St Michael and All Angels, Bassett.

St Michael & All Angels
Bassett Avenue
Southampton
Hampshire
SO16 7FB

10am Extended Communion

From the Church Website:

St. Michael’s has the largest congregation of the three churches in the parish. It has a broadening age-profile, with several families. It has an active Sunday School, and a Youth group. It also has a strong choral tradition and a large choir. It is a fairly large, traditional Anglican church, with a middle-to-high style of worship (including pointed psalms and all the trimmings), this worship being strongly Eucharistic.

Whilst the services may be seen as quite traditional, the atmosphere is friendly and relaxed, especially at the 10am service which families generally come to.

The Review
After waking up rather late and rushing to the church, we arrived at St Michael and All Angels, Basset at exactly the same time as the choir. Or rather, we entered the building through the side door at the same time as they processed in. The choir was rather sizable, at least 20 people, with some young teenagers, all the way to pensioners.

The Church - according the reader speaking to us after the service - is "a bit of a Victorian barn". It has white painted plaster walls, stone ribs on the ceiling meeting in gold roses, and coloured plaques with gold symbols clearly relating to ecclesiastical matters. There Were magnificent stain glass windows at the front and back of the church, but plain windows down the side alowing in a lot of light. We sat at the back as is best when you're sneaking in late, and counted about 40 people in the congregation including a few small children. There was a wide age range who scattered themselves about the church in a sparse fashion on the rather creaky pews.

The service was an 'Extended Communion ' service based on Order One of the the Church of England's Book of Common Worship. Apparently, according to the younger one who read the House of Bishop's guidlines on the Rite of extended communion, the bread and wine are consecrated in one church and taken to another where a cut down service is used, because there is no Priest present. The cut down service does not have the words of consecration. The service was lead by one of the parish's five readers, Malcom Harper, who also gave the sermon.

The basic structure was as follows greeting, notices, confession, the collect, the sermon, intercessions, sharing the peace, the Eucharistic prayer, communion and the closing blessing. These were interspersed with hymns from the BBC Songs of Prayer hymn books. The younger one also spotted another set of hymn books, little red ones which must the the AMR's mentioned on the notice sheet for another service. Google tells us this is Ancient and Modern (Revised.) The aforementioned choir were fantastic. We're not sure which piece they sang during the communion but it was rather beautiful. The only problem with such a great choir is that the congregation becomes a bit of an audience. Especially in this case when the choirstall are behind a wooden screen, albeit a very beautiful one. We sang 210 Jesus Where'er Thy People Meet,
146 How Sweet The Name of Jesus Sounds, 93 Take Up Thy Cross the Saviour Said, and 142 Guide Me O Great Redeemer. It was only during this last hymn that the congregation seemed to really join in, but that's probably because it is quite a famous one, where as the others were a bit more obscure. The readings were Exodus 17:1-7, based on the Israelites quarreling over lack of water, Romans 5:1-11 on hope not disappointing, and John 4:5-42 where Jesus spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well. The sermon brought together the different bible readings focusing on the idea of God transcending the everyday and providing us with the spiritual water we need in everyday life. It lasted approximately 10 minutes.

The children who had been in the Sunday School for the majority of the service came in around half way through, and ranged in age from tinies to younger teens and slipped quietly into their seats and joined in with the rest of the service. There was a Children's corner with toys and book adjacent to the Lady chapel if they had felt they needed entertainment.

After the service, we returned our hymnbooks and service sheets and spoke for a while to the reader about the Church before retiring to the church hall for tea and coffee. The tea and coffee were rather good with the coffee being real coffee prepared in a cafetiere. The biscuits were also rather yummy, both of us going for shortbread rounds with chocolate chips. One lady introduced herself, asked about us, and filled us in on a bit more about the church. When she moved on, we stood around looking lost a bit longer to no avail before heading home.

Upon the reader's recommendation, we also attended Evensong at 6:30pm. Again this was a wonderful showcase for the talents of the excellent choir and organist. The musical aspect of the church really is the main feature of this church.


The Short Version

Traditional/Modern: As traditional as you can get before moving into smells and bells territory.
Formal/Informal: Fairly formal liturgy, though most of the congregation were dressed down and the atmosphere was fairly relaxed.
Solemn/Lively: Solemn and dignified.

Great: The Music and the decor of the building.

Not so great: The lack of audience participation for want of a better word. The Choral evensong did feel rather like a concert, albeit a very very good concert. A few issues with the PA system.

**NEW** Access: Side door is wheelchair friendly.

Overall a standard (from our experience) fairly high Anglican service, with very professional and talented choir and organist.

This review was written by the older one, with edits from the younger one.