The Town of Odyssey

gunblader3 wrote:

SoccerLOTR wrote: Mm...I love pastors like that, who are interesting, plainly speak truth, talk about relevant issues, and are personal. Seems like we don't get enough of those sometimes...Sometimes it seems that pastors speak mainly to the 50+ group (or sometimes, 70+) and the majority of the message is lost on the younger audience. But sometimes you find pastors who can talk to a broad audience and still be interesting and relevant, or just go to a service more directed toward younger members of the church. Have you thought about finding a new place to go?

Well I am right now attending a Catholic youth group that has mass at my college every sunday. Which has a really nice Priest. He makes everyone of us laugh and keeps us entertained, but I think he works to hard at that. Any time he does his "Homily's" he goes to much off topic that it does not have any relations to the gospel he just read to us. I'm guessing I'm a bit to nit picky though. The other people don't mind and he's a great pastor. He's someone you can sit down drink beer with and have a great time. But I think the most important part about Christianity is our faith and relationship with God.

SoccerLOTR wrote: Granted, some pastors are good at balancing their examples to fit a broad audience...but many pastors don't, and that's when it becomes difficult to relate.

That's why I think its best if you keep 2 different audiences from each other by having different church times for them. Of course there was a fuss about about that at my church saying is promotes segregation and all that.

oh, ok, that's cool (to the first part)
About the segregation issue...i think it depends on how it is done. I think it is good when it is a service open to anyone (even though the majority may be younger people) rather than exclusive to that certain age group, for one. For another thing, are there other events or times that bring the whole church together? At my old church, we had two services, and there was a fellowship time in between where you could mingle with everyone, so we stayed connected with the different people at church and not just sticking to our sunday school group and whatnot. But at a church I went to a bit during college, they had the "college" group in a completely separate part of the church, concurrent with the regular service, and no one crossed over from one group to the other or met in a place together at any point--which I think wasn't so great

As someone who does attend a church where they do the exact same things every single week (with the exception of the Scripture and Gospel readings which change every week) I thought the video was kind of interesting. I haven't been to a service like the one in the video, but I suppose I would agree although I don't think ALL repetition is bad. Ritual, after all, is usually created in the first place to mean something but if it loses its meaning it becomes pointless.

As for the church leaders, I think they kind of have to understand that you can't please all of the people all of the time. If you try to make something relevant to youth, it will become irrelevant to someone else, which is kind of why I've never been too impressed with trendiness within Church. After all, many times it is an effort to make Scripture seem less "boring" which is a false premis in the first place. Scripture isn't boring, and if we try to dress it up in an exciting package, it won't make it less boring, it will mean that people will pay attention to the window dressings until they become boring and move on. Perhaps the real focus needs to be on understanding Scripture and tradition so that we can understand what it means and why we need to know it.

Good talk.

My favorite church gatherings are the ones where everyone's swapping eye witness miracle stories and casting demons out of each other. This template is, sufficed to say, far less entertaining and dramatic. *shakes head sadly*

Amethystic wrote:My favorite church gatherings are the ones where everyone's swapping eye witness miracle stories and casting demons out of each other. This template is, sufficed to say, far less entertaining and dramatic. *shakes head sadly*

Or missionaries speaking about what they're doing...that's always cool/interesting!

I know how to fix it! Play the closing song and the beginning and the opening song at the end!

My church does things in the same order every week, but sometimes the youth do the church service, and sometimes the pastor does the sermon, also, sometimes the music is hymns, and other times it is contemprary christian music.

ric wrote:I know how to fix it! Play the closing song and the beginning and the opening song at the end!

But what if it is the same song?! Sometimes they do the whole "start with a song, then close the sermon with the song again" thing...

SoccerLOTR wrote:

ric wrote:I know how to fix it! Play the closing song and the beginning and the opening song at the end!

But what if it is the same song?! Sometimes they do the whole "start with a song, then close the sermon with the song again" thing...

I was being sarcastic...but you make a valid point.

If it's the same song, they can just play it backwards.

!eman ruoy eb desselB !droL eht fo eman eht eb desselB