Above Bar Church

Due to a family commitment in the morning, today the Church Searchers are off to an evening service.


Above Bar Church
69 Above Bar Street
Southampton
SO14 7FE.

Evening Service

From the Church website:

Evening Service

Starts at 6:30pm and normally lasts around 90 minutes. As in the morning there is a mixture of styles of worship and bible based teaching.

There are no creche or children's activities at this service.

Refreshments are served after the service.

The Review
Somehow we've done it again. The service we attended this evening is not representative of a normal evening service at ABC, as they had a special guest speaker, Gary Habermas giving a special apologetic style talk on resurrection. Fortunately one of the Intrepid Duo has been to a few other evening services here and advise on how much of tonight was usual practice.

We parked up in Southampton Guildhall car park about 6:15pm. Above Bar Church is quite unusual as its a purpose built modern church on the upper floors of a building on the main shopping street in Southampton. We entered using the Above Bar Street entrance, had our hands shaken by a steward, climbed a couple of flights stairs and came to the lounge and information desk. Following the lead of others entering we went into the main auditorium and were allocated a seat by another steward. The main auditorium is octagonal with a warm wood ceiling, a dais with a large central projector screen, and a balcony along the left and back sides. The organist appeared to be hanging in mid air on the left, the music group was on the left of the dais below the organist, and a simple wooden altar sat opposite the music group on the right. An open bible and two candle holders were displayed on the altar.

There were wooden pews with padding radiating out from the dais, and the seating immediately in front of it were movable wooden chairs. The place was for want of a better word, absolutely packed. Our estimate was 250 to 300 people. There was a wide age range present, from teenagers to pensioners, though no obvious young children. The 9:15 am service is advertised as being for families, and we were told that at that service and the 11am service are very busy, though the balcony is not opened. Apparently there used to be one morning service but this was split due to the high numbers. There were quite a few latecomers as well! The large congregation tonight could probably be attributed to the guest speaker. NIV bibles and Mission praise hymn books were place in the pew backs, though the songbooks were not used, the hymn lyrics being projected onto the screens.

There was no formal liturgy as such. The basic format of the service was 3 worship songs, notices, prayers, bible reading, 3 more worship songs, Gary Habermas' speech, closing prayer, and closing song. There was a chap called Ben leading the service and the minister John Risbridger lead the worship, gave the notices and closed the service with prayer. He also lead the question and answer session after the service. The first set of prayers were for areas of conflict around the world such as Gaza, Somalia and Kenya, and the second set were for the congregation, that they would learn from what had been said tonight. The bible readings were not always identified, though one was definitely from 1 Corinthians, which fitted with what was said in the talk.

The music group as far as we could see over the heads of the congregation included, bass and electric guitar, organ, piano, flute, violin, drums and keyboard. There were also three female singers and the minister, who provided other percussion on shakers at appropriate moments. The worship was very lively, uplifting and energetic. There was a mix of older and newer worship songs played by the whole music group, and the old favourite Thine Be The Glory played by the organist alone. If you're interested in that kind of thing, the songs were; Our God is an Awesome God , Let Everything That , How Great is our God, Jesus Hope of the Nations, There is a New Song in my Mouth, and In Christ Alone.Our only criticisms of the music was that it was rather loud and we felt that the bass was turned up a bit too much. The Older one likes to be able to hear themselves among the crowd into to make sure they sing in tune! We also noticed that 3 microphones were hanging from the ceiling over the congregation amplifying the singing and making the whole worship experience even louder. Whilst useful in encouraging the shy to sing, (louder congregation noise provides shy with cover they need in order to feel comfortable singing), it could also be taken as a bit of congregation manipulation, artificially enhancing the experience to increase the transcendental atmosphere. That said, it was still pretty awesome worshipping with so many people, and the change of pace that came with the traditional rendering of Thine Be the Glory worked surprisingly well. We've never heard it sung so loudly! It sounded amazing!

Now, onto the talk by Gary Habermas. Distinguished Research Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy and Theology at Liberty University, Lynchberg, VA, USA, he somewhat eloquently put forward an apologetic argument using the writings of Paul for resurrection. Though the clarity of his actual words were hampered a little by the PA system and his accent, through basing his argument on the writings of Paul that critical scholars view to be written by him, rather than on the less trusted Gospel reports he was highly convincing on most levels. He used historiography and history to illustrate how Paul's eyewitness testimony of a Risen Jesus, approx five years after the crucifixion is very rare in ancient history, where it is far more common to work with biographies written of people hundreds of years after their lives. He also pointed out how Paul spoke with others who had met Jesus, specifically Peter, John and James, about whether he was right about Jesus. These four men were eventually martyred for their beliefs, and Habermas pointed out that this must mean that they believed in Jesus' divinity to a great extent. The basic premise overall was that because Paul was such an early witness to the risen Jesus, the resurrection was quite likely and that people who didn't believe in it could not come up with a viable reason what else could have happened to cause such reports. This talk lasted 40 mins, which is the longest we've heard yet. We were both a little fidgety by the end.

There was a question and answer session afterwards where one very brave non-christian student took on Habermas on the historical basis of his argument, saying that history could be misinterpreted over time and that he could not believe in the resurrection due to it not being able to be recreated by science. Habermas countered by stating how science relied on history for evidence, which didn't seem to answer the chaps question. Another member of the congregation, this time a christian, played devil's advocate and pointed out that science can be done in a vacuum of knowledge, without relying on the ideas/evidence found by others in history, though this would take a lot of time and resources. Habermas didn't really seem to have an answer to this, going back to how people accept the happening of the 1066 Norman invasion and the content of Churchill's speeches based on eyewitnesses. Habermas had the Intrepid Duo until he used the Turin Shroud as scientific evidence for resurrection, admittedly as something that doesn't seem explainable by science (i.e. how do you print an xray on fabric given it's age) though there seemed to be an implication of it being somewhat divine. If he had stuck with his argument about Near Death experiences, something slightly more scientifically documented, he would have seemed much more credible.

We stayed for the hot drinks after the service, but due to the large numbers no one came to speak to us. Also the tea was rather weak, though the coffee was good. In order to get some more information we presented ourselves to the information desk (as newcomers were directed in the service) and were given lots of leaflets about the church. There are a huge range of activities going on from small groups, children, youth and student ministries, Korean services, prayer and audio ministries, prayer meetings, and a Fair Trade cafe open to the public on Saturday morning. Clearly a thriving church.

The Short Version
Traditional/Modern: Rather modern.
Formal/Informal: Fairly informal. Informal dress and no set liturgy, but the layout of the building and the style of leadership was slightly more formal and 'churchy'.
Solemn/Lively: Very Lively! Jokes in the talk and people clapping and charismatic arm waving during the worship. No praying in tongues though.

Great: The chance to worship with lots of other people in a lively and happy fashion. The speaker was very interesting, even if we did not agree with everything he said and, obviously he is not a usual feature.

Not so great: We didn't feel very welcomed as just another couple of faces in the crowd. The older one also felt that at 40 mins, Gary Haberman's talk was a bit long!

Access: The Above Bar entrance has stairs, there is a side entrance on Ogle Road, the main entrance has a lift to all floors.

This review was written by the Older one, with edits by the Younger one.

Bitterne Park United Reform Church

Apols for the severe delay, I've had a terribly busy week and felt pretty rubbish. Sorry.

Bitterne Park United Reform Church
Cobden Avenue,
Bitterne Park,
SO18 1FZ

10:30 Morning service, Mothering Sunday.

No website from which to give a self description, nor is anything said of it on the URC national site, save the address and contact details.

The Review
Before I start I should point out that as this is/was Mothering Sunday the service was slightly out of the ordinary. As most churches get extra people, they tend to try to do something a little unusual, to attempt to get them to come more often.

We arrived at the church at 10:29 by by watch, but clearly late by their time as the service had begun. We were greeted in the lobby by a church elder, who handed over a copy of Mission Praise and a service sheet, while explaining that the service had just begun and we could go in when the first hymn began shortly. This was a first for both myself and the older one, but made surprising sense as we were not the only late arrivals. We all walked in as the first hymn (Bind us together Lord) began, and didn't disturb anyone.

There were at least sixty people, a lot of whom were older. There were a few families, but no young adults that we could see. The Building was another Victorian barn in style (though I've no idea how old the building actually is), with huge wooden beams and again nicely decorated. The church is cross shaped with altar, organ, pulpit, etc. in the top of the cross, the left hand side containing the music group and the right a small side chapel. The service sheet contained the order of service for the morning and evening services. (Apparently the evening service, 18:30, is more informal, and fortnightly.) There were also prayer requests, thanks to the musicians and flower arrangers, and a brief explanation of this weeks services and next. Mission praise is a popular hymn book, containing a huge variety of hymns of all ages and styles.

The Music for the service was lead by the youth music group, a selection of children and teenagers, of varied ability, but over all quite good for a youth music group. After the hymn was a short time of prayer, then a reading for Isaiah, followed by a short “explanation” of Mothering Sunday. After this every lady in the congregation was given a small bunch of daffodils, which seemed a major impovment on the usual very short lonely daffodil and a bit of old heather combo we were anticipating. The service continued with a pattern of hymn then short talk, including a reading from Ephesians 6:1-4). The talks were interesting and amusing and the minister seemed to know his congrgation very well, personalising the ancedotes to suit. The music was quite good; 'Make me a Channel of Your peace', 'Come let us sing', 'Come on and celebrate', 'Lord, the light of Your love (Shine Jesus, Shine.)'. The grace was said at the end, then the service ended.

We were spoken to by two of the church "elders" one of whom was rather talkative and we spoke for some time, explaining about the church, the evening services and how it was a little unusual this week, being Mothering Sunday.This probably explains why it felt a little bland as it was trying to appeal to a wide range of people. We spoke to the minister on the way out, who was rather busy, presumably the extra congregation for the day, but he was friendly and interested and invited us back. The older one found it interesting how people didn't seem to linger after the service, but rather rushed out the door. This could be attributed to people going home to Mother's Day lunches, but other churches we've been to on Mothering Sundays still had coffee after the service.

Traditional/Modern: The setting was a "proper" traditional church, and the songs were definitely hymns, but not that traditional.
Formal/Informal: No real liturgy, except the odd snippet of prayer with responses and the atmosphere was fairly relaxed.
Solemn/Lively: So-so, the talky bits were fairly cheerful and lively, the songs less so.

Great: Minister seemed to know everyone, and was friendly. The mini-sermons were very very entertaining

Not so great: Hard to say, as was not a usual service. However, the service was very middle of everything. Somehow, not that exciting, though its hard to put a finger on what was lacking.

Access: Steps to the front door, but we believe there was a side entrance.

This review was written by the Younger with edits by the older one.

Tech Blather

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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.

This Week

The older one was ill. No church was visited, not a good start really.

Well, this weeks church will be up next week then.

This would be easier if Sundays happened more often.

St. Denys' - St. Denys

St Denys Church
Dundee Road
Southampton
SO17 2ND

11.00 am SALT service.

From the church's website:
The 11 am service aims to be a family friendly service spanning the whole age range, and a significant contribution to it comes from those who work with our young people and children. The other name for this service is SALT which stands for Sharing And Learning Together, and is based on our belief that children, young people and adults are all lifelong learners in the Christian faith.

The Review
Righto then, off we trundled of a beautiful Sunday morning to St. Denys' Church and wandered in to the main entrance of the church centre and looked a bit lost, basically 'cause we were. We asked someone also wandering in for directions to the service, which we were informed was in the main hall at the end of the long corridor.

At this point it's worth mentioning why we were in the hall. It turns out the (incredibly beautiful) church building is not used as its too expensive to heat and needs some repair work. If I were a rich man...*The Older one dances about in a musical theatre fashion*

The Hall contained a wooden altar, with large painted wall hangings, flowing down from the ceiling behind it. Next to the altar was a simple wood lectern and a keyboard. We wandered in and the lady who'd directed us before pointed out the hymn books ("the source" - the older one had a flick through and reports it encompasses old hymns, modern worship songs and all points between) and the notice sheet for the week. We took a seat on the second row fairly comfortable plastic chairs, ones seen in schools throughout the land. The place had about 60 seats, but the whole first row was empty, so about 50 people.

After a minute or two of kerfuffle and such the Vicar (Rev. Kelvin Randall) said " Hello everybody, it must be time to start now." Notices were given, and there were quite a few, including that none the music group were available this week, so we had recordings to accompany our singing. We proceeded to sing "Great is Thy faithfulness" a 1920's hymn of a traditional style. Next we were given a task, the children were to build a wall of boxes using a chain of people to pass the boxes to the wall. Meanwhile the rest of the congregation were split in two groups and had a brief outline of the events of Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem to put in order. After this was complete, the Vicar put on the music for the lively and modern "Be bold, be strong", which was sung with gusto and followed by a short prayer. Then the children left, and the Vicar read Matthew 21 v33-46.

A member of the congregation stood up and delivered an excellent 24 minute sermon on God being "the Boss", like the vineyard owner of the parable and in charge of your life, we are tenants of his earth and we must produce good fruit. She was called Sarah we think, and made amusing use of business jargon! After the sermon we sang "My Jesus, I love Thee." a more traditional style hymn and another more modern song, that neither of us can remember. There was a time of prayer then a time for any of the congregation to share something they were thankful for they with everyone, then we sang the final hymn the stirring "And Can It Be that I Should Gain". The older one reckons this was one of the best bits of the service, especially when the recorded music ran out, and we had to sing the last verse acapella. The collection was taken during this hymn, a short collect said together followed and we were dismissed with the offer of refreshments at the back.

After returning the hymn book we collected some very acceptable tea and coffee and stood about looking lost. Almost immediately members of the congregation (and, later, the Vicar) came and spoke to us, and very friendly and interesting, the older one having a fascinating conversation about the Vicar's shoes. We spoke at length and were shown around the Church. Though we were not invited to lunch we were told that the first Sunday of the month they have both their services combined, after which they have a meal together.

One of things that really stood out for the younger one was how calm and peaceful the service felt, especially for a family service. It was occasionally interrupted by a squawk of a baby, but that only added to the feeling of togetherness, especially the giggling baby during the prayers.

Even though it was a small church, there seems to be a thriving community. The notice sheet has information on a number of cell group meetings, prayer meetings and so on. They maintain a link with a church in Busoga, Uganda as well.

The Short Version

Traditional/Modern: A real mix of both, traditional and modern songs and worship styles all in one service.
Formal/Informal: Very informal, vicar in dog collar and jumper (and funky shoes!), and interactive tasks.
Solemn/Lively: Fairly lively, though quite laid back about it.

Great: Very friendly & welcoming, with a mixture of worship styles. A fairly small church were everyone noticed we were new and spoke to us.

Not so great: It was a shame there was no-one to lead the music and both of us were mildly disappointed about the main church building not being used,(not that they can really help that).

All in all, a lovely welcoming church. Highly recommended. We'll be coming back to try the 9:30am!

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

The First Post

Salutations.

The nature of this blog, I suspect, is somewhat self explanatory in principle yet rather lacking in detail. So allow me to enlighten you, somewhat, on the inner workings. We, the Intrepid Duo, travel to a different church in Southampton and wander in, looking lost, just before service time. We are both looking for a new church, as our old one has ceased to fulfill, so we are genuine and would be doing this anyhow. However in a moment of genius/insanity the older one decided that we could record our exploits in the form of a weblog, to share with others and also remind ourselves.

As the first visit is tomorrow we are busy thinking up marking criteria, clearly the reviews will be strongly subjective, especially on matters such as the sermon's content, the choice of music, or quality of communion wine. The number of invites to lunch after and length of the sermon are easily quantified, while the warmth of welcome and comfort of pew are to a lesser extent.

The Intrepid Duo between us have been about a bit church-wise, but not so much in Southampton. The older one has a middle of the road anglican starting point tempered with a large dollop of highly charismatic evangelical house church. I myself have a young childhood of middle-high traditional anglican a large gap and then a sprinkling of this and that. Our last church was a low, fairly evangelical Anglican jobby. We have no idea what our ideal church is, hence trying them all.

Oh, and yes we are totally ripping off inspired by the Mystery Worshipper of Ship of Fools.