Thread: Come on, ring those bells! Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Circuit Rider (# 13088) on :
 
I have just assembled an inside bell for the beginning of the service, and I want to use it Christmas Eve. Since I've never had a church that had a bell, I want to know at what time before the service it should ring. Five minutes before? When the service is to begin?

I have in mind asking the congregation to sit in silence about five minutes before the liturgy begins, and ring the bell as a sign it is time to stand for the processional.

Will someone please tell me when to ring those bells?
 
Posted by Barnabas Aus (# 15869) on :
 
Our practice is to toll the tower bell five minutes before the service is to commence, and then to ring a small sacring bell as the service is about to commence.
 
Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :
 
In rural areas in the United States there is still the practice of ringing the church bell on Saturday evening. It was a way of reminding the farmers Sunday was the next day.

In many Lutheran churches, the bell is rung between the common confession of sins/absolution and before the first hymn.
 
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :
 
Here you go
 
Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :
 
Phew! [Eek!]

I'm not sure our neighbours would appreciate quite that much ringing of our single bell......

We ring it a quarter of an hour and again five minutes before Mass (and monthly Evensong, or whatever other Sunday afternoon/evening service we may be having). 33 strokes each time, for each year of Our Lord's earthly life, unless our most youthful ringer loses count.....

It is also rung five minutes before daily Morning Prayer 3+3+3+9 - a little eccentricity of Father's, as we don't actually begin the Office by saying the Angelus......

I'm not well-versed on the technicalities of bells, but ours (which is small and only about 80 years old AFAIK) sounds quite melodious, at least to my ears.

Ian J.
 
Posted by Circuit Rider (# 13088) on :
 
This is an inside bell, inspired by one I saw used at the nearby monastery. It is actually a pipe hung from a stand, and I have a wooden mallet with which to strike it. The monks have a similar bell rung at intervals before the service begins but I didn't catch the pattern when I was there.

I think my first assumption is correct to ring it five minutes before and at time to begin. More suggestions and comments are welcome.
 
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 
If you were being trained up by some of my wardens it would be a case of '&$%*, look at the time! Get that b****y bell rung, or she'll be out've that vestry before we've had a chance to pull the rope!' Five minutes? Sometimes we're lucky to hear it rung five times!! [Big Grin]

What's more important though is knowing the right number of rings for funeral duties: two rings, pause, two rings pause etc for a woman, and three for a bloke. To be rung for the journey from the hearse to the church-door - and back again.
 
Posted by Ecclesiastical Flip-flop (# 10745) on :
 
Throughout this thread, the term Peal can be misleading. In its strict and literal meaning, it refers to bells hung for change-ringing, ringing 5,000 or more changes non-stop, lasting about three hours. To be strictly accurate, the set of bells hung for change-ringing is called a Ring.

There is one link on this thread which misleadingly refers to three bells "Pealing".
 
Posted by Spike (# 36) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ecclesiastical Flip-flop:
Throughout this thread, the term Peal can be misleading. In its strict and literal meaning, it refers to bells hung for change-ringing, ringing 5,000 or more changes non-stop, lasting about three hours.
5040 to be exact, which is the maximum number of changes that can be rung on 7 bells without repeating.
 
Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :
 
What I'm hearing is that your motivation is to get folk to settle down before the service, to sit and gather themselves, halting the pre-service chatter. And, a bell seems a good way to lead them into doing this.

The standard practice is to ring a relatively small bell immediately before the entrance procession. Here are pictures. These are just wall bracket doorbells, with pulls, instead of being electric. I'm sure whatever you have assembled will work just fine.

The problem with ringing the bell five minutes before the procession begins is that anyone familiar with churches that use a bell at the entrance will confuse your first ring with the actual entrance.

Perhaps, then, you could distinguish the let's-settle-down-and-get-quiet bell from the actual entrance. Perhaps three quick strikes for the first signal and the conventional one strike for the actual entrance. After all, when folk have flung themselves into a full-tilt chatter, it may take more than one bell strike for them to take note of their surroundings and cease and desist.
 
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 
In a previous church, we used to have a little handbell which was rung by the officiant after he emerged from the choir vestry to tell people to get ready for the first hymn.
 
Posted by lily pad (# 11456) on :
 
Sorry, to me it seems arrogant to ring a bell to tell people to be quiet and assume the proper attitude for worship. It seems like you are trying to control their behaviour and have it conform to what you need. Surely they are mature enough to do what they need to do without having a bell rung.

I have no issue with a bell being rung to signal that the service is about to begin.

I realise they seem the same - bells ringing to signal what to do - but I really feel differently about them.
 
Posted by Olaf (# 11804) on :
 
Circuit Rider, there are many different traditional customs for when to ring the bell. Could you share with us how your service begins?

For instance, in the local Lutheran churches that have bells, it goes this way (assume a 9am service)
In the local Methodist church, which has a bell, it goes this way:

The local Episcopal place has a sacristy bell for small services. When it is rung, it means "The priest is going to process in from the sacristy; everybody stand." They also have a bell in the belfry rung before the main Sunday service, right on the hour, after the prelude. This bell means, "Stand up. We're going to do the long procession from the back of the church. The Opening Hymn will begin now."

To sum, our local Midwestern practice seems to be that the bell signals the actual start of the service proper, at the scheduled time, and not the gathering music before the scheduled time of service. In other words, if you show up after the bell, you're late.

In your own context, I think it matters how you start your service.

In my own opinion, the bell is a great tool. Your congregation can be trained to stand [and face the entrance or whatever] when the bell rings. Use it to your benefit, and to eliminate all that idle "chatter" (announcements, do this, do that) from the pastor at the beginning.

[ 23. December 2012, 18:40: Message edited by: Olaf ]
 
Posted by Ecclesiastical Flip-flop (# 10745) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Spike:
quote:
Originally posted by Ecclesiastical Flip-flop:
Throughout this thread, the term Peal can be misleading. In its strict and literal meaning, it refers to bells hung for change-ringing, ringing 5,000 or more changes non-stop, lasting about three hours.
5040 to be exact, which is the maximum number of changes that can be rung on 7 bells without repeating.
I appreciate that, but the sky's the limit at counting the changes!
 
Posted by PaulBC (# 13712) on :
 
At my parish e have a gopod bell that gets rung, well not that frequently . However we had
anyone who wanted to take a pull after the 7 pm service this Christmas eve . It is almost touching history in that they came out of the 2nd Catherdhal here in Victoria . It came to us in 1911 when the 1st St,Mary's was
built and it dates from the mid 1960's and were cast in London.
If you have an bell, or set thereof RING it/them. [Votive] [Smile] [Angel]
 
Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :
 
On the First Sunday after Christmas in St. John's Cathedral, Taipei, an interior bell was swiftly rung thirty-three times, in eleven sets of three. This sufficed to quiet the pre-service clamor to a dull roar.
 
Posted by Hairy Biker (# 12086) on :
 
At our gaff we have 2 little bells on the roof that get rung about 5-10 minutes prior to the service (and are not audible inside the church over the organ), then a hand bell gets rung when the altar party is assembled and the first hymn is about to be sung. It's a signal to rise to your feet and open your hymn book. The hymn is announced and we're off.

The outdoor bells get 33 swings (one for each year of Jesus' life, so I'm told), whilst the indoor one either does 3 double rings - di-ding, di-ding, di-ding, or, if you have a fussy priest they insist on a single, solitary "Ding".
 
Posted by Arch Anglo Catholic (# 15181) on :
 
From the Tower the Tower Captain rings a five minute bell, steadily for about one minute, and then the minute bell, 33 times before a celebration of the Eucharist.

Then, just before the celebrant leaves the vestry the single internal bell is rung once so that the congregation know to stand and receive the procession. Surprisingly simple!
 
Posted by Ecclesiastical Flip-flop (# 10745) on :
 
One church I went to six months ago, the bell-mechanism was such that that a bellringer set a solitary bell in motion, ringing itself for five minutes up to the service start time. Then, as the occasion was the farewell for the vicar who was leaving, the changes were rung after the service.
 
Posted by Bax (# 16572) on :
 
In all churches that I have been in the inside (sacristy) bell simply means "The service is about to start: congregation please stand. Organist start the hymn"

As with lots of things in church, deep meaning ends up being read into what is in fact quite utilitarian.

You could decide that it shroud indicate for a time of silence 5 mins before the service is to begin, and then ring a second time for the begin of the service, if you wanted. But whatever you decide don't feel that you need scripture or St Augustine to justify it: its only a bell!
 
Posted by Oblatus (# 6278) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Bax:
In all churches that I have been in the inside (sacristy) bell simply means "The service is about to start: congregation please stand. Organist start the hymn"
Ritual Notes says that strictly speaking the sacristy bell is rung only at the beginning of Low Mass and not for other services, which makes sense to me because other services have musical cues (organ starts playing over the hymn) and/or visual ones (thurifer and other servers emerge in procession ahead of the celebrant).
 
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lily pad:
Sorry, to me it seems arrogant to ring a bell to tell people to be quiet and assume the proper attitude for worship.
Not as arrogant as congregation members who chatter away regardless of the need of others to have some silence. If it becomes 'what this church does' in order to prepare corporately for the Eucharist, there is no arrogance at all. It would not be arrogant to gently remonstrate with someone who persisted in heckling the bible readings.
 
Posted by dj_ordinaire (# 4643) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Oblatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Bax:
In all churches that I have been in the inside (sacristy) bell simply means "The service is about to start: congregation please stand. Organist start the hymn"
Ritual Notes says that strictly speaking the sacristy bell is rung only at the beginning of Low Mass and not for other services, which makes sense to me because other services have musical cues (organ starts playing over the hymn) and/or visual ones (thurifer and other servers emerge in procession ahead of the celebrant).
I remember one charming Franciscan church which rang a doorbell at the start of Mass! Although this wasn't *entirely* to my tastes I admit, it did at least emphasise the practical nature of the ringing, viz to alert people to the service beginning...
 
Posted by SyNoddy (# 17009) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lily pad:
Sorry, to me it seems arrogant to ring a bell to tell people to be quiet and assume the proper attitude for worship. It seems like you are trying to control their behaviour and have it conform to what you need. Surely they are mature enough to do what they need to do without having a bell rung.
During our last interegnum the lay leadership got their knickers in a twist about getting the congregation to settle down for the start of worship. So they came up with a wizzo plan of introducing a 'peace prayer' just before the choir et al processed out of the vestry.
Problem was they started the prayer 5 minutes before the advertised time of the service. This was supposed to encourage a period of calm before worship began but in practice it enforced a prescribed way of behaving just as Lily pad said but also the effect was to excluded and alienate anyone arriving in time for worship.
I tried to point this out at various meetings and to wardens etc but in the end had to time my arrival in church to coincide with the official start time until the point was taken.
Everyone's different and approach their worship time in a variety of ways so I' d be extremely cautious of try to impose too prescriptive a code of behaviour outside of local custom, tradition or practice.

[ 09. January 2013, 23:44: Message edited by: SyNoddy ]
 


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