The glorious 8 o'clock

The Eucharist with focus on God, not on us!

I'm one of those people who is easily distracted by human activity in church services, and it's important to me to be able to concentrate on the Eucharist.

Some people, however, seem to come to church for other things, such as human contact, or for a feeling of being part of something, perhaps.

I found myself thinking that it would be good if, while those who want contact as part of a service are occupied with their service, those who want to concentrate quietly on God could sneak away into a separate room or building to have a low-key service.

This, however, would require more plant (buildings) and more staff (clergy), and so would not really be good use of resources.

The solution to this, of course, is to have the different service at a different time rather than in a different place. It seems that those who want the noisier service are probably those who are less inclined to put up with minor hardships or to make special efforts, so it is natural that those who want quiet and perhaps even isolation, being those who are also prepared to go out of their way for it, will go to an earlier service.

Hence, the glorious 8 o'clock, the Eucharist with focus on God, not on us!

John C. G. Sturdy

The files in this directory are listed in this index, and the starting point for this section of my web tree is here.

Last modified: Sun Jun 10 22:27:50 GMT Daylight Time 2007