Going to church?

[KEV67]

I went to Carey Baptist Church this morning, which is only five minutes away from my flat. It is the first time I have ever been to a Baptist Church. It was well attended. I had to find a seat upstairs in the galleries. There were a surprising number of young people, teenagers and children. There was a band in the corner with a guitarist, pianist, drummer, flautist and singer. The hymns were the new type, a bit bland but singable. The words were projected on a screen so I did not need my glasses. A Ukrainian woman and her two small daughters were invited onto the platform. They had been taking refuge in Reading while her husband was in Ukraine fighting, but they are going back this week. Then another man got up and told us about the first emperor of China, he of the Terracotta Army. He had been seeking the elixir of life. He misguidedly drank mercury and poisoned himself to death at the age of 39. I think there is a moral in the tale somewhere. When I have time I will try and work out what it is. Then the younger children were led out to another room while the main sermon began. It did not make a big impression on me, but I was surprised to see a number of people, including the younger teenagers writing notes in exercise books. Holy Communion was towards the end. I usually do not like taking it, but they made it easy. First they sent plates of small pieces of sliced Nimble down the pews. Then they sent around wooden trays holding thimble sized glasses of red liquid, which tasted like Ribena. At the end, another member of the congregation introduced himself as John and asked me if I was new and lived in the area. I said I had been visiting different churches, and it was my first time at that church. He said he had been going to that church for forty years. He said he had moved to Reading for work forty years ago and had gone to that church ever since. Jolly well done. This church bought the pub next door after it closed and turned it into a community centre. *Sigh* I used to quite like The Oasis, one of the numerous pub closures in the town since I have lived here.

 

Yesterday I cycled out to Nuffield to look at the church there. It was one of the five congregations of the Church of England (Continuing), but it looks like it has returned to the Church of England. It was a very pretty church.

 

Went to St Mary's Castle Street in the evening. Normal vicar was on holiday but he had a good substitute. Less than ten people in the congregation and most of them were elderly. A shame, as the service is more solemn than most. The language of the Book of Common Prayer is like poetry. I had the impression it had hardly changed in hundreds of years. 

Edited September 18, 2022 by KEV67

[KEV67]

I planned to go to another Baptist church today. However, one of the other landlords in our block of flats offered to help clear the garden, which is in a bad state. I felt I should help him. As it happened I drank way too much yesterday and was too hung over to either help him or go to church.

 

In the evening I returned to St Mary's. The good news is that the vicar is expecting his first grandchild next week. I hope that goes well. Only about eight people in the congregation. There were two women handing out the prayer books, one of which I suspect is the vicar's wife. One other man often reads passages from the Bible. Someone else plays the organ. There was one young woman in the congregation. I tried not to lech at the young woman, while at the same time trying to see how pretty she was. There was one old woman and three old men. I am relatively young in that congregation, although I think the vicar may be slightly younger. The sermon was centred on 2 Kings chapter 19. King Hezekiah was worried, because the Assyrians were threatening him with invasion. The Assyrians had successfully overrun other nations, whose gods had done them no good. However, this time they came a cropper, because the Angel of Death visited the Assyrian camp and left 185,000 of them dead. Because of the way the KJV is worded, at first I thought it was 5,180 soldiers that were killed, but 185,000! That is over twice the size of the British army. They must have felt that. I thought it was a slightly unfocussed sermon. I do not know if anyone tries to pay attention to sermons. My attention wanders. At one point he criticised the French revolutionaries for legalizing incest. Currently French law makers are considering criminalizing it again. At another point he referred to Jacob wrestling all night with an angel, which sounded slightly homoerotic to me, but I am sure wasn't. Jacob did have twelve sons. I am not sure if he had any daughters.

[KEV67]

Went to another Baptist church today: Abbey Baptist church. This church appeared focussed on the the Chinese and Persian communities. An old lady (depending on what you call old, but past middle aged) led the service. I did not need to bring my reading glasses, because it is all upon the screen in PowerPoint form. There was a bit where the pastor handed out two chicken shaped tea-cosies for a couple of the parishioners to wear on their heads, while two others stretched their arms out and pretended to be eagles. The hymns were quite singable, but a bit modern. A Chinese girl played keyboards as accompaniment. One of the the hymns was on YouTube. A boy was signing it to the subtitles. I liked another of the other hymns: How Great Thou Art. It sounded vaguely familiar. Perhaps it was one of those American Baptist hymns. Also modern was the liturgy, what there was of it. The Lord's Prayer was the Our Father in Heaven version. The sermon seemed to be a lot to do with food. When Moses was leading the Israelites through the desert for forty years, God sent them manna to eat every day. They were told only to gather as much as they needed that day because it would go maggoty if they tried to keep it. The moral was not that you should do the minimum amount of work you can get away with, or that it is pointless saving for your pension, but that you should refresh your relationship with God every day. No Eucharist this time, which is rare. There was coffee offered afterwards and you could stay for lunch, but I did not want to, maybe wrongly, because I want to keep exploring churches. I am quite impressed with Baptist churches on the whole, from the two I have visited so far.

Edited October 9, 2022 by KEV67

[KEV67]

Went to St Mary's on Castle Street this evening. Only three parishioners, not including the vicar, the organist and the woman who gives out the prayer books. The woman who usually sings loud was not there, which was a problem because I just did not know how to sing the hymns. Two women arrived late, and I thought I heard some giggling, or it might have been sniffling. At the end of the service I looked around and they weren't there. I thought that was pretty poor. I don't mind these hymns, but we need to know how to sing them. I might also criticize the sermons for not being very focussed. I wonder if anyone concentrates on them, or just lets their minds wander. I was glad to hear that the vicar's grandchild had arrived safely. Then I went to meet my lady friend at a pub at got into a fracas with some yoofs, which was probably not very Christian of me. Lately I have been having a problem being nice or friendly to people.

[KEV67]

I planned to go to Wycliffe's Baptist church this morning, but I did not get up in time. So I went to St Andrew's United Reformed Church instead. I was shown around by a very friendly chap called Bob, an little bit elderly Glaswegian. The congregation was a bit on the elderly side and a bit thin. There was a Kenyan faction. The URC service seemed pretty similar to the Baptist churches. There was a lay preacher. The hymns were bright and cheerful. I remember singing one of them from school. There is little ornamentation at these churches, although Bob did point out the wooden clock and they had some old photographs and books under a display case. I think the pastor was an academic in some science or technology field. He was into science fiction. He said a computer was not like a mind. Look up a topic and you get a lot of information, but not in the form that makes sense. Dunno about that. The reading was about a widow who pestered a judge for justice. The judge was not a good man, but was prepared to give her justice to stop her pestering him. Therefore, how much more a caring God would give justice. That is a reading that has come up somewhere else recently. Afterwards Bob showed me around. The United Reformed Church is an amalgamation of the Presbyterian Church and the Congregationalist Church, although Presbyterian churches still exist outside England. He said there are Presbyterian churches in Europe. He said during the war, the Dutch Queen Wilhelmina was sheltered at Mortimer, which is a village near by. She used to attend to the this church after ascertaining it was a true Presbyterian church. That was quite interesting because I have a Dutch friend. I asked her about it, but I think Presbyterians must be called something else in the Netherlands.

 

In the evening I went to St Mary's Church of England (Continuing) service. I was a bit surprised they were taking the Eucharist. I thought they never did this in the evening. I took part this time. The hymns were just as difficult to sing. This service is fairly different to the Baptists', the United Reform Church', the mainstream Catholics', and even the Church of England's. The sermon was about waiting and being patient. I wonder how much effort goes into writing a sermon. I often find them unfocussed and difficult to concentrate upon. When I was studying my PhD I was asked to give a lecture on heat transfer to some students. That was a massive subject, thirteen chapters in my book. I spent ages on it, but I still ran out of material before the hour was up.

[KEV67]

Wycliffe's Baptist church this morning. Baptist churches are quite well attended. Quite multicultural, a mix of ages. There was another band who played modern hymns. It was a bit happy clappy. There was coffee afterwards.

 

At Mary's Church of England (continuing) in the evening. About eight in the congregation. Tending towards elderly. Not at all happy clappy. 

 

Edit: did notice that the vicar pronounced 'Ye' as 'yay', but I do not think that is right. 'Y' is not a Y but a Thorn (Ð,þ), which is pronounced 'th'. It seems very strange that a letter that originally looked like þ should over time change to y.

 

Edit: regarding 'Ye'. There was a 'ye' in which 'y' was really a thorn character, in which case 'ye' was really 'the'. However, 'ye' was also an old word for the plural you. In Old English it was written 'ge', but 'g' was often pronounced 'y' in Old English. Orthographically, it is easier to see how a 'g' could become 'y' than a 'þ' could.

Edited March 14, 2023 by KEV67

[KEV67]

Went to my 4th Baptist church. I have a sense what they are like now. Not much ornamentation, no stain glass windows, statues, etc.  No incense.  Bands play modern instruments instead of an organ. The hymns are singable, but a bit primary school. There was a hymn this morning that seemed to go on about 15 minutes. Modernity extends to the sermon. They often use a projector to display the hymns or other information on the wall. The pastor used power point to present his sermon. He seemed genuine enough. There was a strangely odd bit when four members of the prayer group were invited out. Anyone in the congregation who felt they needed a bit more help were invited out to be touched by one of the prayer group. There are more children at these services, but about half way through they are taken away to their classes.

 

Returned to St Mary's Castle Street in the evening. Apart from the vicar there were six present. I suspect the woman who hands out the prayer books is the vicar's wide. One is the organist. Another woman was seated in the bit up the front, and I think she might have been mic'ed up, because she was the only one who seemed to know how to sing the hymns. The sermon was about how God was for the living, not the dead. There was a bit of Sadducee bashing, but not the Pharisees this time. Instead the Scribes got it in the neck, although I am not sure the Pharisees and the Scribes are not the same people.

Edited October 31, 2022 by KEV67

[KEV67]

I was talking to my friend Martin, who is a a church goer. He says once you are a 'member' of a church you are expected to tithe to it, although he was not clear whether it was from your net or gross income. That is quite a lot of money, even if you are basing it on net income.  It does mention tithing in the bible, but back in pre-Victorian times, parish relief was the main source of social security, if I understand correctly. These days it is taxation. Before the dissolution of the monasteries and the break from the Catholic Church, one third of the church's income was spent on maintaining the church, a third on sustaining the clergy, and a third on relieving the poor. After the break from the Catholic Church I am not sure if there was any systematic way of relieving the very sick and poor.

 

I went to the evening service at St Mary's yesterday. About seven parishioners present, including the organist. There was one hymn I recognised and was easy to sing.

[KEV67]

I went to Holy Trinity Church this morning, which is Anglican, but the service was more Catholic than most Catholic services these days. It was an ornate church, although one side was covered in scaffolding. It was not as well attended as the local RC churches. Most of those attending appeared to be Africans. We sang no hymns. Occasionally the priest would sing a verse. I did not take part in the Holy Communion. Circular wafers of bread were given out, but only the priest drank the wine. He read out a list of names of parishioners who had died in the wars. They had names like Wilfred Alcock. At the end we sang the National Anthem. The priest made a plea for money. He said he had attended some sort of board meeting of the Oxford Diocese, which covers Oxfordshire, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire. He said even with a retired priest, like himself, the church needed money to be maintained. I can believe it. The church is shared with the Romanian Orthodox Church. As we were leaving, they were waiting to enter. Across the road a new, independent church has recently opened up in what was a snooker hall. I stood around for a few minutes checking out the parishioners. It just amazes me the number of churches there still are in Reading.

 

In the afternoon I went to the Reading Unitarian meeting followed by the AGM. It was quite a good service, concentrating mostly on it being Remembrance Day. They tend to play clips of classical music, and read poems and bits of scripture from different religions. It is rather like that Radio 4 programme, Something Understood. I paid my £35 annual subscription, so I am more or less a member.

[KEV67]

Last week the Anglican church I attended was more Catholic than most Catholic churches. This week the Anglican church I attended was very like a Baptist church: lots of children, band instead of organ, simple hymns, etc. Confusingly the church was called John the Baptist Church, but I am fairly sure it was Church of England.

[KEV67]

I went to another United Reform Church this morning. The congregation was mostly elderly white parishioners and younger black and Chinese. The pastor was an African. Overall I was disappointed. It reminded me of primary school. At least the sermon was reasonable. John the Baptist, who was languishing in Herod's dungeon, had sent some of his disciples to Jesus to ask if he was the one they were waiting for or was it someone else. The implication was that if Jesus was the Messiah then why had he not sprung John the Baptist from jail. I had never considered it from that point of view before. Not one to give a straight answer, Jesus told the disciples to report what they had seen: the sick cured, the blind restored to sight and the deaf restored to hearing.

 

I intended to attend the Unitarian meeting, but it was not in the usual place. I made a couple of wrong turns. I found the house but I was half an hour late so I decided not to disturb them.

[KEV67]

I went to St Mary's Church of England (Continuing) this morning. I was in a bit of a fluster, because when I hauled myself out of bed it was already 10:30. I had an egg sandwich, ironed my shirt, washed, but did not shave, put on my suit, rushed across the road to get some cash for the collection, then rushed down the street, breaking into a jog every now and again to get to the church. The congregation was not as large as I was expecting. There were some good looking women in the other aisle. I know you are not supposed to leer at women in church. I think they may be the vicar's daughters. I was a bit confused because I was not handed a prayer book. It took me a while to realise that everyone else was singing from a hymn sheet, and that I had been handed one too. We read the Anathanasian Creed, which insisted at length that all three parts of the trinity were equal and part of the same. I have always had a bit of a problem with that myself. Who is this Anathanasius anyway? I almost sniggered when the vicar got to the bit "Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead: and inferior to the Father, as touching his Manhood." At the end we sang Hark the Herald Angels sing. There were four verses, but for some reason we all stopped singing after the third. Then a lady in the choir asked out why aren't we singing the fourth verse, so we sung the last verse.

[KEV67]

Attended St Mary's again this morning. Only ten in the congregation, including the vicar, the vicar's wife, and the organist. Most were elderly, but there was one hot woman. The hymns were very unsingable. The vicar did not give the sermon. One of the other church members did. The sermon was not based on the Bible, but about the letters he wrote to his sons in 1984.; about sometimes not supporting street preachers, and difficult decisions regarding supporting your own family and supporting other charitable organizations.

[poppy]

You would have enjoyed the unsingable hymns 😅

[KEV67]

I went to another United Reform Church this morning, Grange United Reform Church. I was slightly irritated with myself, because despite getting up in plenty of time, I mistimed things and left late. The rain was chucking down. I arrived six minutes late. No projector screen this time, so it was as well I brought my specs. The congregation were pretty elderly. I was possibly the youngest one there. They were quite a friendly bunch. The preacher accompanied the hymns with his electric guitar. A lay reader read a passage from the Old Testament, but no one could hear him. So he had to read it again, while we followed in our bibles. The sermon was based on Jesus' baptism by St John the Baptist. Afterwards I had a cup of coffee with them. The secretary (well ex-secretary), who used to be a phlebotonist, said she and her husband had lived in the same house in Reading for sixty years. Only now her husband is failing fast. He is in his early nineties. She said his mother lived to 110!

 

I went back to St Mary's on Castle Street in the evening. Only seven present in total. The sermon covered quite a bit of ground. At one point he mentioned a story in Ezekiel in which an army of bones became skeletons, which reminded me of that scene from Sinbad the Sailor. Then the skeletons became covered in sinew and skin. I wondered what happened after the battle. Did they turn back into bones again? Another bit was a story in the New Testament where the friends of a paralysed man lower him through the ceiling of a house Jesus was preaching in, because they could not get him past the crowds. I don't suppose the home owner was very happy about that, but presumably they repaired the roof afterwards. At one point the vicar said although we were few in number we were the happiest people on earth. "Really?" I thought. I did not feel particularly happy, about 4 out of ten. It was because we knew we were saved. This was after he said most people these days assume Christians must be dim or mentally defective in some way. How dare they? I passed all my O levels first time. I got 3 As, 2 Bs and 3 Cs.

[KEV67]

Went to Bury St Edmunds this week to visit my mother, who is 80 this week. Ended up going to the cathedral there with her. Proper high church with incense, a decent organist and a choir with 24 singers. There were screens hanging around everywhere and there must have been three or four cameras. The hymns were proper hymns. Reading does not have a cathedral, although it had an abbey and a friary. The nearest we have is a minster.

[KEV67]

I went to my first Methodist church this morning. I was annoyed with myself for arriving three minutes late. I was not the last, though. Lots of people snuck in after me. It is partly because it annoys me so much when people keep coming in late that I am annoyed with myself when I am late, although I am habitually late for everything. It was quite a nice church. It had wooden pews, an upstairs gallery and some stain glass windows, which is not typical for Non-Conformist churches. Someone played an organ, also not typical for the Non-Conformists. The theme was on goodness. Some children had written a sketch which explored the theme of goodness. Later on a woman gave a sermon on goodness, how it is sometimes even used as an insult, such as goodie-goody. In between, a thin, old man who looked like Bertrand Russell got up and directed things. I liked the hymns, except for the modern hymn.

 

In the evening I went back to St Mary's on Castle Street. The sermon was a slightly odd one. St Paul had addressed a church who were riven by disunity, as well as sexual impropriety. Someone had been sleeping with his father's wife. The vicar said it made no difference whether it was with his mother or stepmother, as both actions were prohibited. I would have thought it mattered quite a bit. He then went on to attack Church of England clergy who did not hold to the Thirty-Nine Articles, which personally I suspect is nearly all of them. He said it was not just a Anglicanism thing. There were Lutherans who did not adhere to their declaration. Same with Presbyterians, and Congregationalists who did not hold to the Savoy Declaration. The Congregationalists do not exist under that name any more in England. They united with the Presbyterians to become the United Reform Church. It seems to me the URC are pretty much the same as the Baptists in their actual services. I have a sneaky suspicion that many would struggle to point out the differences in doctrine between them.

[KEV67]

I am irritated with myself because I did not get to the Unitarian meeting. I was busy faking my timesheet for work. I thought the Unitarian meeting would be 3:30, but it was 2:30. If you are interested, this is the Unitarians' alternative Lord's Prayer.

 

Alternative Lord’s Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love, here and everywhere,
May we be aware of your presence in our lives.
May our world be blessed.
May our daily needs be met,
And may our shortcomings be forgiven,
As we forgive those of others.
Give us the strength to resist wrong-doing,
The inspiration and guidance to do right,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
We are your hands in the world; help us to grow.
May we have compassion for all living beings,
And receive whatever life brings,
With courage and trust. Amen

[KEV67]

I did make it to the Church of England (Continuing) evening service at 6:30. Only about 7 people in the congregation, which is thinning fast. The minister was away, but his deputy was standing in. He had a bit of a dig at the bishops, which did my heart good. After the service I talked briefly to a woman called Eileen. She said the congregation had been thinning out fast. I mentioned that in the notices that there was a christening the following Saturday. She said that was the minister's granddaughter. As I suspected, one of the hot women in the congregation was the minister's daughter, while the woman who usually hands out the prayer books is his wife. The daughter who had the baby in one of twins, apparently. It was the other one who was at the service. I do not know who the other hottie was. Anyway, all that is interesting, but not much good to me now. Interestingly, Eileen said that there had been a minister at the church whom they did not like, and whom I suppose they had forced out, That is interesting to me: about ten years ago, after my father died, I went to this church on Father's Day, and there was a different minister to whom there is now. His sermon was about publicans, not republicans, but people who run pubs, at least that what I understood. My father was a son of a publican, as well as an atheist.

[KEV67]

I went to another Methodist Church this morning in Caversham, which is north of the river. The congregation was fairly elderly. The pastor said that Adam was Hebrew for man and Eve was Hebrew for woman. He said the story of the Garden of Eden was not literally true but in another sense was. Methodists win for hymns.

[KEV67]

I went to the church for bigots in the morning. I had to jog because I got up at 10:35, and I had to iron a shirt and go to the cashpoint. Therefore I have had slight BO all day. We struggled with one of the hymns. Eventually I worked out how to sing the first lines of each verse, but not the endings. Each verse seemed to start off low, and end high.

 

I went to the Unitarian meeting in the afternoon. I have missed the last three months. A woman from the Green Spirit movement conducted the service, if that is the right terminology. She said Gaia-ism and Druidism were similar spiritual movements. So it seems Unitarianism encompasses paganism now. However, it is a cosy sort of paganism: no animal or human sacrifice or weird sexual rituals, worse luck. There were readings from scientific-spiritual writers. One was about how if oxygen content of the atmosphere was 5% higher than forests would catch light every time there was a spark, while if it was 5% lower then the brain would not be able to function well enough to be capable of conscious thought. Another was how everything in the universe came from a pin-prick in space, so everything and everyone has a common source. Someone brought in a sort of wheel she had made from different coloured materials, representing the earth, fire, air and water. I tactfully did not point out there was no green in the wheel. I always find cosmology and earth science weird and mysterious myself, whenever I read about it or watch YouTube videos on it, but I am not sure how much,spiritually, you can read into it all.

[Madeleine]

Sorry if you were disappointed that paganism wasn't as dramatic as you'd thought it might be, paganism is much more associated with nature, the changing seasons etc.  And a lot of Christian festivals are based on the original pagan festivals, such as Oestre for Easter etc.  

[KEV67]

34 minutes ago, Madeleine said:

Sorry if you were disappointed that paganism wasn't as dramatic as you'd thought it might be, paganism is much more associated with nature, the changing seasons etc.  And a lot of Christian festivals are based on the original pagan festivals, such as Oestre for Easter etc.  

She mentioned Oestre, or the goddess the festival was named after, which sounded a bit different. Someone passed around a booklet with all the pagan seasons or festivals. I recognised Samhain. This puzzled me a bit because Oestre sounds like it might be Saxon, but Samhain sounds Celtic for something.

[Madeleine]

Samhain is probably the best known festival, as it's Halloween.  You're right about Oestre, it's Anglo Saxon, based on a spring goddess, Eostre.

[KEV67]

I intended to go to another Methodist church this morning. I got up at 9:40, but by the time I had breakfast, washed, ironed a shirt, and got into my suit it was past 10, and I think it is over half an hour's walk. Therefore I decided to visit an Anglican church about a mile and a bit away. It was a bit further than I thought and did not get there until 10:36. I was going to walk on and see if I could find another church that started at 11, but someone noticed me lurking and invited me in. It was a modern church with no steeple and chairs instead of pews. The hymns were modern, as was the scripture. There were two vicars, or maybe one was a curate. A couple were celebrating forty years of marriage. There was a photo of them on their wedding day projected on the screen. Corr, they were ugly. They were one of the ugliest couples I have seen. The female vicar or curate started by observing that Mother's Day appeared to be spelt with the apostrophe before the 's' these days instead of after. That made me wonder. I used to think I knew the rules about apostrophes, but now I am not sure. Is it 'Three years time," or "Three years' time"? It means "Three years of time," so maybe it needs an apostrophe, but 'years' is plural. I decided it did need an apostrophe because you would say "One hour's time," and hour is not plural. Then she read from Exodus 2. A Levi man visited a Levite woman and she fell pregnant. When the child was born she hid it, then when she could not hide it any more, she put it in a basket and put it on the river, where it floated off watched from afar by the child's sister. The Pharoah's daughter found the basket, and decided to adopt it, which did not seem very likely to me. Then the sister offered to find Pharoah's daughter a wet nurse, and returned with her mother, and the Pharoah's daughter said she would pay her to bring up her son. So, was Moses' mother a prostitute? Maybe she was a widow driven into it by economic necessity. Was Moses perhaps a bit ungrateful to the Egyptians, bringing down all those plagues on them. I remembered the Pharoah had ordered an execution of new born baby boys to stop a prophesy coming true, so I suppose fair's fair. The Pharoah's daughter might not have approved of her father's policy of infanticide, but maybe she would have thought she got a poor return for her kindness when Moses sicked the Angel of Death on their firstborn sons. The service dragged on a bit and I made a quick getaway so I would not get asked for coffee.

 

Edit: I read the start of Exodus again and Moses's mother was a married woman, and the Pharoah had started his policy of male infanticide because the Israelis were becoming too numerous.

Edited March 19, 2023 by KEV67