On Sunday the two LDS wards in my town met for a joint one-hour church service starting at 10 am and concluding shortly after 11 am. Besides the usual opening, sacrament, and closing hymns, we had several musical numbers performed/presented and two short talks on a Christmas theme. It was delightful.
Not just the average musical numbers, mind you — two professional-level singers doing solos with piano accompaniment, a violin number (she teaches violin professionally), and a quartet from the local community chorale. The talks were the usual and the closing speaker went a little too long, but hey, I’m not arguing. I’m thinking Sunday’s one-hour church was twice as good as two-hour church and three times as good as three-hour church. I’m speaking hypothetically about two-hour church, which hasn’t really happened yet. In any case, I applaud the decision, whether made by local leaders or as coordinated by Salt Lake, to hold short services on the Sunday before Christmas. It was nice to have some extra time with the family on the day before the day before Christmas.
How was your one-hour church service? Or did you have a second-to-the-last three-hour block experience?
Wheat & Tares 
Gonna be honest. Our ward choir put in a huge effort and did a great job, even pulling some ward talent on various instruments. However, as I sat staring at the back of the head of the person in front of me for an hour, I found myself bored silly. I would have loved a video presentation to go along with the music. Something… Anything… on which to focus my attention. (I am admittedly neither musical nor an auditory learner – likely related to each other.)
Not very good at all. The choir did a great job and the soloist for the prelude was wonderful but all the talks left a lot to be desired. The first speaker about the conversion of Alma in the book of Mormon, the second speaker about service and the final speaker about a brother who sacrificed his life to save his brother. A tear jerker, but no Christmas scriptures or stories about the birth of the Saviour of the world. The atonement did get a mention, but considering we had a number of community people there including some interfaith personnel it was more like a normal sacrament meeting with the exception that we sang Christmas carols.
The 1 hr church was part of a church-wide effort. Lots of attendance and a great musical presentation at my ward. The choir, accompianists, and soloists were fantastic. Major prophecies and Luke 2 were both read in between numbers. The 3 wards in my building would not all fit together, but the later wards started earlier and finished much earlier. There were several members who have not been seen in a while who attended, plus non-members attending with family members. I suspect that we will be doing this same thing in the future.
Our church was okay. I thought the chosen speakers were kind of boring, however. No special musical numbers for us. I think they were saving them for the Christmas Eve service the next day. And afterwards, my financial clerk husband switched on the church computer and had to suffer through a Windows update that took forever. So I was left waiting for well over an hour for him and the bishopric counsellor to finish the finances … I usually bring a book, but this week, I forgot. 😦
Mine was disappointing. I’ve only lived in my current ward for a year and a half, and I was out of town for last year’s pre-Christmas Sunday
service. Before Sunday, I had never realized that my ward is quite lacking in musical talent. The musical numbers were interspersed
with short testimonies from ward members about “what Christmas means to me” but rarely spoke directly of Christ. I later learned that the ward choir director (a genuinely talented person) quit in protest a few weeks previously over creative differences with a few overzealous choir members, and the choir had been directing itself since. It really showed. The bishop was conspicuously absent, on vacation with his family, and I envied him.
Perhaps I had the bar set too high, after being spoiled for so many years. I’ve been in wards that treated the pre-Christmas Sunday service
as a major production, pulling out all the stops and putting on an enjoyable but reverent meeting, with choir numbers, solo/small group numbers, instrumentals and sing-alongs, interspersed with biblical readings and inspiring prepared talks. I thought most leaders were on the same page with this; that the pre-Christmas sacrament meeting is the one most likely to be attended by visitors, non-members and less-actives, so let’s put our best foot forward…but it didn’t work out that way, sadly.
My ward in Arizona made an effort but unfortunately the results were mediocre. The sparse ward choir did most of the singing with the congregation being invited to occasionally Join in. We had a high school cellist who played valiant ly but inartfully and two speakers who were better than average but focused on quoting ET Benson on reading the Book of Mormon and faithfully following all the admonition of our living prophet Russell Nelson. Only a brief mention of the Savior . Frankly I was disappointed as was my wife.. We were hoping for more congregation singing and fewer “ follow the prophet” talks. I was also struck by The slow melancholy tone of most of the singing and also by the fact that 1/2 the congregation appeared to be involved with some class about how to use your mobile phones rather than worshiping the Savior.. During the last 6 months I have attended services at the Cathedral of St John in NYC , Westminister Abby in London and a small congestion of the Church of Jesus Christ ( Brickertonites) and candidly enjoyed each of them more than my ward . All three of them generated much more of a sense of “worship” than we are able to generate in my ward,
This is every week at the Unitarian church — beautiful music, professional and intelligent, inspiring sermons, and only 1 hour. I love it!
Thanks for the comments, everyone, and a Merry Christmas to all.
Ari, almost thou persuadest me to become a Unitarian.
Mine was pretty good. Musical numbers interspersed with scripture readings and only one talk. One thing I especially appreciate about one-hour church is that I feel like people are more willing to visit afterward, which I enjoy, than on usual Sundays when most everyone is in a rush to get out and get home and get food. I hope that this might carry over somewhat when we start with two-hour church in January.
Something of a damp squib, but at least a change from the 2 or 3 talks and 4 hymns.
I know the music chair had been itching for the meeting to be something special, and had been trying to get a response from the Bishopric about the Christmas programme for months, to no avail.
On the day, I was asked to play the hymns on the very much abused and ailing piano, with dodgy sustain pedal (we really, really need a decent piano in the chapel) as they’d just been informed the organist wasn’t going to be there. They’d released the chorister the week before, with no replacement called, and neither it seemed had they asked anyone to stand in, so for a programme of scripture readings and numerous congregational carols we had a couple of spur of the moment volunteers leading the hymns, the first getting up to do so, part way through the opening carol. So I’m pretty sure it all came across as rather disorganised and disappointing for what ought to be one of our most important services of the year.
In contrast, we’d had a fantastic stake carol concert the evening of the week before, with a well rehearsed choir singing great pieces, oboe and flute obligatos to a couple of John Rutter carols, readings, and my daughter and I playing in a brass quintet for the congregational carols, a couple of choir pieces and a separate quintet piece.
Our program was really nice. We had two members, who are actors read scriptures dealing with the birth and mission of Christ. While the choir, piano or violinist played softly in the back group. Then interspersed during the reading, the choir or soloist would sing. It was actually ready nice and even my 10 year old son listened and liked it.
Hedgehog – typical church! Also what I love most about it, chaotic, unprofessional, willing, and occasionally able. Who else would put on such a poor show?! Bless you all, I hope you get your piano.
Our ward had a 90 minute meeting. Most of it was great, with lots of singing, 2 choir numbers, 1 primary, 1 solo and the rest with everyone singing to accompaniment of combined piano and organ, often with guitar/mandolin/violin/cello. They set up several microphones so everyone could hear everything, which was lovely. Scripted readings interspersed, but also two short talks (ended up 1 telling a story about no Santa!! Especially disturbing as the program thus far had been so good that the kids were actually paying attention!) One talk on tithing and one on prophets, oh well. The first hour of singing and praise was fantastic, the last 30 minutes with the talks kind of lost the momentum.
Thread jack for Hedgehog:
An aside about pianos. Lower quality used pianos are often free. The cost of moving a piano and tuning it easily exceeds its value at the lower end. But many of these pianos are good enough for a small, half-assed congregation which describes most Mormon wards and yours sounds worse than usual. My wife’s church with about 2 or 3 hundred in attendance each week recently had 3 pianos they wanted to “retire” from service in their equivalent to our primary/YW/YM/RS and all were in good condition. Since my son can rather easily get a small piano on a dolley with minimal help from me, all we needed was a friend with a pick-up truck. (Or rent one for 20 bucks).
My wife had the best intentions of learning to play. But as has happened a couple of times before, she lost interest. My daughter decided she wanted it and the professional quote to move it to her house 200 miles away was $400. She looked on line and found half a dozen pianos close to her house for free and that many more for less than $200. Then she found a friend who was hauling a van full of furniture the opposite direction and he moved the piano for $40 worth of gas and a free violin gig in his church, saving her the trouble of checking out the free pianos.
***
Back in the 1980’s when I was in the military, my wife decided she wanted to learn to play the piano. We were visiting other churches with a friend. A small Baptist church was getting a new piano and the old one was up for grabs. It was an 1850’s upright that weighed about 1200 pounds and nobody wanted to move it. I bet it saw some incredible revivals back in the day. Over 4 years I was in charge of the ward moving committee and moved about 150 families. I recruited the ex-football player who washed out of the NFL and his relative with a vending machine business and a hydraulic lift on his rusty Ford F-350 from the ward to help me. We rolled the piano out the church door and onto the lift. Being the screw-ups that we were, the lift got caught on a corner of the church porch . We lifted up the front half of the entire little church sitting on cinder blocks about 3 inches and the front of the truck about 8 feet off the ground. Then the lift slipped out from the church which crashed down and the truck bounced back down and the piano was propelled up into the truck on its back, Fortunately I had tied a thick moving blanket around it first and it suffered no damage. We had to come back the next day and get it back on the cinder blocks straight. We literally but not figuratively jacked that Baptist church up and set it straight on a firm foundation. That was a free piano but expensive in experience.
In the craziness of military do-it-yourself moves, I got extra money moving more weight. As a prank, 6 of the stockiest ward members put that piano on the truck last when we moved back to Utah. I had no idea how I could get it off. Maybe soak the lawn and pull it off with a car and hope for the best. The famous Rod Meldrum and his brother helped us unload the truck and got it into my mother-in-law’s basement. They are both exceedingly strong physically and in the spirit. There it resided for many years with frequent use. By the time my in-laws got too old to live alone, we sold the house with the piano as part of the deal. At last report a youngish teenage girl loves playing that old piano.
Pianos take on a life of their own and with but little effort, the river of life to washes one up onto your shore. Good luck to your ward, Hedgehog.
Thanks, handlewithcare. The meeting did have a cosy feel to it. But it was far from professional.
Mike, the organ was replaced not too long ago. I don’t know why our piano is so bad; other wards in the stake have a decent piano in the chapel. Our building has 3 pianos in varying stages of decrepitude, and an old clavinova in the primary room. The latter had to have the pedal electronics repaired at one point. I really wish parents would teach their kids to respect the instruments… But I don’t know that there are so many pianos going begging for homes in this area of the UK.
Praise be to Heaven!….At least in our Ward Service, Joseph Smith was not mentioned….not even once!! Hallelujah!!
Thanks for the comments, everyone. After a pleasant one-hour service last week, it’s back for one more swing with three-hour church on Sunday Dec. 30, 2018, then on to the promised land of two-hour church. I’m sure there will be lots of discussion here and elsewhere about the first week or two of two-hour church.
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2018/12/27/michelle-quist-finding/
(Not me, more likely fodder for another post, fitting.)