Oh my goodness....

[gitlance]

Oh wow. I think I went to the worst possible Mass ever today. I decided to check out this little Anglican parish down the street...... and initially it seemed like it was going to be nice.

But when the prelude music started........ they had one acoustic guitar with about 4 vocalists with microphones sitting in a circle in the back of the sanctuary. And the entire service was sung with this 1960's hippy-esque music!!!! Oh man, it was sad. I'm laughing about it now, but it just seemed so incredibly inappropriate for Sunday Mass... not to mention it wasn't very serious at all. Just way too casual.

What do you guys think?

:yum:

gitlance

[gtsecc]

Oh wow. I think I went to the worst possible Mass ever today. I decided to check out this little Anglican parish down the street...... and initially it seemed like it was going to be nice.

But when the prelude music started........ they had one acoustic guitar with about 4 vocalists with microphones sitting in a circle in the back of the sanctuary. And the entire service was sung with this 1960's hippy-esque music!!!! Oh man, it was sad. I'm laughing about it now, but it just seemed so incredibly inappropriate for Sunday Mass... not to mention it wasn't very serious at all. Just way too casual.

What do you guys think?

:yum:

gitlance

Publicly I say I am Anglo-Catholic for the theology.

Privately I admit is just so I can be assured that the above mentioned sort of service will not happen to me.

[gitlance]

Privately I admit is just so I can be assured that the above mentioned sort of service will not happen to me.



AMEN. I must admit that that is one reason I consider myself Anglo-Catholic.... to make sure the liturgy is always "right." Hehehehehe.

[PaladinValer]

Rite III strikes again :D

[RobNJ]

I'm having trouble imagining this musical style fitting in to a Rite I Sung Eucharist:liturgy:

[benedictine]

Rite III? Is that the one in "Enriching our Worship?"

[Iron Sun 254]

Yeah, when I first moved back to Houston, we were ready to make a change from the church we had been members of when we had moved away (long story). I was checking out one Episcopal church near by and when the service started, the "rock combo" started in and the words to the songs they were singing started appearing on the two huge TV screen behind the altar. I almost walked out when the lead singer (the associate rector on acoustic guitar) announced the start of the children's chapel with a stunning rendition of "Come and play with the Lord" (I think it was a song he wrote himself). Not quite my cup of tea.

[PaladinValer]

Benedictine, there is no such thing as an actual Rite III. Rite III is an Anglican term used to conotate more contemporary services.

[masuwerte]

That sounds like the Roman Catholic church my parents started attending. Not my cup of tea, either. But, hey, they like it.

[gitlance]

Yeah, it was certainly an experience that I don't wish to have again. It would have been tolerable if it were good contemporary Christian music.... but this stuff was extremely 1960's hippy with bad vocalists.

[benedictine]

OK. Has anyone ever used the one in Enriching our Worship?

[Cjwinnit]

aargh, hippy churches. I think I've had my fill from all the crazy ones I hung out with in uni :)

[Cjwinnit]

When did I become a senior member??

[AveMaria]

Eeek, sorry you had a disappointing experience! It wouldn't have been my cuppa tea, either, although I do try and push my comfort zone occasionally.

And PV? A good friend of mine uses the phrase "Rite 666" in lieu of "Rite III".

[PaladinValer]

Well, some Rite III services are rather, um, proponing to "popular theology" often found in more less apostolic denominations. Thus, I have no qualms about that "666" thing at all; a lot of it is montanistic garbage.

Sidenote: The actual number is probably 616 ;)

[AveMaria]

Hmm, anyone else think a "What constitutes 'Rite III'?" could be an entertaining thread, so long as we tried to keep it light and not step on anyone's toes? I'd be curious to see where everyone's 'line in the sand' is, so to speak.

[Inside Edge]

What do you guys think?
Welcome to my parish.

[Parishoner]

I wouldn't personally like it, however I attend a college service where the hymns and certain praise music is used, using acoustic guitar, and I like it ok. However, the sacraments are still kept and done to the Holy Eucharist Rite II. On a personal note, it's not my place to degrade the worship of others, as long as God is glorified, I'm okay with it.

[pmcleanj]

Well, I have a nostalgic place in my heart for 1960's hippy-esque music. Although, from what I've garnered from the co-op students I employ, what I think of as hippy-esque may be rather different. I'd probably enjoy a mass of "Spirit of God in the clear running water", "How great thou art", and even that old folk-mass favourite, "Michael row your boat ashore". Maybe they *like* 1960's folk.

Or, maybe they don't like 1960's folk, but God hasn't chosen to gift them with an organist and choir-master. When people offer the best they've got, that's an offering worthy of God even if their best is much less than some more musically gifted church would have to offer. In fact, it may be better -- we live next to one of the new-style mega-churches, that has multiple professional-quality music teams. The ordinary joe wouldn't think twice of offering his modest talents. But it's only when we give to the community of the faithful that we truly experience what it means to be a member in the body. I think God has a plan for churches where those with meagre gifts are nonetheless able to offer them.

Lorraine Tadman's music is generally considered hippy-esque modern trash by the Merbecke aesthetes at Saint Stephen's. In the 1970's "An Alternative Eucharistic Rite for the People of God" -- which eventually grew into the BAS service equivalent to the U.S. "Rite II" was treated to derision because of its informal folksy language and lack of dignity -- in constrast to the 1662 language, of course. I'd have been happy to keep the 1662 language exclusively; but thirty years later I know enough people who are blessed by the modern-language service that I can't be sorry that An Alternative Rite survived. I'm sure Rite III, whatever it eventually looks like, will not only inevitably come into being, but also be a blessing God will use to reach people.

In the meantime, I just hope (wish?) I can go on finding the occasional BCP-and-Merbecke service to meet my own preferred style of worshipping God (God, I doubt, really cares which style as long as we're worshipping).