‘Capital Christian’ has new radio ads
This week I’ve heard Sacramento’s first mega-church (we have many more now, but they were the first) advertising that they’re going to be having added choices in their Sunday church services. They advertised that there will now be 4 services: A traditional, a classic, a casual and a post-modern. I’ve been to this church, Capital Christian, before and their services were pretty standard evangelical affair. There was about 30-45 minutes of choir led praise music followed by 45-60 minutes of a sermon which included props and little plays or video as transitions from one section to the next or to illustrate a point in the sermon.
I’d be curious to know how the new services would diverge from that format. I suspect that either the traditional or classic would pretty much be the same and the other would make strides to be more like a liturgical protestant service, possibly having a somewhat baptist feel to it. Casual I expect would have more to do with how people are expected to dress and act and may “tone down” the standard service with a smaller choir and the pastor having a more relaxed persona (on average). But for the post-modern service, I have NO IDEA what the heck that means! I know what post-modern means in both philosophical and theological senses, but it’s very confusing to me to hear that term in a liturgical sense. My only thought is that there will be far more multimedia in the service.
Why do I care about this? Well, for starters, I’m very interested in how various Christians celebrate their faith. It is very interesting to me to see where groups that don’t have a big emphasis on the Eucharist go.
I guess I wish that I could impress that upon those who don’t like the Catholic Mass, that Mass has a COMPLETELY different goal that most Protestant services. The goal of Mass is not to praise God or learn about God, although those are things that do happen as a part of Mass. The goal is to receive God in the Eucharist. This is why Mass is so different. This is why it SHOULD be so different. There’s nothing casual about Mass. Christ, or said another way God, is PHYSICALLY present in front of us. How can you just walk in there with a starbucks coffee and start chatting with your neighbor? How can one spend 90% of the service focusing on other things? When one see’s Mass in this light, it takes on a completely different meaning and purpose. It changes everything. In fact, those Protestant services that most resemble the Catholic Mass are the ones that most care about Communion.
I think there are many Christians, particularly many liturgy-disgruntled Catholics who would appreciate Mass a great deal more if they understood this.
September 26th, 2005 at 9:42 am
lol the only thing about mass I like is that there is a snack in the middle lol
All kidding aside Ken, people attend church for different reason’s. I’m a strong believer that church is about a sense of community, a sense of belonging. And I can’t speak for you, but I like my Starbucks nice and hot when I’m getting a sense of community
September 26th, 2005 at 1:32 pm
We’ve got Bart Simpson as a reader of the blog, I see…
I’m glad to see that you’ve completely missed my point. In fact, in many ways you’ve re-enforced my point that people don’t understand that their is a fundamental difference, particularly since you come from a background that doesn’t believe in the Eucharist as the Body and Blood of Christ.
You can’t go to Mass for “different reasons”. There is only ONE reason to go to Mass: To receive Christ (or for those who can not, to be in His presence). If you’re there for other reasons, you shouldn’t be there (and don’t start with some corner case example like the janitor who’s waiting to clean up, I’m talking in generalities).
A Mass and a church service are completely different things. Now, you can have a church service at a Catholic Church. It can include whatever you want: singing, scripture from whatever part of the bible you want, non-scriptural readings, long sermons, dancing, plays, thumb wreslting championships in the name of God, have it on Wednesdays, whatever. In fact, during your average week at my parish, there will be a number of church services that do whatever is appropriate for the crowd that is gathered.
But you can’t do that at Mass. Why? Because Mass is special. Mass has only one purpose: to consecrate and receive the Eucharist. If you don’t consecrate, it’s not Mass. It could look in every other way like Mass, but without the Eucharist it is not Mass, it’s a church service.
Because people don’t appreciate this, including many Catholics, many unfortunate side effects have occured, especially in countries with a heavy Protestant influence.
The biggest side effect is that people get the impression that what happens at Church on Sunday should be all things for all people. As a corelary, many people view attending Sunday’s gathering as all that is necessary to grow as a Christian. While this may be the attempt of many Protestant groups, the Catholic Church make no such attempt and views Sunday Mass as only a part of what a Catholic should be doing in an average week to have a vibrant faith. As a result of this misconception of Mass those Catholics who think that Sunday is all that they need end up wondering why they are filling unfulfilled, which is sad, because the Church offers so much more than Mass.