The Mr and I play handbells for a Methodist church handbell choir. The Mr sings in a men's choir for that same church. As a result, we frequently end up attending more than on service in a weekend.
Like many churches, this church is facing dwindling memberships. They are trying different things to retain current members and attract new members. The most recent idea is to make one of the two services "traditional" and one of them "contemporary".
I like a traditional service. I grew up in the Catholic Church. We like our traditional and our ritual, and it always seemed to me like traditional Methodist services were pretty contemporary. For me anyway.
The pastor at the church is, by just about all definitions, a hippie. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, except that when she decides to make a traditional service, she can't help but "hippify" it. Making kind of a hybrid traditional/contemporary service. Example: Methodists recite the Apostle's Creed. At this church, we often modify it to refer to trees, creatures of the forest, flowers and the like. At the traditional service. Druidic references and traditional services don't seem to go hand in hand. To me anyway.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have a contemporary service - I just think it ought to be the service that is advertised.
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