Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Maybe secularism isn't all bad?

Just thinking…..

  • About how loudly some of our congregation has been heard to lament the separation of bank holidays from the Christian Festivals they originally marked…
  • And about how this one weekend when Pentecost (Whitsun) actually coincided with what is now the late spring but was for many year the Whit Monday Bank Holiday a good third of that same congregation was actually away so that attendance was right down at the parish Eucharist
  • And wondering if, perhaps, the fact that schools will only have Good Friday and Easter Monday off next year, and their official Easter holiday at another time altogether might not be an unadulterated disaster after all. I seem to remember reading on a RevGal blog that someone was anxious because their school holiday next year would be likely to coincide with Easter - and thought this would have a bad effect on attendance. I was simply stressed about my kids being in school during Holy Week, and not available for the traditional clergy collapse in Easter week itself...but perhaps I'm wrong. Though we did have record attendance this year, even with the Gloucestershire school holidays beginning on Maundy Thursday. Just thinking....
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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:50 PM

    Did they perhaps attend church elsewhere? And is that such a bad thing.

    just wondering

    You see in Finland the kids (and teachers) never have more than Good Friday and Easter Monday off - so many people go visiting family far away at that time. We sort of change congregations - but it's also true that many church goers do skip church altogether.

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  2. Dr Moose8:01 PM

    I've touched on this in one of my posts earlier today. But to the point - a few years ago I thought that separating the Easter weekend from the "general" school holidays might send a message to the bulk of the UK population about the importance of Easter. Recently I've changed my mind - to most of the population the nature and message of Easter is already lost. Maybe 30 years ago people might have noticed and complained, but now? Now it's not even noticed. We are a generation too far from relevance.

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  3. Caroline Too8:03 AM

    It's a puzzle to me how at Christmas and Easter even Christians will act as though "it's about the family" and head off to their parents, offspring or whatever rather than being with their church family.

    Of course that is fed, for single people like me, by the fact that if I did stay with my church family to celebrate Christmas or Easter, I would be left on my own because the Christians who do hang around their regular church retire to Fort Home immediately after any service, raise the draw bridge and aren't to be contacted because they're with their family. uhuh!

    so it's all a bit of a puzzle only saved for me by my increasing conviction that 'attendance' is an illusion of church family not a genuine aid to family making

    Caroline Too

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Since there's been a troll fol de rolling his way about the blog recently, I've had to introduce comment moderation for a while. Hope this doesn't deter genuine responses...