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Originally posted by Hooker's Trick:
What is the rule on candles and crosses? I have been in Methodist churches that feature 2 lights on the Holy Table and a brass cross.

However, sometimes Protestant posters act as though candles smack of popery.

What is the story?

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Once upon a time, the Methodist Church was part of the Church of England. Because the CofE had high churches and low churches, so did the Methodists. (Still has, but far more low churches).

Candles seem to come out at very special occasions in the low church, eg Advent, Christmas or Easter. Most of the time they are not seen except at alt.worship services.

As for crosses, it is quite common for a low church to have a cross on 'display'. Normally it will be a very plain one, with very little ornamentation. I have never seen 'Jesus on the cross' in a P church. (our hope is in the Risen Saviour).

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Originally posted by Chorister:
re candles: fire hazard, fire schmazzard!

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Originally posted by Wood:
Midnight Meeting

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What's the deal with "meeting".

I've noticed this before as a protestant substitute for any of the following:

going to church

going to chapel

going to service (or Divine Service)

going to Morning Prayer (or Mattins)

going to Mass

I can understand why protestants eschew "mass". But why is it more Prot to go to meeting rather than to service?

I've only recently joined the crew of the SOF and have just skimmed through some of the stuff here about Protestant church practices. Our Church @ Warilla (just south of Wollongong 1 hour south of Sydney) would make some of the correspondents on this subject faint I think. We don't do liturgy, we don't pass the peace, almost anyone can have a go at doing Communion (although their are 'standards') - even women! and my 18 year old son had a go at our Sunday Night Live! service using coke and Pringles. (Word of warning - never use Pringles the crunch when everyone bites into them totally destroys any reverential atmosphere you may have built up!). Our services start when the band (complete with drums) stops playing and the service leader jumps up and says 'G'day' or 'Good morning'. Announcements are at the start (as is prayer). No doxology and often the benediction is 'Thanks for coming, please stick around and join us for coffee or tea up the back!' Our ministers also never wear a dog collar and hardly ever wear a tie. Music is contemporary (whatever that means).

In my experience of English Baptist churches, the term "Church Meeting" would refer to the meetings of those enrolled as church members (not necessarily all of the congregation) that were held to discuss Church business.

They would typically be held mid-week, in the evening, often every other month (frequency varying from Church to Church). The purpose of the meeting would be to discuss issues such as admission of new members to the Church, arrangements for forthcoming events ("What are we going to do for Harvest Supper?" and the like) Church finance, changes in staffing of the Sunday School/Junior Church etc. They are not primarily "services", but would obviously start with prayer and might include a Bible reading and brief exposition by the minister (particulalry relating the passage to the Church's current situation).

The meetings thus had a similar purpose to Annual Parochial meetings in the CofE.

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HT asked:
But why is it more Prot to go to meeting rather than to service?

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It isn't, it is just a different way of describing it, reflecting a slightly different theology.

"meeting"/"going to the meeting" - short for going to the meeting of the church. Basically, we are the church whether we are 'gathered' or not. - a church service is the meeting of the church.

I used to share a flat with 3 Brethern women, the rarely went to church, normally it was 'the meeting'.

I also remember it from 'The Waltons'.

There is also quite a range of ways that Ps describe the Mass. It ranges from the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, Breaking Bread, Communion, the Lord's Table. Each shows a slightly different understanding of the same act.

I have even seen the term "Sacrament Meeting", which seems to combine a Catholic understanding with a very Protestant one.

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Originally posted by CorgiGreta:
I have even seen the term "Sacrament Meeting", which seems to combine a Catholic understanding with a very Protestant one.

Greta

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Originally posted by CorgiGreta:
This may not be the appropriate thread or board for such a question, but (hoping that babybear is not reaching for her biretta) do Protestants consider the Momons to be Protestant? If not, what litmus test do they fail?

Greta

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Originally posted by CorgiGreta:
This may not be the appropriate thread or board for such a question, but (hoping that babybear is not reaching for her biretta) do Protestants consider the Momons to be Protestant? If not, what litmus test do they fail?

Greta

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What do you mean by protestants?

Do you mean protestant christians?
If so then the question is no, as they hold beliefs that are not compatable with christianity. e.g. Jesus was created, there is a huge addition to the Bible called the book of mormon etc.

If you mean protestant relgionists, then I suppose they are along with Reform Jews, Methodists, Zen Bhuddists, and Baptists.

Is it particularly protestant to bedeck the church in greens for Advent/Christmas?

I've even heard of a couple (I believe that they were baptist) planning their wedding to coincide with Christmas because the church would already be "decorated".

They also banned line-dancing as sinful.

They seem to have a thing about driving out their handful of high profile members.

The Free Church (the bigger denomination) have had a split too over Professor Donald Macleod who some see as too liberal because he allows things like Christmas carols (there were also nastier allegations made against him).

Macleod's actually a very good preacher (i've heard him and I was the only woman in that church without a hat - not natural territory for a liberal like me! ;-)

I don't know if antipathy to secular music counts as a bizarre practice, but the lack of charity in refusing baptism to Morrison's children takes some beating.

On the whole, they're pretty scary.

I think Father Hummerstone from Great Torrington should be sent on a mission to the Isles to sort them out.

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Originally posted by Louise:
I think Father Hummerstone from Great Torrington should be sent on a mission to the Isles to sort them out.

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This is probably of interest to nobody but I'd like to mention my local Free Kirk (of Scotland) minister because he has helped me banish my misconceptions or at least generalisations about the denomination. He is not only completely sane but intelligent and broad-minded, and has been able to come to certain sensible beliefs which are not exactly encouraged in the Free Kirk but are matters of conscience rather than doctrine.

Just for the record.

(Although they do have a few extreme people too - as the case against Donald Macleod seemed to show up)

so we have

Free Church
Free Church Continuing
Associated Presbyterian (APC)
Free Presbyterian

is there still UPC (United presbyterian) ?

it makes for some fascinating reading.

Which of these is the "Wee Frees"?

Thanks

but I'm not an expert.

Over Christmas I'll try and get someone to write it all down for me.

It might help.

Do you have any information about the Burghers and Anti-Burghers, and how they both managed to produce Old and New Lichts?

As for the Altar calls, it is very interesting. In the protestant faith, altar calls are common and invite the listener to receive Christ as their Savior so that the blood of christ can atone for their sin and they can be brought in to right relationship with God and his son jesus christ by the holy spirit since the bible says that "no one comes to the Father unless the Holy Spirit draws him". There are also altar calls and whole services for the healing of the sick via the laying on of hands, anointing with oil, regular praying, Included in healing (and delierance) services, can be prayer tunnels in which the person is prayed for by altar workers (people who pray for you when you go up to the altar), intercessors (people dedicated to
intercede for God's people and others) and the pastors (main pastor, youth pastor, other pastors that may attend there) and regular christians who love God.
here is a text illustration.
the pluses are christians and the * are people walking and getting prayed for and anointed with oil.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
* * * *
* * *
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If a person is plagued or starts manifesting evil spirits he or she is taken to the side to be prayed for or is surrounded by christians to be prayed for where they are at. (there are also special classes and services for that too, but back to the altar issue.)

People come to altar (the platform on which the pastors speaks) and kneel down or stand half crying and half praying. However, according to Ken who is catholic, the altar is sacred and holy and to be treated with the utmost reverance. In effect, If i remembering right, it would make light of the altar and because of the differant traditions of A/C and EBs, the concept of "a altar call" would be alien to them. (a/cs, that is. (I wanted to find site that explained this better but I can't. maybe I email ken later.)
I will leave you with something my pastor's often says. "we are but one expression of the body of Christ (in terms of worship, prayer, preaching and all the "tat" .) (I am so happy that ruthw put the defination to that word on the board because I was going up the wall trying to figure out what it was and shoddy clothing didn't fit.
You should have a thread called the weird stuff of ACs/Highs or may be one called If you do not come from a lit background, here is what I mean when I say.....(fill in the blank) (I.e. what is triuble...more on this in the "Lil" thread to be written later)

thank you for the enjoyable board!
God's blessings and peace and happy posting.

Oh yeah, I noticed that you mentioned "the right hand of fellowship" which to me is the greeting of fellow christians and showing them that you are glad they are there. You may not of heard of its' cousin, "the left foot of fellowship". This happens to people who get kicked out of churches because of disputes of doctrine, theology, or personality. Happens to bapticostals alot. (as well as people from other denomations as well) What is a bapticostal you might ask?
A baptist that raises their hands, sings hymns, and believes in miracles and speaking in tongues as a Pent would (and can.)

All in all, a good mixtures of many of the wonderful atttibutes and practices from other denomanations helps you be a better christian any way.

As for confession, the bible says: "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.(james 5:16).
So, confessing your sins to others has a biblical basis so to help one in their relationship to God and be held accountable for their actions as well. (side note: I want to comment that a church can have both accountability and strong leadership in response to a earilier post.) If they feel quickened to confess their sin, it is good that they have a pastor, christian friend or lay leader to confide in. I would agree with a earlier post that stated that humans can't absolve other people's sins. In fact, this is what infuriated the Priests of Jesus's day. When the paralysed man was brought to jesus, jesus said to him, "your sins are forgiven" because that is the most important part-forgiveness of sin and right relationship with God. The pharisees said in their hearts, Who is man, this man! that says I forgive your sins. This act (and jesus did it a couple of times) was saying I am God because only God forgives sins. This was major major no-no (blas.) for the Jews. Then Jesus read their hearts (discernement) and said which is harder ? to say your sins be forgiven or rise up and be healed? To show you that the son of man has the power of forgive sins (and in essence is God) I say to the man take up your bed and walk and the man is healed instantly (because salvation in God is forgiveness of sins followed by healing, delievering, and blessing and everything good that comes down from the Father of Lights. In fact, this directly correlates to Moses encounter with God's glory and God flew (or moved) passed him saying "The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,
7
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation."
Exodus 34:7-bible gateway)

Many times Christ would act in such ways to call to rememberance the acts of God in the OT and how he was God and the fulifullment of promise but not everyone caught on.

two, in the post about the horrifed anglican who had lay leaders have communion on the beach...I would ask what was the intent..If they were just having a beach communion with fellow believers and they prayed over and blessed the bread and wine, and then acted in a godly way, I wouldn't see a problem with it. Now, if they were mocking communion or doing it with less than godly motives...then I could see the problem.

On a side note, i might as well just write everything here rather than a separate thread but then again. I believe objects can be blessed just as the aprons and napkins were sent out from Apostle Paul to heal the sick and open the eyes of the blind and deliver those who were posessed.

In regards to communion, (what is ribera and blackberry current?) I believe that they are three main beliefs about the power of communion. One is the catholic belief of transmutgation, which the bread and the wine actually become the body and blood of christ. The second believes that the bread and wine are merely symbols of christ's sacifice and are taken in rememberance of christ's communion and sacifice. Then, there is the third group which is in the middle. They believe that the bread and wine are not just symbols, but after being blessed, they are infused with the anointing of God so that they may bring in real time the healing that was represented in the stripes jesus took. (The person Should confess their sin before taking communion) If you confess your sins and then drink wine, (we drink welch Gj and another type of Gj) you have this burning senation in that all your sins are melted away. However, the third group does not believe it turns in to the actual body and blood. (i am in the third group)

In college our communion (methodist-CW) is intinction, we have a special chalice and plate for the elements and the elements are covered. For (CW) we use this bread called King maui bread and welch grape juice. (chapel usf uses wine and traditonal wafers and you can choose between intinction style or drinking from a shared cup of the Lord. )
At Cw, pastor keith recites the last supper narrative and then holds up the bread and prays and thanks god for it and blesses it and then breaks it. he prays and thanks god for the wine and blesses it too. Then he says, come as you are able." As you receive communion, (both places cUsf and CW) say,
abundantjoy, his body broken for you and blood shed for you so that you might be set free. then you would go sit down and pray personal prayers and then the helper would give keith communion and keith would give the helper communion.then we might pray again and then respectable eat the left over bread and wine since the communion is always fresh and new. At Chapel USf, (epl'ian, lutheren, church of christ, and pres'b) they have a special sink that has a drain that goes straight to the ground because it would be wrong to throw blessed wine down into the sewer. (I saw on a special one time Tim Allen, who was raised epl'ian and was altar boy and all and wondered if they had blessed plumbers to put those sinks in.) At my regular church, (pent) we have little plastic sealed containers that have the wine and the communion bread in them. Pastor Deb was really surprised when I told her this one time. We were talking after church about communion and I had mentioned that when you take the tops of the cups they make a pbts sound and she was like "they are sealed? Yes. She was in shock. She commented it could be communion on the go that came with a lil tape of preaching decorated in box. Joking aside, she had issues with plastic cups and throwing away blessed items. She would still take communion with us if she ever came to my church, though. If she is has to visit people she wears the black dress with collar (why dog collar ? isn't that a lil demeaning ? (same with "low") but other times it is the polo with slacks. Any way, the ushers pass out the trays with communion and people take them. I think the age limit is understanding of communion. I always make a little cross impression on the bread and as my g'ma always prayed "god help me to take communion worthly. then when ever one got one, the pastor (who shouldn't be the only one celebrating) reads the last supper narrative and speaks a little bit and then we all lift the bread together and bless it and pray over and then eat it together and then we lift up the wine and bless it and God for it and then we all drink it and then we pray both personal prayers and corporate prayers and then the usher come and get the lil cups. I think it is in the older church that still have little glasses.

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Originally posted by AbundantJoy:
Where ARE all the protestants?

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In bed asleep while you were posting.

Welcome to MW, AbundantJoy.

You have asked quite a number of questions, and have raised various points. Don't be surprised if it takes us a little while to answer all the points. But some suggestions as to where to start in MW.

Anglo-catholicism for beginners is a good place to start reading, and also for asking questions.

Creating the MW Dictionary is where we are making a new dictionary for MW. We already have a couple of excellent dictionaries in the webguides, but in MW sometimes words have very specific meanings. And also the dictionaries don't have many non-Anglican or non-Catholic terms.

In the Styx, you asked about 'kirk'. It is a Scots word for 'church'. I believe it is from 'kirkos' (Greek, meaning circle). The congregation used to meet in circular buildings. When it is written as 'Kirk' then it usually refers to the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian).

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in the post about the horrified anglican who had lay leaders have communion on the beach...I would ask what was the intent..If they were just having a beach communion with fellow believers and they prayed over and blessed the bread and wine, and then acted in a godly way, I wouldn't see a problem with it.

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I haven't gone back over the thread to find the post referred to (it's a long thread). But my answer would be that in the Anglican church only an ordained priest is allowed to celebrate the eucharist and bless the bread and wine (or bless anything else if it comes to that). A lay reader is not permitted to do that.

If what they were using was reserved elements (i.e. consecrated on a previous occasion by a priest) then that could be permitted, but I would still question under what authority they had carried the elements to a beach (I think they would need the priest's permission).

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Originally posted by AbundantJoy:
Question: Why would HT (and why that nickname?) run screaming out of a pent communion?

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Hello Abundant Joy and welcome to our little churchy corner of cyberspace.

It was actually Dyfrig who suggested that I might run screaming from Elim communion. I imagine he thinks that the practices of the Elim community would be so far at variance with the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer that I screaming and running might be the natural reaction of a Prayer Book devotee like me.

As to your other question, I assume people call me HT because they cannot be bothered to type out "Hooker's Trick".

Oh yes -- Ribena is a soft drink, and blackcurrant is one of the flavours it comes in. Think "grape flavoured drink" as an American equivalent.

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Originally posted by daisymay:
Louise, thanks for that diagram. I had to know all that stuff about Auld Lichts and New Lichts at uni .....and I've forgotten exactly their differences

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One of the primary reasons my own denomination came into existance was this very problem.

On the American frontier in the late 1700's and early 1800's, there were many Scot-Irish immigrants who were not able to recieve communion because ministers were few and far between, and often of the "wrong" kind of Presbyterian church. The divisions made some sort of sense in Scotland, but were utterly irrelevant on the American west (i.e. western Pennsylvania and Ohio).

Alexander Campbell was raised in the Old Light, Anti-Burgher Seceeder Presbyterian Church, and was aghast that he was not allowed to commune with New Light Anti-Burgher Seceeder Presbyterians. This led to his departure from the Prebyterians and the beginings of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the US and Canada.

As for our "bizarre" practices:

1) Baptism by immersion, although we accept transfer from other traditions.

2) Weekly celebration of communion/Lord's Supper. We have a joke that you might be a Disciple if you visit another of our congregations and learn yet another way to "do" communion. Every congregation has a slightly different way of doing it.

3) In larger congregations, the minister usually wears a geneva gown and stole (I do this). In smaller and more rural congregations, he will wear a suit and tie.

4) Choirs most often wear robes, at least in larger congregations.

5) Ministers are called by the congregation rather than appointed. The call process includes consultation with the Regional Minister (analogous to a bishop in the ministry of oversight).

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Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
I haven't gone back over the thread to find the post referred to (it's a long thread). But my answer would be that in the Anglican church only an ordained priest is allowed to celebrate the eucharist and bless the bread and wine (or bless anything else if it comes to that). A lay reader is not permitted to do that.

If what they were using was reserved elements (i.e. consecrated on a previous occasion by a priest) then that could be permitted, but I would still question under what authority they had carried the elements to a beach (I think they would need the priest's permission).

Thanks for the info, I appriacate it.
It is seem a bit strict, though.

cheers to BB for the un-kirking of sparkling grape juice to welcome me. Yes, I am normally in bed too.

I have Anglican friends who consider themselves to be quite high but wouldn't get worked up at this. To my mind that just shows how little most Anglicans know about their Church.

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My friend Greg (who i will post some discussion in the L year T) and many others agree that many people don't know what their church believes. One time, a guy who went to a Methodist church told Greg that they don't do that tithing stuff at his church to which Greg reply, yes they do (but a lil stronger) so it is not just the anglicicans. (ps. is a AC the same a regular catholic or is one more strict than the other or etc. PS. Take time answering questions thank you for all
"tat" you have done.

It was actually Dyfrig who suggested that I might run screaming from Elim communion. I imagine he thinks that the practices of the Elim community would be so far at variance with the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer that I screaming and running might be the natural reaction of a Prayer Book devotee like me.