Church Parade Sermons

Yesterday we finally made it to the first church parade of 2007 (due to holidays and social lives on the 1st Sunday of the month), which was also Harvest for the church.

Now the Brownies are really good for the service, which is in a church I’d class as Anglo-Catholic CofE (Bells, Candles, Singing but no smells!). The congregation is I’d say of average age 70ish … so we bring the average age down a decade or two! Mind you we also show up Scouting everytime… this time they could muster the GSL, 1 cub & 1 beaver (the usual 1 scruffy scout wasn’t there, I’ve yet to see him smart when carrying the flag often it’s the shirt handing out!)… we had 11 Brownies (the most we’ve had we usually hover at about 6), 3 Guides (less than usual) and 3 Guiders on our side!

Now it being Harvest, knowing there will be kids there for the whole service, what do you think the Vicar would give a sermon on?

Crops, Food, Autumn … they’re the things we’re used to for harvest (a sermon on growing a chilli plant sticks out from my old unit/ church, with all the kids sat on the carpet in front of the Rector for a good view). What did we have? The Yom Kippur War and Day of Atonement … not a very kid friendly subject I’d say, particularly when he had an easy subject to be kid friendly with! The Brownies did well to contain the fidgeting and find other things to stare at, they obviously, like me, were just waiting for him to get to the end of it. What possessed the man to think it was a good subject to have for harvest church parade sermon?

Hmm I thought … this has confirmed all we ever thought of the vicar (we used to have curate on 1st of the month who engaged the kids, but then has young kids of his own, since he did them it didn’t seem as much of a chore) … he doesn’t connect with kids really, so I can’t see this experience of church (the first for many of our girls) will leave them coming back for more! Also it joins our thoughts that they like to see us there (the vicar has told us many times that we should pretty much force our Brownies to attend, we in reply point out the multi faith organisation we are), but aren’t willing to welcome us or make us welcome. We’re in a catch 22 situation, we could live without being a sponsored unit, but there aren’t any places we could me in as they are all booked up or extortionate.

The sad thing is they think they are a successful church, but I can’t see how this can be when the majority of your congregation is old and you have few families, and younger members; it’s just not sustainable. It also make me realise how good the Rectors my parent’s church (and my old church) has had over the years, many move onto bigger things, whilst the vicar here as been here for years (I think its about 15-20 years) and doesn’t seem to have done any other roles (such as rural dean). What concerns me the most is that he does not appear approachable, and is very formal when it comes to him he’s Father X (with X being the surname) … we’ve always called the rector at home by his first name, and the congregation isn’t scared of him! If he was approachable we might have been able to say its better to have 2 good church parades (Harvest and Mothering Sunday) than monthly drags … it works well at those units back home who attend church parades (the sponsored one spoke to a new vicar when he arrived following the experiences from the units I was a member of, tested it and continued with an enhanced twice yearly parade after years of the monthly drag with only a few girls at most).

So what the rest of my readership’s experiences? Have I just come from a really good church for church parade to an average/ rubbish one?

At least my Parent's church have experienced the best bet in my view of a comparable church to theirs in Portsmouth, the Choir were invited to Portsmouth Anglican Cathedral (we also have a Catholic one, which is bigger) to sing for the services last summer (the weekend I escaped to SAGGA Summer Camp!) so they and an entorage (inc. my parents) attended the services, met the locals and escaped to IOW (congregation member's parents provided a BBQ dinner). It seems strange that the most middle of the road church in the city is the Cathedral (as Canterbury Catherdral is on the higher end) ... otherwise it the extremes, happy clappy or Anglo Catholic.