The first difference you would notice between the 9 a.m. ``first worship" at Wellesley Congregational Church and the traditional 10 a.m. service is location. People at the traditional service fill the pews in the sanctuary; the early-bird faithful migrate to the basement and sit facing one another in a U-shape of metal chairs.
What tempted this antique church (founded in 1798) to fiddle with an order of worship that, more or less, had stood the test of centuries is a phenomenon called the emerging church movement. That term is a vast umbrella covering a range of worship approaches among an array of churches.
One movement website counts a half-dozen such congregations in Massachusetts. But the tally doesn't include the half-dozen United Church of Christ parishes, such as Wellesley Congregational, that are test-driving approaches to Sunday services. The UCC emerging churches were tallied by...
Armenianism has invaded most of our churches today. Worship has become a social event and man has added too many things that God has not authorized. Internet: key in "regulative Principles of Worship".
Considering the UCC is no more Christian than a Unitarian Church, the only thing they have left--as do many liberal churches--is a "worship" service, which is no more than a hollow shell of rituals.
Very WORDY??? I thought that words were the most effective tools of evangelism, preaching and teaching. I wonder at a 'church' that is too concerned about the quantity of WORDS.
"The best known guru of the emerging church is Brian McLaren , a Maryland pastor and author known as an inclusive-minded evangelical (he says you don't have to be Christian to follow Jesus)."
And the word Christian means Christ follower.????? So he said you don't have to be a Christ follower to follow Christ.
Desperate measures being tried here by "people-pleasers" The person they don't appear to have in their membership is the Holy Spirit. But that is the circumstance of all heretical assemblies.
``Feel free to sing harmony," the cantor exhorts during one hymn.
A nice idea, but not necessarily producing nice results.
A bit like those Tibetan Buddhist ceremonies in which all the monks sing the same melody, but each one is free to choose his own key.
Or those old-time Methodist chapels in the USA in which every member of the congregration was free to ornament and embellish the hymn in his or her own way, much to the distress of visiting observers.
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lisa from wales: "frank- i have never been to a gay pride. i'm not sure i have been..."
