Church at Canterbury and St. Paul's (the Prof)

We attended an Evensong service last Friday at Canterbury Cathedral and then a Mattins service on Sunday at St. Paul's Cathedral.  If you're unaware, those are basically evening prayers and morning prayers, respectively.  They were similar experiences, though the Sunday Mattins service included a sermon--whereas there was only scripture and prayer at the Evensong.

It was quite an experience visiting worship at two of the most significant (and beautiful) cathedrals in Britain.  Canterbury is beautiful (The picture above is inside; Teacher's last post included a view of the outside at night) but St. Paul's is in a class by itself--an incredible building inside.  I hope we'll be able to take pictures when we return for the tour of St. Paul's (I was very disappointed that we couldn't at the tour of Westminster today).

A lot of the service at both places centered around the choir.  Both churches had a combined men's/boy's choir that sang much of the service.  They sang some of the prayer and response, they sang from the Psalms, and they sang a hymn or two.  Actually, it might be more accurately described as chanting.  Very talented singers and they know what they're doing, but the combination of the huge buildings and the fact that they were facing sideways from us made it difficult to understand.  I was happy for the printed worship guide that included the words of the songs.

I'm left a bit uncertain about the experiences.  There is an awe-inspiring beauty about the services and the buildings, but they clearly aren't moving many people to worship.  I have a hard time seeing a contemporary service in those buildings :) but I have to wonder when a group of 25 college students dramatically increases the attendance in one of those large buildings.