What typically happens during a church service?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

The Bible readings usually go right in front of the sermon; the sermon is supposed to be about them. Even when the main subject is about a specific saint, or a current social problem, or in the case of a funeral about the deceased, the readings are supposed to be used as a sort of framework or scaffolding for the sermon.

RCC Masses have the same structure everywhere on a given day (the exact calendar changes on a 3-year cycle), but the “flavor” changes a lot from congregation to congregation and even for specific Masses, most notably Children’s Mass. In a Children’s Mass the priest will usually turn the sermon into a Q&A with the children. Franciscans would probably have a collective stroke if they tried to have a Mass with no singing; Jesuits would be close. Augustines tend to be very sober, many of them make me want to poke my head into the Sacristy after Mass and point out that “joy isn’t a sin, you know! It’s OK to be happy!”

22

I just recently (maybe a month and a half ago) started attending our local Episcopalian church, so I think I can give a pretty good account of what coming in as an outsider is like.

First, you’ll come in the door- there’ll be someone there who will greet you- most likely one of the old folks who have volunteered to do that, but it may be just some random parishioner.

Then assuming you’re a few minutes early, you can either hang out in the narthex, which is essentially the “lobby” and chat with people/hang around, or you can go into the church proper and find a pew to sit in, or you can hang around in what they call the “Parish Hall” which is essentially a big lunchroom-like room with tables to sit around and donuts and coffee up at the front.

Hopefully at some point, you’ll get the program from the ushers so you can follow along with the service.

About 5 minutes before the service begins, the verger and the choir line up along with the priests and altar-children and everyone goes into the chapel.

It usually starts with a hymn, then some initial prayers. Usually a couple of readings, and a sermon. Hymns and call/response type stuff sprinkled liberally about. Then communion after that, and announcements afterward.

Everyone either bails at that point, or hangs around in the narthex or parish hall to eat donuts and chat.

Somewhere in there, people will say hi to you a zillion times if they haven’t met you before.

23

LOL.

The CoE folks would get an even bigger shock if they ever encountered an AME service.

24

Yeah, if they thought Bishop Curry had a holy roller style, they have another thing coming!

If preachers were rated in Scoville units like hot sauces, Curry is like maybe an Anaheim chile- just a touch of heat. Some of those AME guys are up there like habaneros!

25

If you visit a Seventh-day Adventist church…

The morning starts with Sabbath School, a Saturday version of Sunday School, with various classes for different age levels. In a larger church there will be a song service and some introductory remarks before everyone splits up in their different classes.

The same lesson is taught all over, making it convenient if you are traveling.
This quarter the adult lesson is about Unity, very apropos for our current times.

Eventually someone will ring a bell telling folks to start wrapping it up. Some churches will show a video about mission activities right after the lesson.

There will likely be some milling about and meet/greet time before the main service.

At that point there will be a few praise songs (typically Contemporary Christian music or hymns), with a worship leader out front leading the congregation in song. I play the bass during those.

Then a typical service looks like this:
Invocation (a call to worship from the speaker)
Opening hymn
Pastoral prayer (a time of prayer requests, followed by one person leading in prayer)
Children’s story, often with a children’s offering
Offering
Scripture reading
Sermon – The speaker will preach for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour.
Closing hymn
Benediction (prayer of blessings from the speaker)

As is common in Protestant churches, SDA churches typically hold the Communion service once a quarter. If you visit on one of those weeks, you will be invited to participate–the service is open.
You might be put off by a curious aspect of the Communion service: the Seventh-day Adventist church takes Jesus’ example of washing the disciples feet quite literally, and Adventists wash each other’s feet prior to taking Communion. Men and women separate for this activity.

26

Excellent source, but I’ll add a few notes for non-Catholics.
Pentinential Act, Collect, and Lamb of God are all prayers.
Profession of Faith is almost always the Nicene Creed.
Universal Prayer: A lector recites something of the last week worth praying about (such as the parish sick or victims of natural disasters) and everybody says “Lord Hear Our Prayer”.
Homilies are almost always 5-15 minutes.
The Eucharistic Prayers are about the only place there are a lot of options for the service; as noted below Bible readings stick to the one listed for the week. You have ten options for the main prayer, and a lot more for the preface.
And most importantly, going off the book (which even the most liturgical Protestant churches do) is almost unheard of in Catholic services. If the Lectionary doesn’t give you an option for a prayer or reading, a priest can’t make his own.

27

We start with a prelude on the organ and piano, during which the acolyte, a young person in a white robe, comes forward to light the candles on the altar. The choir takes their seats at this time.

After the prelude, we have the Chiming of the Hour, in which the organist plays the notes from a clock, followed by 11 chimes.

The pastor comes up with the greeting: “Everyone is welcome here”. He welcomes everyone to our church, including those joining us by way of our DVD ministry and those who will be watching on the website. He does some various announcements.

We stand, as able, for the Hymn of Celebration, which is usually the first verse, or a short chorus, that remains the same for an entire calendar month. We do a Call to Worship, a call-and-response from the Bible.

We sing the first hymn, in its entirety, followed by an Invocation, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Gloria Patri. (“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost…”) On the first Sunday of the month, the Lord’s Prayer is replaced by something else, usually the Apostle’s Creed, and instead we sing The Lord’s Prayer at the end of the service.

We do a Mission Moment, the gathering of Tithes and Offerings, and usually sing the Doxology, followed by a Unison Offertory Prayer.

Most of the time, that’s followed by the Children’s Sermon, which our pastor refers to as the L.A.M.B.S. Club (Living As My Bible Says).

We do a call to prayer, pastoral prayer, and sing a prayer response. Then the choir does their anthem.

We do a Scripture Lesson, hear the sermon, do one more hymn, and have the benediction.

Then the organist plays the postlude, during which time the choir descends from the choir loft, and most people stand up to leave.

28

Who’s “we”, ekedolphin?

The RCC does something similar with the priest washing the feet of 12 people on Holy Thursday. It used to be all men, nowadays many churches mix men and women; this year my mother’s parish had the same 12 children (6+6) playing the 12 Apostles all through the Easter celebrations.

29

I grew up in a United Presbyterian congregation. I always had the impression it was pretty old school. Unless I’m forgetting something (it’s been quite a while) each service consisted of an invocation, a hymn (every hymn ever sung in this church seemed to date from somewhere between 1750 and 1890), the Lord’s Payer, another hymn, something called the Doxology, a sermon of about 20-30 minutes, passing of the collection plate, one more hymn, another prayer, and a brief closing speech.

My favorite things at that particular church were the rather nordic-looking interior (lotta dark wood trim in a sort of Craftsman style), some really first-class stained glass, and a mighty pipe organ that in full cry could effortlessly blast out a thundering sonic metaphor for God’s Power.

30

My church follows this format:

If it’s the Sunday morning service, Sunday school is offered, where you go to a class. For kids, it’s all basically assigned to you. For adults, there are often different ones. If you aren’t a member, you’re not really expected to show up to these, unless someone invited you. How exactly the class goes varies by the teacher, but usually it involves taking attendance, asking for prayer requests, praying, and then teaching a spiritual lesson of some sort, often from a book or program.

Main service: You arive within 15 minutes of the starting time, where there will likely be announcements on the back wall, as well as a paper bulletin with announcements. Eventually, the pastor will come forth and welcome people, and say stuff like “say hi to your neighbor,” have a prayer, and hand it over to the worship leader. He will then direct the musicians to start the first song on their list, and the lyrics will be displayed on the back wall. If it is a hymn, the leader may also tell you to open to a particular page in the hymnal if you’d rather do that.

There will be a few such songs, usually staying upbeat, and usually older songs first. Then the worship leader will turn it back over to the pastor, who will ask for prayer requests, where people can mention things they need prayer for. Sometimes there will also be testimonials, where you praise God for the good things. After that, the pastor will ask if there are any “unspoken” requests, and people will raise their hands, and then he’ll lead us in a prayer about all of them.

After the prayer, he’ll turn it back over to the worship leader, who will then have another set of songs, usually songs, especially the last song. Either the worship leader or the pastor will then invite the ushers to come forth with the collection plates for an offering, and there will be a prayer before they start collecting. While the offering is being collected, there will often be someone from the congregation who will do a special song or other performance. If not, then the musicians and worship team (basically backup singers) will fill in with a song.

Then it’s time for the sermon. Either the pastor will preach, or they’ll announce the guest speaker. The sermon is basically a speech based on a religious concept, and usually begins with a portion of scripture. The congregtation will be told the scriptures chapter and verse, and can turn to them in their bibles (now often electronic). Usually the screen will function like a Powerpoint presentation, and will have the scripture there as well.

The exact nature of the sermon varies, but usually it seems to be about taking what happened and either literally or figuratively applying it to our lives, discussing the difficulties in doing so, and stuff like that. Usually there will be other scripture references to back it up.

The sermon often ends in an altar call. This will be a call to come forward and have people pray with you individually over the issues mentioned in the sermon. Sometimes, the altar call will instead be about salvation, and asking if God has pricked their heart and they want to convert to Christianity. And sometimes both. Usually after a bit, people will be invited to come up for any other reason they might want to be prayed for. During this time the musicians may come back and play some music, or there may be prerecorded music played.

After some time of praying, the pastor will usually come back after the altars have mostly cleared and dismiss us and provide an exhortation to keep on doing what we need to do, and end with a prayer. Sometimes, the altar remains full, and instead we get what I call a half-dismissal, where the pastor comes back and gives the exhortation only. And sometimes, the only sign that you can leave is when they switch from live to prerecorded music. (Though, technically, it’s generally considered okay to leave after 10 minutes of altar time.)

Assuming a proper dismissal, the pastor will usually wait near the doors in the back and greet people as they leave. And usually there’s a lot of talking with people in the church itself or in the foyer.

If there is an activity after the service that is open to all, the dismissal will have mentioned that, and you meet in the fellowship hall. This is most common for morning services, and the activity usually includes lunch.

31

I use another name on Ship of Fools, but some of those Mystery Worship reports were submitted by me! Haven’t done one in a while.

32

I sang in the choir of a Presbyterian Church in Canada for years. It’s been some years since, but I don’t think things have changed much. Here’s what I remember:

– First hymn, choir enters, followed by the minister.
– Call to worship (basically a welcome to all).
– New Testament lesson (somebody reads a New Testament passage).
– Second hymn.
– A psalm reading.
– Children’s story. (Kids are invited to the front, the Minister tells them a Bible story, then they go off to Sunday school.)
– The Offering, where they pass the plates. We’d usually perform some kind of classical choral piece during this time.
– If memory serves, next came us doing the “Gloria Patri,” (“Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost…”).
– Third hymn.
– A prayer, which usually included some reference to current events (pleading for peace in the Middle East, for example), culminating in the Lord’s Prayer.
– Announcements (“The Women’s Bridge Club will meet Thursday at 1:00 PM…”)
– The sermon, which was usually tied to the New Testament lesson from earlier.
– Final hymn, choir exits, but stands in vestibule.
– Benediction.
– Choir sings “Amen” three times in a harmonized arrangement from the vestibule.

Then it’s over, having taken about an hour. Communion (the eucharist) was celebrated four times a year, which stretched services out to an hour-and-fifteen. At any rate, after all services, there was a coffee hour afterwards, with coffee and cookies, and juice for the kids, but you didn’t have to stick around if you didn’t want to. Sometimes, I did, and sometimes I didn’t.

A lot of what we in the choir did was, for lack of a better term, boilerplate. We all knew all the hymns we’d ever do, we knew the “Gloria Patri,” the ending “Amens,” and other things we’d typically sing. These were our warm-ups at choir practice. The challenge every week was learning one or two classical choral pieces. We’d start on these four or more weeks in advance, so we were well-prepared by the time we sang them for the congregation.

33

Yes ‘well I seem to remember when I went to Catholic Mass, but I’m not sure…’ is kind of a ridiculous way to answer the question re Catholicism. It’s the ‘Order of the Mass’, anywhere in the world.

The degree of variation is relatively speaking minor. Whether various parts of the liturgy (besides hymns) are spoken or sung varies for example, but including within a given parish depending, daily masses or some evening weekend masses no sung prayers, or when it’s really hot they speed it up, etc. In Korea for example there’s a procession of the congregation to give their offerings, in the US there are typically ushers with long handled wicker baskets (not a ‘collection plate’ per se, I think that’s mainly Protestant) collecting it. In Korea you bow to other congregants during the ‘sign of peace’, in the US most people shake hands. But when I bring my Korean missal to church to practice reading, they are reciting the same exact books, chapters and verses in the two Readings and the Gospel in English in my parish as for that week in the Korean missal. Then I go home and practice reading it in the Chinese missal, same (more struggle and use of a dictionary so it doesn’t work to bring that one along). It’s an international organization. :slight_smile:

34

I hope these answers are what the OP is looking for, because we have all been pretty literal. It’s like asking, “What typically happens when you go to a movie?” and everyone answering, “We go into an auditorium-style room, they turn down the lights and show really big pictures on one wall.”

The description is accurate as far as it goes, but it doesn’t really capture the experience.

35

This is fun reading. Everyone has described different nontrivial structures of worship in their own different fashion of telling. It’s quite interesting, and I now realize that my own church service is quite long-winded compared to others.

I think I might start saying “Talk about the Gospel, Talk about Jesus, Talk about 10 minutes…” to folks.

36

That’s supposed to be “usually slower songs.” And they are often more modern.

I also did leave out the choir, because we’ve not had one in a while, just having the choir people be part of the worship team. But, when we did, they’d start up on stage and be part of leading people in the songs. We’d go down during the offering call. We got these fancy zip-up robes to wear. We’d often get to sing a song during one of the transitions, sometimes replacing the special song from someone in the congregation. Usually those songs had soloists.

We’d also do specials on some services, which would actually be more like plays, with the choir being the chorus. Or even actually playing the parts, if it’s the Christmas play. And sometimes playing some parts for Easter.

And we do once a month take Communion, sometimes called Eucharist in other churches. This usually means a shorter first set of songs, often with references to the Blood and Body in them, then handing out communion instead of the prayer request setup, and then being led in communion by the Pastor, who will mostly quote from Scripture, quoting what Jesus said. There may also be a reminder than you need to be clean of sin before you partake.

The Communion is just a tiny, chiclet size cracker with no leavening, and not even a shot of grape juice.

In response to kunilou: I read the OP as wanting detail beyond “we do some singing and then we have the preacher do a sermon.”

37

For Presbyterians and Methodists, it’s also a sacrament.

38

Our current church is a blend of United Methodist and Presbyterian. Roughly speaking, the order goes something like this:

  1. Choir/soloist sings
  2. Minister welcomes congregation and makes announcements about upcoming events and/or current events.
  3. A member of the congregation leads everyone in a short responsive reading.
  4. The Passing of the Peace
  5. A hymn
  6. Another prayer read out loud in unison.
  7. Choir sings again. (Or soloist)
  8. One or more Scripture readings
  9. Another hymn
  10. Children’s sermon
  11. Sermon (15-20 minutes)
  12. Offering
  13. Another hymn
  14. Lord’s Prayer
  15. Another hymn
  16. Exit (With yet another hymn)

We have Communion the first Sunday of every month.

39

It can also depend on time of day. For a few months I was helping tape church services for shut-ins. We taped the early service, which had a traditional choir that sang traditional hymns.* When that service was over, a band would bring out the drums and guitars.

  • The words, with inspirational backgrounds, would be projected onto a wall behind and above what looked like the main stage. The congregation sang along.
40

One of the things I like about Protestants, particularly Lutherans and Methodists, is that the congregation actually sings. Catholic tradition is so passive that when they changed it up for more participation in the liturgy nobody sang except the choir. Except those Mexicans. They belt it out.