See if you can follow this: Because I am attending mass at St James where I cannot have communion yet, I have to find somewhere else each week. Normally I go to an evening service with Father Brindley, but that was cancelled due to crucial people being out of town that week. Usually I rectify that situation by going to the Wednesday service at St. John’s, but this week I needed to be leading a teen Bible Study at the exact same time. That meant I went straight from the 9am Roman Catholic mass to the 10:30 Anglican service at the community center.

It so happened that I was going to the final Sunday in Easter, and they had decided to do the Flowering of the Cross. Normally that is done either on Easter Sunday, or the 1st week. Due to the fact St. Johns’ has to borrow everything, however, they didn’t manage to get a crucifix to do it with until the last sunday. The kids did a great job, though, you can see them at work above.

Small Churches

- Most people actively involved
- Friendlier to visitors / new parishioners
- Family atmosphere and sense of unity

Large Churches

- Very few actively involved
- Tend to ignore new people and form cliques
- Impressive atmosphere that is spiritually charged

This was brought to my attention when one of the masses I attended this morning mentioned at announcements that they needed more assistance since “the same 10% always do everything”. From experience in almost 20 different large scale churches I find that is true. Hundreds attend each week, but only a dozen run every aspect of the church. They are overworked, and will often finally burn out and vanish, putting more work on the very few that are left. Why can’t some of the other hundreds put in a bit of help? I have no idea. These are just the facts of the situation. One person I know propounded that in a smaller church people can be individually asked to help in certain areas, and it is clear where each person’s skills and gifts are. In a large church there tend to be “altar call” type requests “please we need volunteers for ___” and everyone figures everyone else will do it. There isn’t that human contact one on one request.

I have also noticed in the many large churches I have attended, that “N00bs” tend to be forgotten and neglected. With so many people present, it is hard to know who is new and who has attended for years. My motto: When in doubt introduce yourself. If you don’t recognize someone near you, say hello and try to talk with them. It doesn’t hurt to ask “how long have you been coming?” otherwise people could attend a service for a year and get nothing more than a “Peace”. This is very frustrating. Look around if you are in a large parish and greet those near you, even if they aren’t your bosom friends. What tends to happen after services is that each person rushes to their “group” and that’s that. It is very hard to break into situations like that. In small churches with maybe 20 people total on a Sunday, you pretty much talk with every single other person every week. New people stick out big time and are easy to spot and make welcome. With a little bit of effort, this could be true of a large church as well. But each person needs to step forward and take that initiative. No more “let someone else do it” attitude, because people aren’t. Some churches tried to rectify this by starting “small home groups” or Bible Studies, but that doesn’t work. Guess what– the same 10% go to those groups too! lol

In fear I am sounding terribly prejudiced toward smaller congregations, there are merits that a larger church has. For one thing, they are capable of making a much bigger impact. When they do all band together, they can make massive changes in their community and around the world. There is so much potential power there! Also, the sense of God’s presence when hundreds gather in His name is wonderful. There just isn’t that same sense of grandeur with only a dozen people.

Here are a few of the many paths near the main convent and Jane D’Aza. Right now the flowers are spectacular, and I tried to capture a little of it. Most of the colours are purples and pinks and there are entire beds of iris around as well.

This is looking down at the creek which meanders all over the campus, there are multiple bridges of different sorts. One year a tree fell across one and smashed it– fortunately no-one was hurt. The rest are some photos I took on a couple of my walks while here. Enjoy!