Posts Tagged “church”

My church is closing at the end of next month.

And in a very real way, marketing is to blame.

Let me explain…about a year and a half ago, my family joined a (very) small Reformed Episcopal (a.k.a. “Anglican”) church here in Amarillo. I grew up in the Episcopal church, with the 1928 prayer book, the 1940 hymnal, and all the ritual and liturgy that the Church of England bequeathed to the Colonies back in the day. We found our church in kind of an odd way. When we first relocated to Amarillo, I wanted to find an Episcopal church. I found two – one that was pursuing the post-modern, cherry-picked theological, anything goes style worship favored by the main body of the Episcopal church in the United States. The other struck me as kind of old and stodgy. Neither had any appeal to me. So we went elsewhere. We landed at a “mega-church” – one of the many across the country that features a “praise team” (read: “Christian rock group”) and a sermon as their service. Not exactly what I was used to from a liturgical point of view, but at least we were in the pews…um…seats, every Sunday. Then my wife was approached to create a strategic marketing plan for a small Episcopal church. We checked out the church, and found a traditional church, using the “old” prayer book, the “old” hymnal, with a firm grounding in traditional Anglican theology. No gay bishops, same-sex marriages, or any other “if it feels good it can’t be wrong” kind of nonsense. We’d found our church home. Read the rest of this entry »

Church has changed a lot since I was a kid. At least it has in some churches. (The one my family attends is virtually unchanged from the church of my youth – which is exactly why we go there.) The new trend in churches seems to be to have a rock concert (with “Praise Team” musicians) with a sermon attached. The theory goes that if you can change church into something that will get the muddled asses…um “huddled masses”…yearning to see free bread and circuses, you can get them to attend church. The problem with that idea is that when you take all the mystery and majesty out of a church service, you remove what really appeals to worshipers. As a professional musician, I’ve got nothing against rock concerts, especially concerts where the lyrics are positive and uplifting. But a rock concert is no substitute for worship. A concert can be a religious experience, but I’ve yet to see a concert that can rival the Sacrament of Holy Communion from the Book of Common Prayer (1928) for a way to get closer to God. Read the rest of this entry »