Poll: Different types of services

[desert_island_1]

At your home church do they have a traditional service, contempory service or both?

[ClementofRome]

I did not choose any of the selections as I consider our service to be a hybrid. We are very musical in that we have many music ministries (gospel, bluegrass, trad choir, trios, quartets, etc). Our preaching is very contemporary, but w/o powerpoint, overheads and such. So what are we? We only have 1 service and it varies week to week. Gotta love it.

[bondsdw]

Very traditional. My church is more old than young, and they like to stick to the way things have always been. We're supposed to be getting a Contemporary service soon since we are expanding soon. I really hope we do...

[WesleyJohn]

.

[seeking.IAM]

I am a member of one UMC, but attend another. The church of which I am a member has four worship services, including Saturday night. None of the services are traditional, in my opinion. I have essentially quit attending there. Instead I go to another large UMC that has comtemporary, blended, traditional, & coffee house worship. I go there for the traditional service. It is the least well attended of all of their services.

seeking.IAM
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[CarrieAg93]

We have both - 2 traditional and 1 contemporary. We go to the contemporary.

[Qyöt27]

We have two traditional (at 8:30 and 11:00) and one contemporary (at 9:45), except when there's a special event, in which case there's only one traditional service (at 10:00).

[sinner/SAVED]

I think ours is a combination of ClementofRome's and WesleyJohn's. Our morning service is a blend and our evening service changes from week to week.

[Penguin50388]

2 Traditional
1 contemporary (but not in the traditional sense of the word)

We mainly use Hymns that have been put to modern music and only a couple of "standard" contemporart songs. The Sermons are not based on a main topic like most of the other contemporary services I've been to, but based on a passage of Scripture like a lot of the traditional services I've been to.

[California Dreamin']

I don't know if I would describe my church as traditional or contemporary, it is sort of a mix of both really.

[SandyLou]

We actually have 3 services on Sunday mornings. . . .
8:30 is called "blended" or family
9:40 is contemporary (where I am)
11:00 is traditional

oddly (or NOT), attendance at the 9:40 service equals the total of the other 2 services combined.

[Try]

My home church has 2 traditional services(8 and 11 AM) and 1 contemporary service(9 AM). Surprisingly enough, I attend the 11:00 traditional service- which is the best attended of all the services. While the contemporary service uses mainly “modern” worship songs all of the services feature traditional sermons based on a text from the lectionary. On special occasions there is a 10:00 blended service.



The Wesley Foundation at my college, which operates like a youth group, meeting on a weeknight (Tuesdays 6-8 including small groups to be exact) and sending its attendees to local churches on Sunday morning, is contemporary or emergent. Our sermons are topical, based on a theme for the semester, but they feature one long bible passage chosen for the occasion rather then a cascade of one verse references. Actually, all the Methodists I know IRL hate the “cascade of verses” style of preaching.



Incidentally, those who have blended services, do the preacher(s) wear robes during those? At my church we’ve gone both ways depending on the occasion and the date.

[Plan 9]

I checked "both", but I suspect that the services are quite traditional for my individual UM church, which has been in existence for over a hundred years. I would have to visit some African or Christian Methodist Episcopal Churches in my area to be certain of this, though.

[Adammi]

My church doesn't have Traditional Only, Contemorary Only, or Both (in the sence that of having a 9:00 Traditional Service and 10:30 Contemporary service). We have a Traditional/Contemporary service every service.

[Celticflower]

Since this thread started a local church has begun running TV ads for their services. You have a choice of 3--a rock service, a cafe service or a praise and worship service. This ads originally had a tag line of "the funnest hour of your week". It has been changed to "the best hour of your week". No mention of a traditional service, only about how much fun you will have, how casual and relaxing the atmosphere and all the new friends you will meet.

Am I the only one who thinks this sounds like a social club and not a church?

Celtie

[Try]

Since this thread started a local church has begun running TV ads for their services. You have a choice of 3--a rock service, a cafe service or a praise and worship service. This ads originally had a tag line of "the funnest hour of your week". It has been changed to "the best hour of your week". No mention of a traditional service, only about how much fun you will have, how casual and relaxing the atmosphere and all the new friends you will meet.

Am I the only one who thinks this sounds like a social club and not a church?

Celtie

No, you aren't. I'm not a reactionary, but I do think that there is a real importance to things like robes for the preachers (they mean that the clergy aren't setting a potentially costly standard of dress for the congregation).

[mini_mim]

At my home church there is the morning service, which is 'blended', usually the worship singers (no band) doing 2 or 3 contemporary songs to start the service, than the rest of the service being traditional hymns accompanied by piano. The sermon depends on the preacher, they vary a lot in my area (does the Methodist Church in America have local preacher system??). The evening service is always traditional.

However, once a month the morning service is a Family service, which is really neither contemporary or traditional, just children-oriented. So 'easy' songs, action songs, sermons that involve the children in activities etc.

Also monthly, there is an additional evening service which is small and informal, and always contemporary, using 'new' songs (noting that new in my church is maybe mid-90's ;) ) and 'alternative' worship styles, usually led by a member of the congregation or an invited guest, using things like meditations, responses, and small group or open prayer.

[xhristlives]

Our Church has a very relaxed service on the Sunday morning, with modern praise, the use of overheads etc mixed well with traditional, though really interesting lessons, while in the evening services (only 1 a month) we have special musical groups coming in, which are sometimes really spirit filled, and in other cases quite traditional. One service we had involved flags and dancing, AND bagpipes-so our Church can be really exciting. Funny thing is-not many people attend our Church, and i'm pretty much the only young person that goes...

[WiredSpirit]

Growing up in your standard rich, white megachurch contemporary service was all I knew. My church now, however, has a traditional service that's very orchestral and uses a lot of special music and instrumental pieces. Our contemporary service isn't too contemporary. We use MediaShout for song lyrics and sermon notes. We don't adopt new songs too fast, and it isn't as upbeat as I'm used to but the traditional service has really grown on me... I just can't wake up early enough to go.

[WiredSpirit]

P.S. I visited this church (http://www.stillwaterumc.org/) when I visited my grandparents in Dayton, OH over Thanksgiving. They meet in a large open room in the church where they have 20 or so tables set up in the middle and 2 wings of chairs on each side. They have a coffee bar set up outside the room where they served coffee and donuts for people to take into the service with them. The worship was very upbeat with heavy video elements.

[IrishGrace]

At our church, there's the traditional (which is very well attended) at 9AM, then the contemporary (which is not as well attended, but still a lot of people) at 11AM... actually I believe many people come to both services (Sunday School for all ages is at 10AM so some just stay all day).
I personally like the contemporary music better than the traditional, but DH only likes the traditional so we only go to the first one. And then I listen to my contemporary CDs when we get home :D

[VivDaGurl]

There's two services at the main church where the first service practiced the traditional way starts at 9am and ends around 10:10am (if there's a Holy Communion, it'll be ending around 10:30am) and the second service is the contemporary style yet, we do sing two hymns before and end of the sermon which starts at 11am and ends around 12:30pm (if there's a Holy Communion, it'll be ending around 12:50pm).

[MetalBlade]

We have both services.

[PaladinGirl]

I'd have to say both. It is traditional but it's also contemporary. I mean, it's not traditional in such a sense as to be old fashioned but then again it's not contemporary in a sense to be "post-modern". They don't use power point and all that but they do incorporate contemporary worship songs and the sermons are often more contemporary than traditional but it's pretty cool. We also have a good combination of both young people and older people at our church so I guess it's a hybrid. :D

[Ellesar]

at the church I attend while I'm at college, they have a contemporary service at 9:30 and a traditional service at 11:00. one thing that I noticed was that a lot of college students attended the contemporary service (myself included). I really like the music that we sing during the contemporary service and I like the sermon as well.

[5string]

I just gave my first sermon last sunday and the way I did it was invite a couple of people to sit behind me while I was preaching and then I cut my message to about 40 minutes and gave the participants a chance to speak on the subject. It was fun and a little bit out of the norm for our church but it worked out well and I haven't had any complaints.:preach:

[bigsierra]

My parents and sisters church, College Church of the Nazarene, in Olathe has both. My mom isn't fond of the contemporary worship. She says it isn't spiritual. When I visit with them, I would rather be at the traditional too.