Tuesday, April 20, 2010

How To Make Church Services Shorter

It's easy. All you have to do is work through the following set of modest proposals:

1. Eliminate the music - This way about 15-20 minutes will be cut from the liturgy.

2. Eliminate the sermon - Really, who cares about this? That's another 10-12 minutes gained.

3. Reduce the number of people coming forward to receive communion - After steps 1 and 2, this becomes real easy.  Perhaps mass excommunication would be the best way to complete this, as it sometimes takes thirty whole seconds for one person to receive the Body and Blood of Christ.  Think of the time saved!

4. Eliminate announcements - After steps 1, 2, and 3, when the congregation has been reduced to about 6 or so, and there is no one to do anything anyway, announcements will be unnecessary.

You see, it's simple. It's not evangelism or even a valid way to live the Gospel, but at least you don't have to waste time on a Sunday morning.  Y'know, salvation is great and all, but we all have important things to do on Sundays.  Hmmm, maybe we can build a drive-through communion window with an automatic wafer launcher....

Or we can have a real church with real music, the proclaimed word of God, a growing population, and a greater number of things with which people may become involved [of course, that means announcements]; all for the investment of just 70 minutes a week.

Personally, I think it's an easy choice to make.