2 Services?

Ann, that's the difference between north and south. Let's compare populations.

M city has a population of 17,000, The 27 churches I mentioned were only the Baptist churches! I didn't count the other denoms!

Now 30 miles in one direction is the county line. Mostly rural, but it used to be the place everyone went for alcohol cause back then our county was dry. Guess what is on the hill right across the street from everyone's fav bar? A big ol' Baptist church. And that one isn't the only one in the area.

30 miles in the other direction is a series of small town/communities. There is at least one Baptist church with each communities name and most of them have a Freewill Baptist with the community name as well.

You simply can't turn around down here without running into a church. There are 6 churches within walking distance of my own! (different denoms)

We don't need more churches. More cooperation between churches perhaps, but we have plenty.

Plus, driving 28 miles to church sort of defeats the purpose of "local church".

 

I was driving around an area that is impoverished in Charlotte the other day. The area is about a mile from the church I attend. I saw three church buildings in this area (not including the one I attend.) Two had their doors standing open for people to come in. The third had a fence around it. I know one of the two churches that had their doors open was recently sold to the new church that bought it.

In some areas, there are tons of buildings. What concerns me is what goes on in these buildings.....and doesn't go on.

 

We offer two services--traditional (whatever that means), and contemporary (whatever that means). Both are growing. We have no problems with division.

If division is the operative issue, doesn't that mean we're OK?

And BTW, using a guitar and drums isn't "copying the world." One could have said that in 1700 when the scandalous use of piano and polyphonic singing occurred...

 

Rbell, then how are the people who go to the contemporary service going to be exposed to hymns, classical, and choral music? A blended service is the way to go because you get to do all kinds of music.

 

Wow -- yes, you live in the Bible Belt. Within my town limits (population 19,000), we have eight houses of worship -- none Baptist ---
1 Methodist
1 Catholic
2 Presbyterian (1-PCUSA, 1-PCA)
1 Lutheran
1 Orthodox Synagogue
1 Conservative Synagogue
1 Reform Synagogue

However, there is a Baptist church in the next town over or and one two towns south (though they removed "Baptist" from their name).

 

A blended service is a good way to get everyone mad at you since you never hit everyone's taste or frequency of music.

 

I'm not RBell, but am curious...why do we have to expose people to all those forms of music?

 

Love it :laugh:. So true.

 

We have two services and they are different in style, not just music.

The first service is a traditional service. There is a choir (in robes) and the music is normally standard hymns accompanied by an organ. The service itself is more formal -- Apostle's Creed, Lord's Prayer, Gloria Patri, etc.

The second service is more contemporary/blended. The music is normally is led by worship leader/group accompanied by a worship band -- guitars, bass, piano, drums, etc. The songs are more contemporary, but we usually have at least one traditional hymn as well.

To help offset the "two congregations" issue, we sometimes have combined services so that the entire congregation worships together.

 

LOL, we certainly do! Lets see, we have:

3 Methodist churches (one independent)
1 Catholic (they have 2 congregations, one English, one Hispanic)
1 Presby that I can think of right off hand, don't know which variety
No Lutheran
The Orthodox folks drive to B'ham
I dont' know what a Conservative Synagogue is
Reform Synagogue? Is that a Christain Church (Disciples of Christ?) we have one of those
2 Nazarine Churchs (one is more conservative than the other)
4 or 5 non denoms at least (1 or more of those might be a Baptist church in disguise)
1 United Pentecostal
And handful of Church of God's of various varieties

Definately the Bible Belt!

 

Hymns can be utilized in a "contemporary service."

We have other avenues of worship as well--our Sunday PM services are what you call "blended."

Choral music is entirely doable in a contemporary setting. Not sure why you think it isn't.


As for classical--few Baptist churches can pull that off, ours included; so that's a non-issue.

 

We leave classical, Handel's Messiah, to the community choir.

 

There is a lot of very good contemporary music being written for choir and orchestra. We're doing one Sunday out of one of the Prestonwood books. The song is for mens' ensemble and choir and orchestra. It's a really cool piece because the men in the choir sing in three parts for most of the song. The ladies are only in two parts for most of the song, but there a couple spots where it splits into three or four. I sing baritone so I get all of the cool middle notes.

We're also working on an extremely complicated a cappella piece with a lot of eight part harmony. Singing in choir is so much fun.

My church can.

We did two songs from Handel's Messiah for Easter.

 

Synagogues are for my Jewish friends. We have one reform (which is the more liberal), one conservative and one orthodox.

We don't have any Christian Orthodox churches in town, though there is one not too far away.

 

Ah, I see. We lost our Jewish synagogue about 4 years ago because they didn't have a big enough congregation to support it here. They have to drive to B'ham to worship now.

There are a couple of Christian Orthodox churches over there as well. One is Greek and the other I'm not sure about.

I forgot a couple of denominations last night: Episcopal (1) and Church of Christ (several). LOL

Its amazing to see all these churches getting together to clean up the storm damages around here.

 

Some of them were. But no, they came from all over. The music for "Amazing Grace" came from pagan tribal songs.

But honestly, the doctrine in some of those old hymns are atrocious, and I refuse to sing them. Some are great, and I love them (A Mighty Fortress is one of my all time favorite songs).

Brother, that is surely true on some level. But I for one would not like to stand before my LORD on the day of His coming, and say "I split your church over music preference" when one of His main prayers for His church was unity.

 

You know that's just an urban legend, right?

Why would you want to split a church over music preference?