loose interest. The sermon should belong enough to fully express the subject while understanding that the mind can not understand what the seat and not endure.
While living in Texas I attended a church where the interim pastor preached for 40 minutes to a hour and more sometimes. He was a very good speaker and he was a also professor of hermeneutics at a local seminary. When the church was offered TV time on a local network affiliate the guy that prepared the tapes told the preacher either you need to edit your sermons or I will need to so they fit the time slot. While not loose any quality his sermons were all about 40 minutes.
“How about we skip the sermon and just hold hands and sing a few hymns?”
Even better, skip the actual hymns and hold hands and sing vacuous, insipid, inane crappy contemporary choruses with the lyrics projected on a screen. eeewww.
I’m a teacher. If people are disengaged, it’s because your lesson plan needs work.
Things that bother me.
1. Setting aside a song just for the choir. If I’m here to just sit and listen, I’d go to a concert. I’m here to participate.
I felt that way when I sang in a choir. I told the choir director that we should try to get everyone involved in the singing, and dropping the ‘song just for the choir’ drove home that message.
We dropped the song before the giving, and added one during the mass, so that we were alwasy singing while people got up to receive.
One collection, no announcements. I usually cannot hear the sermon so I have to sit and nod politely. Would be great if the church had a handout for the sermon, not the announcements, but it never works out that way.
You mean “7-11’s” as opposed to hymns? You don’t need the screen for those.
“lyrics projected on a screen. eeewww.”
I wish they had a screen with the sermon on it too. It really helps us deaf folks.
Hymns in protestant churches were always intended to be devices not only for praise, but also for teaching sound doctrine. Read the lyrics to some of the very old hymns and you will find just that.
Unfortunately in our postmodern culture, truth is supplanted by emotions, so these songs no longer appeal to many people my age (20-35). The appeal to have bigger churches (which means more $$) has caused leadership to abandon doctrine for emotionalism (what Micahel Horton refers to as “moralistic, therapeutic self-held deism”). Jesus, on the other hand, intentionally made statements of truth that caused nominal followers to fall away (”eat my flesh... drink my blood”). But you can’t operate a business on such principles, and your pastor sure as heck couldn’t afford his BMW if he did. Church is for true believers, but there are so few of them that a churchianity business has to appeal to many unbelievers to make money.
I was at a baseball game that went over 4 hrs once and not many people left. Priorities I guess... Sort of sad really. God’s word is “boring” if it goes on more than an hour but sports! that’s another matter. Yessiree.
You've hit on the key here. Church is not supposed to be a show run by a few men or women while the congregation is primarily an audience.
"How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification." 1 Corinthians 14:26
When the body of Christ comes together for a service, not just to receive but to give to others, then the time flies by.
Another thing that annoys me are the teenagers and sometimes even adult that will sit there and play with their smart-phones, sending text messages and playing games during the church service. In my younger days, I remember the preacher stopping and reprimanding teens in the middle of his sermon if he thought they were talking and not paying attention.
What you describe is all too common.
I have been blessed to find a chruch that has a Traditional Service that is actually Traditional. The morning service is practically all hymns. I’m not sure what goes on at the “blended” service, as I have never attended that one, but I get the feeling it is not nearly as bad as most. I guess that is why my pastor doesn’t drive a BMW. :)
For me, nothing brings out more emotions than hearing and singing great hymns that eloquently express the great truths about God. The “emotional” choruses and shallow modern songs generally bring out no emotions (except sometimes grief and anger) in me.
I belive the “emotional” modern songs bring out largely phony emotions, the way watching a manipulative “tear jerker” movie does.
>>>>with the lyrics projected on a screen<<<
While I don’t like most (but not all) modern songs and choruses, I don’t have any problem with projecting lyrics on a screen.
Actually, using a screen is a great way to teach the congregation many, great, older hymns that are not in most hymn books. Sadly, the projection screen is generally not used for this purpose.
Love to hear excuses for not attending church.
1. All they want is my money. But movie theaters and restaurants don't?
2. The church is full of hypocrites. Isn't church where they should be?
3. I takes too long. Hey, there's an early bird sale tomorrow! Let's go to the store and camp out so we'll be first in line! It's only 12 hours till they open!
Love to hear excuses for not attending church.
1. All they want is my money. But movie theaters and restaurants don't?
2. The church is full of hypocrites. Isn't church where they should be?
3. I takes too long. Hey, there's an early bird sale tomorrow! Let's go to the store and camp out so we'll be first in line! It's only 12 hours till they open!
Jesus said “Do this in momory of me” And told us what we needed to do
I dont recall any of it being standup-sitdown-kneel-sing-donate-sing-donate-kneel-stand
So... you pick what you like and go with it, as long as it meets the first criteria, all else is your decision.
I was on the side of the Bishop at first, but then I saw the bit about the AVERAGE 42 minute sermon. Any sermon over 30 minutes is a vanity. The Catholic church had it right by renaming the sermon the Homily, and making the Preacher limit it to about 15 minutes.
OH! Nothing thrills me more than when the Knights of Columbus process in with their uniforms and sabres.
I have Restless legs syndrome and find it very hard to sit over an hour. I sit in the back when I go and often slip out to on long sermons with many alter calls. I have explained this to the preacher and he understands. I try not to be a annoyance, but I am sure I bother a few people.
I agree with your Pastor wholeheartedly. Sadly, he was probably one of the few you would LIKE to listen to for a full 45. Some people have that knack, that gift of the spirit. Some people don’t, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be great pastors. Just means that if they know that sermonizing isn’t their strong point, they should stick to fifteen minute exigeses on the lessons and bring in guest Preachers to rev the congregation up periodically.
BTW, I feel every Christian needs a revival about every 90 days to keep it from getting stale.
Some people would go to three hours of chirchin and then go home for fried chicken, a nap, and then back to chirch fro round two.
I am 63 years old, and I have always been a Roman Catholic. Daily Mass, which is the basic Mass without the singing, collections, and shorter sermons if any, usually runs around half hour. I hardly remember too many times when Mass lasted longer than an hour, even pre Vatican II. But when it did go longer, it usually was because the priest either spoke for more than 25 minutes, or other business was conducted at the Mass, such as Baptisms. The vigil Mass for Easter Sunday is always long.
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