Church – the same but different

The Church of England is a strange beast.  It incorporates many varied groups of people and worship styles.  That’s one of the reasons why we’re often viewed negatively in the media, because we have people who disagree about things like the roles of women in church and homosexuality, so we have long debates that often seem to go nowhere.  A vicar I know recently told me that the Church can only move forward at the speed of its slowest member – I’m not sure I can agree with that (after all, there are some members of our Church who have no intention of moving!), but I think I know what he meant.  However, I believe it is a real strength of the Church that we can hold together (however loosely) such a diverse collection of congregations and individuals.

Of course, what I have just written means that finding a new church when you move to a new city is not necessarily as straightforward as rocking up to the front door of the local Anglican Church.  Otherwise, you may find yourself moving to a church with a very different tradition from what you know.  For more information on traditions within the Church of England, check out the section called “A comprehensive Church” on this page.

On arriving in Nottingham, Jenny, Nathan and I have been fortunate to find a church where we feel very welcome (within minutes of our house and, I dare say, walking distance, if we can get our act together one Sunday!).  We’ve already mentioned Christ Church, Chilwell in earlier posts.  But this morning, I found myself challenged by the 10:45am service, precisely because it was different from what I have previously experienced.

On our first two visits, the services we attended were non-Eucharistic (non-communion, or “A service of the word” as they might be described elsewhere).  This morning, the service included communion, so we gathered to share the bread and wine.  But the big difference for me was that we did this at the START of the service!  I later found out that this was new for the church too – they are exploring how they worship and the 10:45am service is very much geared around the children’s groups, so the idea today was that the children could remain in the service until after we had all received communion and then leave for their groups.  This meant that the group leaders had a little more felixibility around when their sessions ended and didn’t have to stop an activity halfway through so that the children could be rushed back in to receive communion (or a blessing).  As a former member of the Worship & Ministry team at my sending church, I can imagine the strong arguments for and against this service style if someone had suggested it!

In addition to the obvious change, there was no confession and we had no reading of scripture until after communion either.  At no point did we share ‘The Peace’, but we were encouraged to turn to our neighbours and greet them when the service started.  Liturgical language was kept to a minimum.  All told, it was the same Church of England, but it was also a very different church!

I surprised myself with how much this arrangement of the service threw me (particularly, I worried that it wasn’t legal!!!).  In fact, it threw me so much that I have been searching through two books this afternoon, to get my head around it.  The first is an obvious starting point – Common Worship: Services and prayers for the Church of England. It is the primary worship and service book for the Church.  The second would be less well-known, but I have found it invaluable – Finding your way around Common Worship by Mark Earey.  I would strongly recommend it to anyone who has a role in preparing or leading services within their church, being an easy read and making Common Worship much easier to understand.  I think I have finally reassured myself that the service was within the rules of the Church (although I wouldn’t be surprised if other people took a different view), but I’m still trying to get to grips with how I felt about the service style.  I suppose I’m going to have to get used to the fact that whenever I attend a service over the next two years, I will be worshipping but also learning and reflecting.  The joys of being an ordinand!