I grew up in a very modern, liberal Mennonite church with services that last two hours. The young kids attended the first hour and then had Sunday school for the second hour. Teenagers were expected to attend the whole service, but most of them left about half an hour early and walked around or hung out outside or something - I was a few years too young to be part of their clique, but a little older than most of the other kids. Going to the Mennonite services was a very frustrating experience as a child because after the service ended at noon, my mom would spend another half-hour to an hour talking with her friends there before we could go eat lunch. I usually ended up bored, frustrated, and hungry. When my dad started attending the local Quaker meeting, I started attending with him every other week, and switched over completely within a year. The Quakers had an hour-long meeting, of which the kids were only expected to attend 15 minutes before going to First-Day (Sunday) school, and while I never was close friends with the other kids, they at least didn’t exclude me, and the adults actually engaged with me and made me feel part of the community.
I think the question in the OP is sort of missing the point. For people who aren’t particularly religious, long services can seem torturous, for those who are strongly religous, long services can be very exhilerating. Growing up, the churches my dad attended would typically have services lasting around 2 hours, and as a child, they would seem very long and boring, especially during weeks when there wasn’t any sunday school. Sometimes he would want to attend multiple services during the weekend, and it would bad from that perspective. For me now, that seems excessively long and I wouldn’t enjoy it, and while I’m still religious, I don’t endorse organized religion, and so, any service of that sort would tend to seem that way.
But my dad will attend church for 6-8 hours straight, sometimes doing 2-3 services in the morning on Sunday then going back and doing another at night, not to mention various other services throughout the week. Where I would get drained, he seems to be energized afterward. And it’s understandable because it’s how he experiences God, and I simply don’t get that same experience, where I get mine in other ways.
Or to give an analogy, the question asked by the OP seems sort of like asking why someone would choose a genre of music that has really long concerts. I can totally see some people feeling like they can get enough out of a show that’s just a couple hours long, where they get tired of the sound, the crowd, standing, and get burned out in that period of time. For me, I feel like a concert is disappointingly short if it’s less than 5-6 hours long, and despite using enormous amounts of energy, and hating crowds and getting tired of standing, it’s always a blast. If I wanted a shorter experience, I’d just show up later or leave earlier. In short, I don’t choose the genre of music because of the concerts, it’s just part of it, and because I love it, the length is actually a benefit.
And so, to relate that back to religion, people don’t choose religions because of the lengths of the service, they choose the religion because it’s what they believe, and if they strongly believe it, then having long services is actually a good thing for them. Like with the Amish example in the OP, they typically have very strong faith, so it’s little surprise that they’d have 4-6 hour services; it’s not boring for them, it’s invigorating.
Well, if you were Amish—or if you were a rural, farmer type, particularly in the pre-automobile days—I imagine that if you went to all the trouble of putting on your Sunday best and hitching up the horse and buggy and riding in to town for church, you wouldn’t be inclined to turn around and go home after only 45 minutes. Plus, if much of your life consisted of physical labor, a few hours of sitting in peace might be quite welcome.
Personally, though, I’m not a fan of long ceremonies, whether they be church services, graduations, weddings, awards presentations, or whatever.
So does this convert. It’s once a year. Shabbat services are not long at all.
When I was a youth in a pentecostal evangelical church, we had 3 Sunday services, a midweek service, plus frequent Friday night and Saturday events. All totaled I never spent anything less than 10 hours a week at the church itself, and usually another 2-5 hours a week with church people at extracurricular or social events. It was all-encompassing, there was little to no room for a social life outside of that. (People who pursued outside interests like bowling leagues or car restoration were gossiped about unkindly.) That, to me, is more insidious than long once-a-week services without an expectation that your life otherwise revolve around the church.
My take? Whether you’re talking about a movie, a play, a novel, a song or a religious service, length is nearly irrelevant.
If a movie is gripping, 3 hours fly by. If it stinks, 90 minutes is way too long.
“The Brothers Karamazov” was 800 pages, but I couldn’t put it down. On the other hand, a 160 page book by John Grisham seems to go on forever.
Sometimes a King Crimson epic is worth every second, and sometimes a short Ramones song is 2 minutes too long.
Similarly, a 3 minute homily from a boring clergyman can be a real drag, while a talented preacher can go on for an hour without boring me.
It all depends.
Just, please, stop singing all the God damned time. Of course I word it differently to myself when I’m actually at mass.
POWER POINTS?!?!? Holy Crap. Please tell me there were bar graphs.
This is true for many Evangelical services as well, which often follow a similar model of worship. (I’m not sure the term “liturgy” really applies.) When I tell my conservative Christian friends that most Methodist or Unitarian services are done in an hour, they look at me blankly.
Ha! This kills me. My father was the oldest of nine children, most of them quite a bit younger than he, so some of the more enduring images of my childhood are all my aunts’ weddings — Catholic weddings. Hour standard Mass + wedding vows and some extra songs = long wedding Mass.
I went to my first Protestant wedding when I was in college. I was like, “what?? We just got here! It’s over? You’re kidding!” Then instead of a long raucous reception with a live band and an open bar and kegs 'o plenty, we got fucking PUNCH and MINTS and prim old Baptist ladies with their purses in their laps. It probably lasted about an hour, but it felt like around three. No drinks at a wedding reception?!? :smack:
There was probably a second reception afterwards that nobody thought to invite you to. That’s how it’s done - one for your grandma, and you send her off to bed and everybody goes somewhere else for the real reception.
ETA - oh yeah, the mints are mandatory. The punch was probably the same color as the mints. I bet you sex to donuts there were also cheese straws.
My seventysomething father, a lay minister in a black Pentecostalist denomination, regularly (once a month or so) attends what his church calls a shut-in: a service that lasts literally all night. Typically he’ll leave his house around 8 o’clock on a Friday night and return home around 2 or 3 the next morning. The week before last, Cinderella the Rhymer went over to his house Saturday morning to make sure he had breakfast and was distressed that he hadn’t made it back by 6 in the morning.
When I was growing up in that same church, we’d typically have Sunday school from 9 to 10 a.m., followed by a half-hour review in which each class parroted back for the congregation what they’d been indoctrinated in that way, followed by a choir selection, followed by a morning sermon, followed by an hour break, followed by the afternoon service which got out around 2 (if anyone but my father was preaching) or 3 (if Dad was giving one of his incredibly long sermons). And on Sunday nights there’d be YPWW service (Young People Willing Workers), which was basically another Sunday school except there was no review portion, followed by another sermon.
At St. Pascals in St. Albans, Queens, NY the length of the Mass depended on the priest.
Monsignor McLeesh wa 40-45 minutes. Fr. Finnerty was a solid hour. Fr. Ernie started at about an hour, and pared it down to about 45 minutes after a couple of years.
St. Pascal Baylon was at about 95% Black since about 1969 or so.
3 hours! Jeesh!
russians really take pride in the length of the services. you don’t want to be there for great and holy week; thurs, fri, sat, and sun are marathons. being in the choir means feet of stone!
the other week we had the bishop at the church, the 2 hour service became nearly 5. first it started a half hour late. then a reader was tonsured, then a priest was ordained, then a moliben, not to mention the little serenade when the bishop divested at the end of it all. there was a sit down dinner after.
weddings are long esp. if the bride and groom are using church crowns that have to be held above the betrothed. 45 minutes of holding a crown can get a bit much. some churches will only allow men to hold the crowns so the maid of honour gets a break there.
if you like your bridal party, buy your own crowns so you can wear them (and keep them)!
the top 2 amusing things in an orthodox church is: standing, yes, standing is a biggish thing as quite a few churches don’t have seats. standing still is a bit unusual. people do wander about, candles, ikons, etc.
kissing. sometime i think they will kiss anything, esp. if you tell someone what ever it is is from jerusalem. it doesn’t matter if it is stationary or a person lighting a candle. kissing will happen.
I went to a Greek Orthodox christening once - of twins! Good lord, those babies were well and truly christened by the end of it. One of them peed on the godfather, too.
He must have needed to be Baptized too! 
Obligatory Mark Twain quote.
“No souls are saved after the first twenty minutes.”
Psh! Catholics are up front about the booze love. When the nun librarian at my grade school died (at age 546), her eulogy (given by the monsignor) included how she LOVED peach schnapps!