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Observation 2
Church Two Observation Report
3rd July 2005
Here, as at Church One, I am very much the insider. I went to the village school, was confirmed in this church, and was a soloist at their patronal festival concert the weekend prior to this visit. Though the vicar had forgotten to put either of my notices in the church news to warn the congregation of the observation, an announcement was made at the beginning of the service (Common Worship Sung Eucharist) and there were no objections.
Church Two is the primary venue of a prestigious arts Festival, which for two weeks every October draws world-class performers for a series of concerts and lectures. There is no doubt that the people of this church are serious about good music. The musical life of the congregation is, however, currently in a state of flux. The aging choir is steadily decreasing in number (two on the day we observed) and they have no choir master or regular organist. The quality of the congregational song, however, was overall good (though the Gloria and the Amens would benefit from a little rehearsal). The hymns were all taken from 'Common Praise' 1.
What was really stood out at Church Two was the service sheet. The service was printed in its entirety - hymns, prayers, readings, news - everything on one sheet making it user-friendly and removing the need for instructions from the front - '…we will be using the fourth Eucharistic prayer, which can be found on page 18 of the little yellow book' - which distract from the flow of the liturgy. This is best-practice indeed and is to be encouraged in any parish serious about good liturgy 2.
Half of the eight young people present were babes in arms, who remained in church for most of the service, but were removed by their parents at various stages when crying. This has affected the figures in the 'present' column, as only two of the total eight children went out to the vestry for Sunday School. They left after the first hymn and returned during the last. During Sunday School children's Christian songs are played on tape as background music, but they do not sing as a group. There were two secondary school age girls who were in church for the entire service.
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- Chadwick & Dakers (eds.) 2000 Back to text
- See Giles 2004 p46 Back to text
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