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Sacred Cows & Gas Lamps

By Hedgehog.

A long time ago, I noticed that the shift workers who attended our church didn't - attend, that is. They were very committed to their Christian faith, but didn't come to church very often. Being of a radical turn of mind, I asked them why. They explained that our 11.00am Sunday service was too early if they were coming off shift and too late if they were going on shift.

Even more radically, I proposed that we bring our service forward half an hour to 10.30am. Simple enough? Huh! Objections ranged from older members complaining that their arthritis prevented them from getting out that early to young families insisting that they could not possibly get the whole family organised for church at such an ungodly hour.

In the town where I now live, and I guess the same is true for your neck of the woods, every church that I know starts its main Sunday service somewhere between 10.00 and 11.00 on a Sunday morning. If there is an evening service, it is nearly always at either 6.00pm or 6.30pm. Yet research shows very clearly that patterns of church-going, even among the most committed of our people, are changing, with (believe it or not!) more people attending less often. So are these the right times for services?

Meanwhile, Sunday Schools (or whatever they are called in your neck of the woods) are in serious decline. Having moved some years ago from Sunday afternoon to Sunday morning, they are now finding that there are very few children free to attend at that time.

So what is it about these times? Are they carved in stone or enshrined in Holy Writ? Of course not. So why are we so wedded to them? Let's be honest: they are probably about the least useful time for a modern Christian congregation to meet. Why do we meet at those times? Well, believe it or not, morning services take place at the most convenient time in between the two milkings of the cows. You're familiar with the routine, aren't you? Get up at 4.00am, milk the cows (by hand, of course), go home, have breakfast, change into your Sunday best, go to church, go home for Sunday lunch, milk the cows. We all do it every Sunday (not).

As for evenings, that's because we've found that if we use this new-fangled coal gas to heat and light our churches, we'll be able to have a 'successful' gospel service around 6.00-6.30pm.

In other words, our service times are based on an agricultural society and a 150-year old piece of brilliant creative opportunistic thinking. And it WAS brilliant 150 years ago!

Which leads me to wonder: what are the equivalents for today? Services late on Sunday evening so that people can go out for the day, then return in time for a Compline-type service? Early Sunday morning all-age services (they work in some places), before the children go off to their various Sunday activities? Saturday afternoons, just after the football? Saturday evenings, complete with video presentation and shared, well presented meal? Perhaps a return to a daily Office, so that people can attend on their way to or from work? What do you think?

Excuse me, I have to go and milk the cows before going to church.

Hedgehog is a pseudonym for a charming, but occasionally prickly person.