Church services need to be shorter, says bishop

With most people torn between using Sunday mornings to go shopping or lie in bed, the prospect of spending 90 minutes in church has an increasingly limited appeal. 

There is a simple answer to this problem, according to one senior bishop who has urged clergy to cut the length of services in an effort to reverse declining levels of attendance.

The Rt Rev Jonathan Gledhill, the Bishop of Lichfield, said worship has become too complicated and time-consuming, leaving people who are not regular churchgoers feeling confused and excluded.

He said that services have become too long, recommending clergy should aim to keep them to no more than 50 minutes and make sure they are careful not to preach for too long.

Research conducted over the last year by anonymous worshippers for the church website Ship of Fools found some Anglican clergy preaching for as long as 42 minutes.

 

"One of the reasons for our recent decline in churchgoing is we are not making the occasional worshipper feel welcome," he said.

"You have got to be quite tough to come to some of our services if you are not a regular attender.

"We're praying for longer and we're singing for longer."

In a speech to clergy in his diocese, which has seen growth in recent years, Bishop Gledhill said there had been a tendency to devise "more and more intricate and beautiful services for our own use – forgetting those who might come if we made things simpler for them to start with".

He said services, which used to last for 50 minutes are now taking an hour and a half, adding:
"Sometimes I find myself thinking that this is a good way of saying 'Go away' to young people who come to visit us."

The bishop said that clergy need to make sure that their sermons are not too long, arguing that people's "attention spans aren't what they used to be".

He said that an added problem was that many churches are now holding Holy Communion services, which can last for as long as two hours.

"Holy Communion is very important, but you need a lot of stamina to get through these.

"If you're trying to attract newcomers, these services need to be much shorter.

"We are excluding people who we should be welcoming."

Average weekly attendance in 2009, the last year for which figures are available, fell for the sixth year in a row to 1.131 million from 1.145 million in 2008 and average Sunday attendance dropped from 960,000 to 944,000.

The Church has been active in recent years in trying to encourage people to return to their local congregation by holding special services with well-known hymns.

Last year the Vatican last year told Catholic clergy to keep their sermons under eight minutes to cater for people who found it hard to concentrate for long periods.

 

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