A senior bishop has urged churches to slash the length of services to encourage people to worship more.
With most people torn between using Sunday mornings to go shopping or lie in bed, the prospect of spending 90 minutes in church has an increasingly limited appeal.
There is a simple answer to this problem, according to one senior bishop who has urged clergy to cut the length of services in an effort to reverse declining levels of attendance.
The Rt Rev Jonathan Gledhill, the Bishop of Lichfield, said worship has become too complicated and time-consuming, leaving people who are not regular churchgoers feeling confused and excluded.
He said that services have become too long, recommending clergy should aim to keep them to no more than 50 minutes and make sure they are careful not to preach for too long.
Research conducted over the last year by anonymous worshippers for the church website Ship of Fools found some Anglican clergy preaching for as long as 42 minutes.
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I have experienced pastors to preach for 30 minutes to an hour. I usually find these sermons to go over the same point multiple times and tendency to go around and around.
ReplyDeleteI currently attend a church that the pastor preaches 10-15 minutes. At first, I thought when he finished that's it? I realized after the service. I started to actually think about what he preached and I went back reread the readings.
I find if you can make your point in 10 minutes. Do it. Just because you preach for 45 minutes doesn't make it more reverent or godly nor does 10 minute that makes no point.
George,
ReplyDeleteRepetition in a sermon is not necessarily a bad thing. Research shows that congregations do not listen to everything that a preacher says. One minute they will be listening; the next their thoughts may be elsewhere. This happens repeatedly throughout the sermon. The congregation tunes in, tunes out, tunes in, and so on. So some repetition in a sermon is essential. What members of the congregation missed the first time the preacher said it, they may hear the second time. Repetition also serves to reinforce a point.
I attended a church service a number of years ago in which a Ugandan pastor preached for more than a hour and held the rapt attention of the congregation. How did he do it? He intersperced his sermon with stories. He involved the the congregation in the sermon, teaching them songs that reinforced the points of the sermon.
In churches where the sermon is the main event on Sunday morning, reducing the length of the sermon may not be a solution. Rick Warren suggests using video clips, interviews, testimony, worship interludes, and the like in a sermon to illustrate points and to engage and hold the congregation's attention.