It's Sunday - Let's Debate Church Service Styles!

[poky]

I grew up going to a Congregational (UCC) church just a few blocks from home. I think we went mostly because it was a social outlet for my mom, (and in HS the youth group was a safe social group for me). UCC/Congregational is not even close to fire and brimstone or hundreds of years of ritual/tradition, and it's very inclusive, too; no rules about race or gender or sexual preference. That said, we do have a hymnal, and we stand to sing out of it, and most of the elements of the service are the same every week, and people mostly at least dress *nice* (there's no rule against jeans, but my memory is that very few wear them, if any). So, I'm not sure where on the spectrum that falls. What ritual there is there is comforting to me, when I go back to visit, simply by dint of its familiarity.

[diggitydot]

I was raised in the Presbyterian church, but attended a lot of my friends' youth groups. They were mostly the Holy Roller-ish and freaked me out a bit. When I was younger and single, I had a boyfriend who was Catholic so we attended mass with his family every week, which was lovely. (In an outdoor grotto in the summertime.) But I didn't get the Catholic Aerobics, (stand, kneel, sit, stand, rinse, repeat), or the baseball signs on the face. I was never sure if I should be praying or trying to steal second.

With all that, I still come back to the Presbyterian church. It's just my comfort zone whereas the jumping up-and-down, yelling, hand raising, talking to the minister while he's in the middle of the sermon...it all just kind of irritates me.

Annie,

I read and am ready to discuss your article. But I think it is buried in this thread. Either start a new thread with your article, or have the administrators do it. As a quasi-Luddite I have no expertise on how to make it work.