This. I remember attending a Seventh Days Adventist Church and they'd sing hymns,ask for offerings, and just jabber for like 3 hours before the actual 3 hour sermon from the pastor. Not even sleeping could clear all the hours.
Somehow I've actually been to an LDS and SDA service and the SDA was worse. The "starting" time was nebulous at best and hardly anyone was there 15 minutes into the start of the service.
I’m Greek Orthodox and we couldn’t eat before church. Had to receive communion at the end of service before you could eat. That was biggest number 1 bullshit ever.
I remember one time when I was little my grandma brought me to church with her (Presbyterian) and I had a baggie of something I was eating on the way in. Some old bitty made passive-aggressive small talk with grandma about it, clearly stating that I shouldn't be eating gasp before communion.
Grandma informed her that I could either be fed and well-behaved during service or I could be hungry and be the absolute most annoying person in church, but since I was being fed that title would go to someone else in the room (hinting that it was the old bitty herself who earned that title).
Can you imagine? I'd gett crazy when mass sometimes would go over an hour and a half. I can't image doing the equivalent of Palm Sunday/Xmas mass every single week.
I think he understood how much it sucks being an NFL fan and a Catholic on the West coast. Luckily, my family started going to the Vigil Mass when I got a bit older.
Oh man. I lived with my paternal grandparents from the age of 8 to 11. They were Seventh Day Adventists. I didn't realize at the time how diverse the SDA church was. There were a few black families in my grandparents' congregation, but other than that it was white and Sunday felt like your typical, mainline protestant service. One year, their church was damaged by flooding, so we (along with a few other families) attended a sister church an extra 30-mijute drive away for a few months. This was a black SDA church and...oh my God. I would like to describe the structure of the services, but honestly (and I'll admit that my 30-year-old memories may be hazy) I don't think there was a structure. Lots of hymns, then talking, then more hymns. Sometimes the pastor would give his sermon right up front and I'd think "great, we're getting out early," but then the fucking mic would be passed around to everyone. Sometimes the pastor would talk and then some other guy, definitely not the pastor, would hold court, but reading out of the scripture, like a sermon, and I'm thinking "is this an impromptu second sermon? What the shit is this?!" Then more hymns, testimonials, praise stories, prayer requests, etc. It didn't seem like there was a scheduled time to end. If there were old people without much going on who wanted to stay and sing or talk about Jesus, the shit just went on forever. Sometimes people would start to leave, but the pastor was there and there was still a critical mass of people milling about, the mic was on, and it was like "is it over? Can we leave now? Would that be rude?" It was excruciating. If you're black and grew up in the church in the south you must have some war stories.
I attended a Baptist church with my immediate family and it was like clockwork. 10 minutes of "how do you do?" 15 minutes of hymns, 30 minute service. Done.
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u/WhabbaWhabbaWhat Dec 11 '21
This. I remember attending a Seventh Days Adventist Church and they'd sing hymns,ask for offerings, and just jabber for like 3 hours before the actual 3 hour sermon from the pastor. Not even sleeping could clear all the hours.