Express Service?

Thursday’s Globa and Mail was unusual in featuring a story about a church on its front page. Usually we hear only of scandals. but this time we learn that St. James Cathedral Toronto is offering 30 minute “Merry Moments” to celebrate the season. The rationale is that people are too busy to sit through a seventy-minute service of worship.

I’ve been an Anglican for close to 90 years but with all due respect to the Dean, this doesn’t sound like a solution. There will; be carols, short readings and prayers that give people who are too busy and tired a brief time out. But the question is, What are we giving them.  Is this who we are?

We regulars might agree that sometimes sermons go on and on and musical offerings do the same. But dropping into church isn’t exactly like dropping in on a late night chat show or scrolling Facebook. Even if the pollsters tell us that 42% of people never go to church, that doesn’t mean that they have no other places to find what the dean thinks churches offer – community, transcendence and opportunities to connect. How about the concert hall for transcendence or singing in a choir or playing in a band? How about the dedication of those going to the gym?

The Merriam Webster word of the year apparently is slop. A favorite read of mine comes from Ron Charles who writes a weekly newsletter about books. After showing us an AI generated picture of a large dog on his mother’s dining room table he notes:

“AI promised us miracles, and in a way it has delivered them: fake images, Frankensteined videos, phony news, clickbait features, synthetic tunes, uncanny-valley podcasts and Cylon-composed books — all untouched by human hands or human intelligence. “

In a word: Slop.

There is something sloppy going on here, I’m afraid. Even the small troupe of choristers who are leading those carols have had to practice every week to be good enough to lead the singing. The preacher will have spent at least seven years of higher education to climb up the stairs to the pulpit. What will be read in those prayers has been around for centuries. A “smiley welcome mat” is okay – but a service like this isn’t introducing people to “stillness” It just seems more like the noise that is supposed to be avoided.

It also seems that one of the regulars could do with a bit of education. Yes, Christmas is a season, as he says. But it is preceded by another one called Advent. Maybe our task is to slow down ourselves before we inflict our neighbours with a less than muscular version of the faith.