My wife makes the Communion bread for my church, and she does it like a boss.
It’s a no-no to eat the left-over bread that has been blessed, that should be buried or burned with appropriate ceremony.
But there’s no rule against her making an excess of the tasty bread beyond what will actually be employed in the service.
Yum!
If you are Quaker, you might sit in a quiet room for an hour, and perhaps a member will be moved to speak. Or not.
I’m Unitarian. No eucharist in our church, but having started out as Christian, it follows a similar structure. We get music, community announcements, music, short readings (often poetry or an essay), music, a sermon, and music - then we leave and drink coffee and eat cookies. Music does not mean hymns - it can be our choir (which sings hymns, and sings folk music, and Beatles songs and modern choral works - it can be a guest band or a guest musician - which might be classical or folk or jazz or something else. It might be the congregation singing, or the children’s choir (which does an awesome “The Cat Came Back.”), or the Youth Group. The whole thing usually takes about 40 - 50 minutes - unless there is some sort of special event.
As a fairly humanist UU congregation - there is almost never any mention of Jesus (he comes up once in a while) and usually not a lot of God (S/He comes up more often than Jesus does, though).
I grew up Episcopalian. Generally, my family attended “low church” parishes; however, once, in the middle of July, we attended a “high church” parish in Alexandria, Virginia. I passed out (that place had no air conditioning, or at least didn’t bother to use it) and we decided to attend the nice little parish near the White House instead. Your dad’s description kind of sums up the experience for both high and low PECUSA of my youth; however, the details on what was high and was low seemed to be more with who was doing the “a hymn and a prayer”. If the priest was doing most of the doing, it was high church. The bit about passing the peace seemed to me to be another excuse for what my brothers and I called “'Piscopal pull ups” (we’d grab the back of the pew in front of us and pull ourselves up to a standing position), and functioned to keep the blood flowing and the congregation awake. The stand up, kneel, sit down, kneel, sit down, etc. routine we called “church calisthenics”.
I’ll never forget the free-for-all over the new Book of Common Prayer for the PECUSA. A number of congregations bailed and started their own denominations over that. The funny thing is that the new book included the old service and language. I got the impression that a lot of Episcopalians didn’t take the Bible literally, but that BOCP damn sure was not to be tinkered with!
When my father was a battalion commander, our base chapel (which was assigned to Dad’s battalion) had an Episcopalian priest as the chaplain. We were quite used to his style of sermons; 10-15 minutes, as you say. A couple of months after we moved to that base, the Episcopalian chaplain was replaced by some kind of Baptist minister. His first sermon damn near hit the hour mark. The next Sunday, Dad had the family sitting in our customary place, about 4 or 5 pews back. When the chaplain had gotten 15 minutes into his sermon, Dad lifted his left arm straight up with his watch facing the chaplain. Sermon ended less than a minute after that.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a pretty set method for what happens. The differences are dependent on what special occasion happens to be happening.
Fast and Testimony Sunday (usually the first Sunday of the month, but if General Conference is happening {first full weekend of April and October}, then the second Sunday is Fast and Testimony Sunday) and Sacrament Service is as follows:
[ul][li]Opening hymn[/li][li]Opening prayer[/li][li]Stake/District (like diocese) business[/li][li]Ward/Branch (like parish) business[/li][li]Sacrament hymn[/li][li]Sacrament prayers (blessing on bread and water, and passing of said bread and water to the congregants)[/li][li]Conducting officer (Bishop/Branch President or one of the two counselors) bears his testimony, then invites congregants to bear theirs.[/li][li]Congregants who feel moved to bear testimony do so.[/li][li]Conducting officer thanks all who bore testimonies and announces closing hymn and states who’ll say the closing prayer.[/li][li]Closing hymn[/li][li]Closing prayer[/ul][/li]
For other Sundays:
[ul][li]Opening hymn[/li][li]Opening prayer[/li][li]Stake/District (like diocese) business[/li][li]Ward/Branch (like parish) business[/li][li]Sacrament hymn[/li][li]Sacrament prayers (blessing on bread and water, and passing of said bread and water to the congregants)[/li][li]One or two members of the ward/branch who had been asked in advance to prepare talks will give their talk (short sermon).[/li][li]Rest/Intermediate hymn[/li][li]If no rest/intermediate hymn, one or two other members who had been asked in advance will give their talks.[/li][li]Conducting officer will thank all who gave talks and announce the closing hymn and who’ll say the closing prayer.[/li][li]Conducting officer thanks all who bore testimonies and announces closing hymn and states who’ll say the closing prayer.[/li][li]Closing hymn[/li][li]Closing prayer[/ul][/li]
General Conference Sundays: Watch the broadcast from Salt Lake City on TV, either at home, in the stake center, or in the ward/branch chapel.
For Sundays other than General Conference, Sunday School and Priesthood/Relief Society follow Sacrament Service. If there is Ward/Branch or Stake/District Conference, there won’t be Sunday School and Priesthood/Relief Society for the adults, who will attend a business meeting.
All of the above, for each Sunday lasts three hours, except for General Conference which is two chunks of two-hours on Saturday and again on Sunday
That’s pretty much how it is everywhere I’ve attended around the world since I joined the Church way back in 1981. Starting in January of 2019, the regular Sundays will only have two hours of church meetings. Sunday School will be held on first and third Sundays, while Priesthood and Relief Society will be held the second and fourth Sundays. For months with five Sundays, the fifth Sunday will have youth and adult meetings directed by the bishop/branch president. Stake/District and Ward/Branch conferences should also be two hours of church meeting starting in January of 2019.
Thank you everyone for taking the time to answer my question, I found all your
responses to be very interesting. I was hoping that someone from a non-Christian
religion would add to this thread and tell us about their religious services. It would
be interesting to compare the different ceremonies and customs.
Checking in. I can tell you about Reform Jewish services.
Anyone is welcome to attend regardless of whether or not they are Jewish, however given the many recent instances of antisemitism and hate crimes in various parts of the world, many synagogues have police officers or private security guards stationed outside for the safety of the congregants. So if you’re not a regular you may be asked to explain yourself before you can enter so they will know you are not a threat. Visitors may be required to be vetted before they arrive (e.g. call up the rabbi or the president of the congregation for a discussion of your intention to attend services).
All males, whether Jewish or not, must wear a kippah (yarmulke) in the synagogue. If you don’t have one, you’ll be given one at the door. You will also be offered a siddur (prayerbook, which most of the service comes from) and usually a printed copy of the Tanach (the Hebrew Bible). The siddur is typically in Hebrew along with Hebrew transliteration and English translation. The prayers will typically be sung in Hebrew (so those who don’t read Hebrew can follow the transliteration to pronounce it).
In Reform congregations, gender equality is paramount so everyone can sit together wherever they like (in an Orthodox congregation, men and women sit in separate parts of the synagogue).
The service is led by a rabbi, cantor or a lay leader from amongst the congregation.
In a nutshell, the typical order of Saturday morning services is:
• Birkhot HaShahar (The Preliminary Service) – a series of blessings and expressions of gratitude to God
• Pesukei Dezimra (Introductory Hymns) – a selection of “warm up” prayers from the siddur – these change from week to week according to the whims of the person who is leading the congregation
• Barkhu (Call to Prayer) – this formally begins the service
• Shema – recited in unison by the congregation: Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Ecḥad – “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.”
• Amidah (Standing Prayer)
• The procession of the Torah – the Torah scroll will be taken from the ark and carried around the congregation – as it passes, it is customary to honor it by kissing the edge of your siddur or your tallit (prayer shawl, worn only by those are Jewish) and touching the siddur/tallit to the cover of the Torah scroll.
• Aliyot – this is the part where the Torah portion of the week is read from the scroll. The entire Torah from Genesis to Deuteronomy is read in a cycle over the course of the year. It is split up into smaller portions called parashiyot to enable this to happen – every week every Jewish congregation around the world will be reading the same parashah. When the Torah scroll is read, it is divided up amongst several congregants who receive an aliyah (“ascent” or “going up”) to read from sections of the week’s Torah portion. Only Jewish congregants can receive an aliyah and it is considered an honor to receive one. On special occasions, such as the service closest to a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, it is typical for the young person’s family members (as long as they are also Jewish) to be honored with aliyot.
• Haftarah – the reading of a complementary portion from the rest of the Tanach (these are also pre-determined based on the theme of the week’s Torah portion)
• Drash (Sermon)
• Musaf (Additional Service)
• Mi Shebeirach – a prayer for healing. The leader of the congregation will ask people to call out names of family members and friends who are ill, recovering from an operation, etc. if the congregants would like them to be included as recipients of the prayer.
• Announcements
• Aleinu
• Mourner’s Kaddish
A service would typically be anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half long. Certain parts of the service (e.g. Barchu, Torah reading, Kaddish) can only be done if a minyan (10 Jewish adults over the age of 13 – in Orthodox congregations, they also have to be male) is present. If there are not enough Jews present for a minyan, these parts of the service must be omitted. This can often happen in smaller congregations where having a few people off sick one week can mean there’s not enough attendees for a minyan.
Orthodox (and probably Conservative as well) Jewish services will be longer and include more specific sections and prayers. But I haven’t been to an Orthodox or Conservative service so I can’t enlighten you on that.
Services are followed by Kiddush (equivalent to morning tea after church services). The leader of the congregation will give the blessings over the bread and wine before congregants mingle and enjoy light refreshments. It is usually customary for congregants to bring along something to share at the Kiddush, so long as it is dairy or pareve (made without milk or meat products and basically a “neutral” food that can be eaten with either dairy or meat and thus enable congregants who keep Kosher to enjoy without having to worry about whether or not they can eat it).
That’s the basics (very lengthy, I know, but I could have included a lot more detail!). There’s lots of resources online that can cover things in more depth.
TL;DR version: Jewish services are basically quite similar to Christian services but with Hebrew, fancy hats and prayer shawls and lots of specific rules about parts of the service. 
That sounds very similar to the Conservative services I’m used to, except that ours usually take between two and two and a half hours. I’m not entirely sure how that is, though.
One question: with us, the person who gets the “Aliyah” before reading a bit of the Torah is not necessarily the person reading the Torah, but rather the person who says the blessing before and after the reading. It’s different with you?
Alessan - yes, you are right, they usually do just the blessing before and after the reading. This is what happens when you try to summarize and simplify a lengthy series of events. :smack:
I suppose I should clarify in regards to the Torah reading, the Torah scroll needs to be read with appropriate cantillation - rather a tricky concept to explain so here. Most people don’t have the training to do this correctly so the Torah scroll would usually be read in the synagogue by the rabbi or cantor, although a lay leader can do it if they have received the appropriate training to be able to do it. As noted by Alessan, the congregants who receive an aliyah generally just do the blessings before and after the Torah reading (there’s an audio file on the Wiki page that demonstrates this).
Another thing I neglected to mention in my overview of the service is that the Torah scroll gets returned to the ark afterwards, though I imagine you would probably figure that would happen at some point. It doesn’t just sit there for the rest of the day! 
You guys finish in 40-50 minutes? I’m jealous. We’re lucky to be done in 1:15. I’m teaching RE now, so my wife isn’t subjected to me looking at my watch. She didn’t grow up going to services, so that horrified her. Our previous minister and interim were more into God talk than some of our members wanted. I identify as Xian, but I don’t need to hear it.
The minister of the Lutheran church I attended in college to!d me that they told him in seminary never to let the sermon go past 20 minutes. 15-20 minutes is my limit for listening.
I was baptized and confirmed Lutheran, married into and converted to Roman Catholic, which was a pretty easy conversion as far as church services go. My brother also married a Catholic woman, and my 70-year old aunt who had never been to any church besides Lutheran exclaimed that she was quite surprised “that they’re just like us!”
A brother is currently attending a “praise” church - large theater-like auditorium, padded seats, coffee shop in the entry way, PowerPoint and rock band and lots of non-Catholic non-Lutheran stuff in their service. We were visiting once with my parents, for my brother’s grand-daughter’s dedication (which would be baptism in the Lutheran/Catholic service). My parents’ one comment was “no Apostles’ Creed! no Lord’s prayer! this wasn’t a real church service!” Actually it was quite similar to what BigT posted.
Sometimes Lutherans/Catholics will include baptism during the church service (with the congregation sharing in the “renouncing of sins and the works of the devil” questioning), but more often baptism ceremonies occur immediately after the church service.
Another aspect for Catholics is there’s usually a baptismal font near the entry way, or a container of water, that people will dip a finger into, make a sign of the cross over themselves, as a reminder of their baptism. That is done both entering and leaving the sanctuary part of the building. (At least in my experience.)
As familiar I am with the Christian services (except Mormon is still a mystery to me), I really appreciate the description of Jewish services. Are they ever broadcast, so I can actually watch one to see what it’s like? (I suppose I could look on YouTube…)
Sure thing! I have picked out just a few representative examples for you:
An excellent introduction on what to expect at a synagogue. This one is filmed at Kehillath Israel (Conservative) in Brookline, Massachusetts.
A Kabbalat Shabbat (Friday evening) service at Temple Israel (Reform) in West Bloomfield, Michigan. The Friday night services welcome Shabbat and at least in the more liberal branches of Judaism, tend to be a little less formal and often include music and singing that is quite similar to some Protestant services (though still in Hebrew).
A snippet from an Orthodox Kabbalat Shabbat service. Note the curtain in the middle of the room that divides the men’s side from the women’s side. As the Orthodox strictly follow Biblical Shabbat prohibitions, turning lights or other electrical devices on or off during Shabbat is forbidden as it is considered to fall under the law that prohibits lighting a fire on Shabbat. Therefore, they could only film this before sundown as after sundown, it’s officially Shabbat. Traditionally, Jews would hire a “Shabbos goy,” a non-Jewish household assistant who would perform cooking and various other tasks for the family on Shabbat that they could not do themselves. These days, there’s all kinds of technological solutions to get around the issue, such as using pre-set timers on lights and other electrical devices so that people do not have to turn them on or off by hand. A really interesting book on this is The Shabbat Elevator and Other Sabbath Subterfuges by the late folklorist Alan Dundes. But I digress.
A Saturday morning serviceat Congregation Beth Israel (Reform) in Houston. This one includes a Bat Mitzvah.
A Saturday morning service at B’nai Jeshurun (unaffiliated, equivalent to non-denominational in Christian terms) in Manhattan.
A Saturday morning service at Temple Aliyah (Conservative) in Woodland Hills, California.
The other way 'round, I’d say: we’re the ones who are your offshoot
Actually, when the Reform movement began in 19th century Germany as an attempt to modernize Judaism, they modeled services on Christian churches. Besides introducing the concept of holding services in the local vernacular rather than Hebrew, they did away with the majority of traditional rituals and even started holding services on Sundays instead! Much the same happened when the Reform movement reached America and synagogues had more in common with churches than with traditional Jewish houses of worship (in the era of mass immigration to the US this also helped new Jewish Americans to assimilate and fit in with their Christian neighbors - “See, we aren’t so different from you!” Except, of course, for the Yiddish-speaking traditionalists who settled in the Lower East Side and other Jewish enclaves).
It was actually the modern Orthodox movement that split away from Reform as they felt the modernization had gone waaay too far and wanted to go back to the traditional ways of doing things. Then the Conservatives came along to try to provide a middle ground between tradition and modernity for those who thought Orthodox was too strict and outdated but Reform was too radical. The Reconstructionist (affirming tradition without the need for traditional theology, seeing Judaism as a civilization more than as a religion) movement split off from the Conservatives.
Other movements came along as well, such as Jewish Renewal (embracing Hasidic styles of ecstatic worship without the Orthodox theology) and Secular Humanistic (taking the Reconstructionist approach even further to offer a non-theistic alternative with modified traditions without the God-heavy liturgy). Along the way, of course, the Reform movement added back many of the traditions they had ditched earlier while still retaining a progressive approach.
Hi, one of my hobbies is attending other people’s religions, so I’ve been to lots of services. I’m a Reform Jew, and the description above is pretty much what we do. I’ll try to quickly summarize some services I’ve been to that haven’t been described here:
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Muslim – this was in a wealthy US suburb, and the congregants are well-assimilated professional people.
The men are in the front, and women have a roped-off section in the back, and visitors are also in the back, next to the women. Everyone wore a lot of clothing. Despite it being warm, the men all had long pants, long sleeves, and jackets or (some of the younger ones) sweat shirts. The women wore long skirts, usually with leggings or slacks underneath, and long-sleeved blouses, often with sweaters and scarves. Sometimes multiple scarves, one around the torso and one over the shoulders. The scarves were brightly colored and festive. No one (including guests) wore shoes. The room is carpeted, and kept clean.
The service started with a brief opening prayer in Arabic, followed by an opening prayer in English. Then there was a sermon (which I found quite interesting and topical). Everyone stood, except for older folks, who carried chairs to whatever spot they staked out. People kept drifting in during the sermon, and it was obviously normal and acceptable to do so. At one point, the women’s area got crowded, and one of the women moved the ropes to give the women more room, displacing a couple of men who had picked spots in the back. There were about twice as many people at the end of the sermon as at the beginning.
Then they did the mandatory prayers. This involves recitations in Arabic, and bowing and prostrating and other physical actions. As I looked at the sea of bums in the air while they prostrated themselves, I realized that the women were separated because THEY wouldn’t want the men staring at their behinds as they prayed. (The men’s faces were down, too, of course. But I’m sure the women were more comfortable in the back.) Only one guy arrived after the mandatory prayers began, and he was obviously late.
Then they had announcements, as people dispersed. I was amused at how many people left in the middle of the announcements.
====================
Quaker
The room was small, old, and beautiful with lots of dark wood. We sat generally in a rectangle, around a central open space. The pews had some information, including instructions for visitors. It said that the service started with people “centering down in silence” as we collectively tried to experience God and to listen for the “still small voice”. We sat quietly for 15 minutes, then some people took little kids out and a few more people filed in, and we sat in silence for another 15 minutes. Many people closed their eyes. Some sat in postures that I associate with formal mediation. Some looked up, others seemed to be focused inwards. The overall feel in the room was of alertness and expectation. No one napped.
Then a young man behind be stood up. “Welcome, Friends”, he said. One of the people in front brought him a microphone, and he said he was visiting from across the country, and then spoke briefly of community, and how everyone needs community. Two more people got up, waited for the mike to be passed to them, and spoke about spiritual matters. After some time, another two people spoke. Everyone who spoke ended by asking us to pray.
After about an hour the silence was broken, and we greeted each other, and went around the room clockwise introducing ourselves, and several of the members made some announcement (“I’m organizing an event…”)
Then we all went to share coffee and cookies.
====================
Mormon
The interior of the church looks like a bank, slightly more ornamented than a bank, but all rectangular. The people sit in long comfortable pews, gathered in family groups. There was room for a large choir up front, but those seats were mostly empty. There was a sign listing the songs that would be sung.
It started with some announcements, including some people who had been “Called” to do various things for the community. The leader asked for people to vote on whether the spirit moved them the confirm those calling. Most people voted “yes” and no one voted “no”.
Then there were some brief free-form prayers (as distinct from liturgical prayers that others might know. One was for the current prophet.
Then there was a hymn, and then young men passed around the sacrament – which was a nice sour-dough loaf from the supermarket and little dixie cups of water. This took a long time, and the kids were noisy. Lots of kids had coloring books or other stuff to entertain them. Then another hymn.
Then a guy stood up and gave testimony to his faith, then a hymn that supported his testimony, then another guy and another hymn. They appeared to be random members of the congregation, and not people who were used to public speaking.
After that there was a little more administrative stuff, and we disbanded. No bible readings, nothing that really felt like a sermon, and no liturgy outside of the 4 hymns.
Then they went to sunday school (which I also attended) where they studied a bit of Bible. After an hour of that, they split into mens and womens learning groups, and invited me to join those, too, but I had run out of time, so I went home.
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Buddhist
This is a while ago, in Japan, and I didn’t write it up at the time, so this is less reliable than the others. But we all filed into an enormous room, with the monks wearing saffron robes, and the tourists (lots of tourists, as that’s a common was to interact with Japanese Buddhism) in ordinary clothes. There was a lot of chanting in Sanskrit. Because it was also a Shinto holiday, there was a huge bonfire in the middle of the room, and some prayers (in a language I don’t speak) about that. Then people took turns making small burnt offerings, in metal things. (hmm, there must be a word for that.) Then some more chanting in Sanskrit, and then they passed out cookies and tea, and took the tourists for a tour of their lovely meditative garden.
Yep - more often towards 50, but almost never over an hour unless there are babies to be welcomed into the congregation or some other sort of blessing (that adds 15 minutes). It drives our RE Director nuts because classes are generally designed to be about an hour - and we don’t get our kids until 15 minutes into the service. So we hold the adults back from the RE wing until 10 after the hour - forcing coffee and cookies on them. We are also big enough to need two services (except during the Summer), so turning the sanctuary around and getting the choir or musicians a break is important. (Services are at 9 and 11 - and the musicians usually start before service by about ten minutes to welcome people into the sanctuary.)
One of the things our RE does is teach comparative religion. I get the little ones - which is a lot of holidays. Ramadan and Dwali and Hanukkah and Christmas (I don’t remember if we manage a Buddhist holiday) … and how religions are similar (everyone has some version of the Golden Rule). But middle school kids spend a year visiting other faith traditions - including Buddhist, Hindu, and African American Baptist church, a Reform Synagogue, an Evangelical church and the Catholic Cathedral downtown. Except for the Catholics, they tend to get fed after service while people talk to them about their faith.
I see you’re from the Twin Cities. One of our former ministers came to us from a congregation in St. Paul (Unity, maybe?).
And then there’s the Sephardic Jews, which apparently go their own way in ways other than often speaking Spanish or Ladino (depends among other things on where they live and family traditions), but I’ve never gotten a decent explanation on which are those “other ways”. It’s just something some Ashkenazis will drop as if it was a completely well-known thing, along the lines of “the sun rises in the East”.
The standard Catholic weekly mass runs about a hour. The daily masses run 30-40 minutes; they’re almost identical to the weekly mass but have much less singing. Only certain special masses like the Easter Vigil (which can run near three hours) take much longer. Interestingly enough, funeral/nuptial/baptismal masses are not much longer than or structured differently than regular masses; they obviously have special material not in a regular mass, but the basic prayer/readings/sermon/eucharistal structure usually remains entact.
The music? Much like the service itself, it’s almost always from official Church songbooks. You’ll find one, either by itself or incorporated in the missal, in every pew. The songbooks have nearly a thousand options and they’re sourced from everywhere: translated Latin hymns, modern Catholic hymns (which are usually both folk in style and not very good musically), black spirituals, Methodist/Lutheran hymns, Shaker songs, etc. And yes people are not very good about singing along.
Speaking of singing, hymns, and Catholic mass, I was amusing when I was visiting a Catholic parish (our ELCA [Lutheran] congregation’s young adults were doing some ecumenism with the Catholic church’s young adults) to find “A Mighty Fortress” in the Catholic hymn book.
Anyways, I think ELCA worship has been pretty well covered.