....published by the Church of England suggest that a quarter of all Anglican churches have no children at all in their congregations, and others have very few. It's depressing: always v. tempting to laugh/sneer/whatever at the CofE, but every lessening of a Christian presence in Britain is to be regretted.
No point in being smug about RC churches. London is, in any case, different in lots of ways from the general trend of things. But...a church I attend has a good-sized children's choir, a Sunday school, a lot of boy altar servers, and that still leaves a good many children in the congregation toddling, sleeping, yelling, or just settled there alongside a parent...
Pub lunch after Mass. Discussion about this. The choir troop up to Holy Communion behind the choirmaster like a long line of ducklings.They rehearse twice a week, arrive early for practice before Sunday Mass...today they sung the Missa de Angelis, but they also tackle other settings in both Latin and in English...have been rehearsing a setting of Binyon's "They shall grow not old..." for the wreath-laying on Remembrance Day...
5 comments:
Glad there is a children's choir. Are there any girl servers?
No. It is much better to restrict this to boys, making a link with the priesthood.
It is indeed always very tempting for the likes of you to laugh/sneer/whatever at the C of E. Please could you treat the Methodist, Baptist and United Reformed Churches equally harshly, or equally generously? (Or please could you explain why you never seem to criticise them?)
Explain why? Not sure, really: probably it's simply because they don't make much impact. A pity, but there you are.
The Christian communitiess outside the Catholic communion that are doing good work are chiefly the Evangelical ones, including a number of CofE groups and parishes, and it is a privilege to work with them.
My local church, St Josephs in Guildford, has a thriving attendance of children and young adults and it is encouraging to see more young adults attending the RCIA meetings as well.
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