Parody of a Modern Church Service

Sad but true

"I want you to learn this song. And buy my record in the bookstore (after the service"

Oh man that was hilarious! (and maybe just a little sad too)

.....Growtivation!

Well...who wants to go to an old time church service where we sing crappy songs written by dead people decades ago and get blasted by the preacher who makes us feel like crap and also wants to make sure everyone tows the denomination line and takes all our money and then sends us out to walk a life of bondage and rules. What I just described is the way millions see church (me included) and that is why churches like the one in your video are becoming so popular. Church should change with the times!!!

I have to agree with BT on that one. So many churches are so afraid of change that they'd have half the people drop dead if they so much as brought a guitar or drum into the service. If you examine the more traditional churches the same as they did the contemporary ones in the video, I doubt the outcome would be different. Face it--we all get so stinking repetitive regardless of our worship style and then make that a sacred cow that prevents us from experiencing the Holy Spirit.

The video is funny, but a little unfair to more modern churches. Personally, I wish my church was more like this.

Well if you lived in a region where 90% of the churches looked just like that and wouldn't even think about singing a hymn (unless Hillsong had recorded a "contemporary" version of it first), and every single sermon is some topical drivel comparing Jesus to facebook or God's salvation to a game of Yahtzee....you'd be ready for something a bit more authentic and a little less gimmicky.

But I'm sure much of it is a "grass is greener" kind of thing.

Ever since we got a worship pastor in his young '20s, our worship services have been something in between. With bass, drums, keys and acoustic guitar, we do a mix of classic hymns (like Nothing But The Blood), rewrites (like Cornerstone) and modern stuff (like 10,000 Reasons) because of a mostly senior population. Personally, I like the old hymns because I find them musically and lyrically more interesting than most modern music. On the other hand, however people want to worship, I'll help the band

incidentally, my brother is going to be in the worship band on guitar and is playing this: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitars/dean-dave-mustaine-vmnt-angel-of-deth-electric-guitar I wonder how well that will go over

While there are quite a few of the churches like you describe here, there are many more that are very rooted in tradition. The services look like this:


Opening Prayer
Hymn
(Prayer/Possible offering collection)
Hymn
Hymn
Hymn
(Prayer/Possible offering collection)
Special song by choir or soloist
Prayer
Sermon
Prayer
Closing Hymn for Altar Call
Prayer

Some churches would add a closing song here as people exit. The Offering times in parenthesis just show that different congregations do this at differing times--not multiple times in a service.

There are quite a few mega churches here. Also, there are many small "country" churches that exist with less than 100 people and everyone knows everyone. These are the ones most likely to be the ones who have always used hymns and always will. My church is around 140 people and we only use contempory songs, for the most part, if someone is doing a special solo or as a choir solo.

Welcome
Prayer
Message from the congregation,
Praise Service.
Time for prayer and worship
Sermon
Song after the service.
( once in the month we're having The Lord's Supper)
Offering.
Sometimes a song.
Or when a congregation member has to give a witness there's room to do that.
The prayer to close the service and the blessing for the congregation.

We're having a church band, with a piano, drums, bass, guitar a saxophone, sometimes a trombone.
We are having a choir singing in front of the church.
Most songs we are singing in church are translations from American praise and worship songs.

call to order
song
song
song
welcome and announcements
prayer
teaching
song
prayer
................
we do not take up offering...there is a box in the back of the church if you want to give...
when we do communion (every 6 weeks) it would come after the teaching instead of a song.
our band has 3 guitars, drums, keyboards, 2 backup singers and a bass player..our music is songs written by artist like third day, rich mullens, petra, etc....
We do not have alter calls...

Welcome
Opening Song
Plug for Kidz Camp (only $485 a kid, discount for multiple kids in the same family)
Song Everyone Knows
Plug for Starbucks Coffee shop in lobby
Song No one Knows
Share your germs with those around you (er uh I mean shake hands with those around you)....

just see the video for the rest.

Staybrite...it appears you are not happy in your church..why not change. You could start a home bible study which is replaceing church in alot of places these days.

For us, a Wesleyan church, it's:
Pre-worship (usually just playing CDs, sometimes the band does a new song)
good morning… I MEAN GOOD MORNING!!!

Upbeat song, usually a redone hymn like A Mighty Fortress Is Our God
Upbeat song, usually a newer song

Offering + announcements

Mid-paced song, usually a newer song
Slow song, either a redone hymn or a newer song
Sometimes a third slowish song
Prayer
Chorus of last song reprised

Message

(if doing communion on the first of the month)
Introduction
Slow song, either a classic hymn or a newer song
Taking bread
Slow song, typically Nothing But The Blood (guess why?)
Taking grape juice

Mid-paced song, either a classic hymn or a newer song
Dismissal + instrumental reprise of last song

Yeah, so we usually play about 6 songs. Most of them are familiar to the congregation.

brokentulsa wrote:

Staybrite...it appears you are not happy in your church..why not change. You could start a home bible study which is replaceing church in alot of places these days.

Oh I did change, the church I go to now isn't much like that at all. But I had to sift through several of those kinds of churches before I found one where the pastor and staff actually care about sharing the bible, and not the lastes trend coming out of the Saddleback or Mar's Hill churches.

I have given thought to doing the home bible study thing. I have a few friends who do the "home church" thing, and that scares me almost as much as the seeker driven mega church stuff.

Let's see...

Welcome and Announcements (more accurate than "News of the Church Alive")

Prelude--some fancy, schmancy organ piece

Call to Worship--responsive reading

Opening Hymn--obscure, something to get the brain working and asking questions like "Huh? Where did this come from?" "I wonder if it would be easier to sing if there was actually a song leader instead of just following the organ?"

Pre-written unison prayer

Anthem--amazing song by the choir or special musical guest

Children's Message (if they remember to do it)--kids go to the front to listen to the pastor talk about the Scripture of the day, or the special occasion, or something coherent and relevant. Then, if communion, back to seats, otherwise down to the dungeon for children's church

Scripture Readings--OT, Epistle, and Gospel. From the Lectionary. At least it is a modern translation. Everyone stands for the Gospel reading

Homily--everyone sits and listens to the pastor speak on...your guess is as good as mine. Usually he at least tries to tie it into one of the three readings...kinda. Read from a notebook.

Hymn--usually somewhat related to the title of the homily, tells the congregation what the gist of the homily was supposed to be, I guess.

Prayer--intercessory

Offering

Doxology

Prayer of blessing

1st Sunday of month--Communion liturgy, everyone goes up, tears off a chunk o' bread, dips it in the cup, and returns to seat

Closing hymn--usually more familiar

Benediction

Postlude--often asked to stay in seat to listen to impressive and overpowering organ piece

Cookie Time!!!--a few people then trickle off to Sunday School while most hang out and eventually drift out the door and to their cars.


...except during the summer, when there's no organ cuz everything is outside at a park. There's also no children's stuff because they want children to worship with their families (aka, go over to the playground equipment). There's also no Sunday School or cookie time.

Yeah, we are in the process of leaving and going somewhere else.

As for home Bible study thing, I had some bad experiences with that in a previous church that I am not anxious to repeat any time soon.

The last time we decided to stop attending this church, we did try a church that was highly regarded in the area--strange place.

They had three separate service times, two of which had two separate services going on simultaneously in different areas. The main service was very much like what I have seen from the megachurches on TV--big choir, big orchestra, no overt religious imagery, well-styled worship leader in expensive suit, perfect (big) hair, and pastor in casual clothes with headset microphone. Mixture of contemporized hymns, familiar praise songs, and songs no one had ever heard. Sermon's were kinda based in Scripture, but usually came back to reinforcing importance of marriage (regardless of topic; being single was "ok for a while" and homosexuality was the source of all moral decay in the Western world).

The sermon also moved in the service because the pastor also had to preach in the other service, which was in the youth auditorium--a smaller, darker, more minimalist/industrial room that could easily moonlight as a nightclub or coffee house. It had small cafe-style tables stacked in the back and set up in the balcony. This venue had the praise band, used more video clips for ambience. The pastor (late 50s) actually changed clothes for this service--hip t-shirt, skinny jeans, and Chuck Taylors. The structure was the same for both--a bunch of songs with Scripture reading and a sermon stuck in there somewhere. We knew when the last song came because "with every head bowed and every eye closed, let's sing that chorus without the instruments. And let the sound of our voices rise as our heart's cry to God."

Gary, they serve Starbucks coffee in your church?
I only can dream of this.

At our church they serve Starbucks coffee and Krispy Kreme Donuts.

At our church they serve nasty coffee and great local donuts! I will miss those when we're gone.

At our church, we're lucky if we get coffee. It takes a special event to get anything more, usually.

Our church doesn't do the coffee and donuts thing. However, my Sunday School class makes their own coffee and brings muffins or sausage/biscuits.

After the service there's time for coffee and to talk with the other people in church.

We have free coffee and donuts......

Our services strive to reach a balance between older songs and newer ones, we do quite a few hymns, but we do usually mess with the arrangements a little bit and often blend into a newer song....

Typical service looks like this....

Welcome

Song

Song

Sermon

Invitation/altar time

Song

Song

Communion

Baptisms

Announcements

Closing Prayer

No service goes by without an altar call.....and we've had at least one baptism every week for almost 2 years. Last year we had 407 baptisms.....God is moving in our city!

That's awesome bassdude. We have baptisms once a month and last year we had something like 400 baptisms. It's awesome to see. I remember one morning we had 12 people baptized and 9 of them were under the age of 13.

Just watched the video... and while I'm all for parodies and humor and definitely laughing at ourselves... I detect a bit of mockery in it.

Yes, I laughed... but I also felt a little like the writer was attempting to offend more than make light of the modern church service. Idk, I could be reading it wrong. Just how I seen it.

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

Just watched the video... and while I'm all for parodies and humor and definitely laughing at ourselves... I detect a bit of mockery in it.

I think a lot of it depends on who created the video and who was the intended audience. It almost looked to me that it was made by a modern church kind of poking fun of itself. If that was the case and they played the video for their congregation as a warning not to fall into "routine" but to remember why we follow Christ in the first place....then great.
However if it was done by a group of God/Christian hating people....that's not cool at all, but for some reason I doubt it came from the atheist camp...what I've seen of their stuff seems to come across as meaner than that video.