Attending the abbey

Yesterday we went to the abbey for evensong.  The abbey in town is church of England; this means it’s the official parish church for the town where I live, and therefore it is the default church for us to attend.  We hadn’t been there since Christmas, when we went for a nativity play service on Christmas Eve.

My littlest sister was very interested.  She was surprised by the choir, and she was surprised by the height of the ceiling.  She was surprised by the format of the service.  But she was very good and quiet, and the most important thing when at church for three year olds is being very quiet.  If little children are quiet, crawling along the seats behind the other members of their family will be overlooked...

What did I think of the service?  Well, the prayers were satisfactory, and the readings were satisfactory too—they weren’t from the AV, but the version wasn’t annoying.  There were two mid-length readings, one from the Old Testament and one from the New.  Also, the choir sang two psalms while the congregation silently read them from the book of common prayer, copies of which had been handed out with the hymn books.  The hymn books were reasonable, and the music was good.  I’m not particularly fussy about music as long as it isn’t a guitar, drum kit, and keyboard and as long as it hasn’t been jazzed up.  Plain is fine.  But I have to say that I wouldn’t tolerate attending a service where the music was such that I wouldn’t want it played in my home—and that does narrow churches and services which can be attended significantly.  I know every church has faults, but attenders do have to decide which faults they can cope with. 

Now, for the sermon.  At the service yesterday, this was like the elephant in the room.  They had what they called a sermon.  I wouldn’t call it a sermon, though, because it was not long enough and it did not have enough Scripture in it.  Also, the man mentioned halloween, but he did not decry it.  Now, if you’re going to mention halloween in a sermon, you may as well do it properly, and tell everyone it’s Satanic and they should have nothing—that’s right, nothing—to do with it.

So, prayers get three or four stars, readings get the same, music gets five stars, and sermon gets one star.  However, the church gets extra points because no one there took it upon themselves to go to someone in charge and describe my family as a ‘disaster’.  The church also gets extra points because we can walk there and back, and it is nice to walk to church.

We may go back to the abbey for evensong on some Sundays.  After all, why not?