Taken from AnneHouse.com
Swaythling Methodist Church, Burgess Road, Southampton. Visited 11th May 2008.
Swaythling Methodist Church,
284 Burgess Road,
Swaythling,
Southampton.
Holy Communion Service for Pentecost- 10:30am
The Review
On a glorious sunny day, we turned up just in time for the 1030am service. The building is a large 1930's building in the Central Hall style, in an octagon shape and a big green dome. There are lovely wall paintings in the entrance hall and on the wall above the altar. The artist Anne House was holding an exhibition in the church of her silk paintings, and these were displayed in a semi circle around the main hall. Due to this, the seats were arranged in a circle, with the altar and the lectern taking up a space in the circle. There was a small table in the middle that contained one of the art exhibits.
We were greeted in the foyer, and given a copy of the Hymns and Psalms hymnbook, and a service sheet for 'Holy Communion for Pentecost and times of renewal'. We took the only seats left in the circle next to the lectern. We should point out at this point that this review may be slightly less impartial than usual as we know the minister of this church. The Rev. Peter McNeill appeared, and opened the service.
There was a time of "News Time" when the microphone was passed to what appeared to be a well known gentleman, who gave a few notices. He asked visitors to introduce themselves and say a little about themselves, which we were happy to do, but the other visitor seemed a little embarrassed by this. The microphone was then sent round for prayer requests, and many were requested. This was a nice touch and showed how involved the church was with the local community. Looking around the congregation at this point, we noticed many of the congregation were elderly.
It was a hymn sandwhich style of service. The hymns being: 307 Lord We Believe to Us and Ours, 279 Born by the Holy Spirit's Breath, 291 I want the Spirit of Power Within, 298 Come Thou Everlasting Spirit, 300 Father of Everlasting Grace. The Hymns were fantastic examples of Wesley's, however they were a little obscure, and clearly somewhat unknown to the congragation as a whole, which lead to a somewhat mumbled performance.
The filling of the sandwhich consisted of three readings, taken from the NRSV, 1 Corinthian 12v 1 - 14, Acts 2v 1 - 16, and a reading from the book of Joel, and understandably were about Pentecost. The next bit of filling was the sermon, which was 20 of minutes long. The minister began the sermon asking why things like the Florida and Durham revival do not happen everywhere, before going on to talk about the gifts of the spirit in the mainstream churches, noting that we all have spiritual gifts. He stated revival begins in our hearts, and asked if we felt if we had the holy spirit. If the answer was no, does that mean God is lying? If yes, why are there not thousands of people joining the church every day? Why are we apparently so ineffective? We need to let God be God and do what he wants in his timing. Some of it us wanting God to do it our way, when it's not our work, it's God's work. He went on to talk about inadequacy being a standard qualification to do God's work, and that believing God is the most important aspect. The church needs to be the body of Christ to serve as God calls us to, doing it in God's strength. He then explained Ephesians 5v8, "be filled with the Spirit". The greek uses the tense the present passive imperative, meaning that the filling is now, the filling is happening to us and the filling must happen. So, we must be filled now. The next bit of hymn sandwhich filling were the intersessional prayers, lead by another member of congregation, which included all the prayer requests made during the greetings at the start, we then had the colletion followed by another hymn. After this we launched into the Methodist Worship Book, Communion for Pentecost and times of renewal. Which is a very nice bit of liturgy, and was read with enthusiasm and sincerity. Unfortunately the wine, being a Methodist Church, was not wine, and in little shot glasses. The bread was a burger roll, which is far from ideal. However, the bread and wine were passed around the circle, so we all served our neighbours, which was nice. This was followed by a blessing and dissmissal.
Post service, we wandered about looking at the wonderful artwork by Anne House, which is stunning and thoroughly recommended. There was also tea, coffee and most importantly, cake! The selection of cakes were very tasty and moist. We chatted to peter and a couple of members of the congragation who were friendly, This was one of the more welcoming churches we've visited.
Traditional/Modern: Some and some, Methodist liturgy for the communion and traditional hymns.
Formal/Informal: Fairly informal. No vestements, sat in the round, chatty style.
Solemn/Lively:Middle of the Road.
Great: Sitting in the round, the community news time, the art in the background, and the sermon. Awesome selection of cake with the refreshments.
Not so great: No - one except the minister seemed to know the words to the hymns.
Access: One step to the front door, but we're fairly confident there is wheelchair access at the side.
This review was written by the Younger one.
