I am curious where everyone goes to church and what kind of music they hear in the church services. I'm not talking about Sabbath School but the Church service. Perhaps you could list the name of your church and if you sing contemporary christian music,out of the hymnal or both. Do you use the organ or a band (guitar-drums-etc) for your church service or some other instrument?

1. My Church is called "Touchet SDA Church"
2. We sing out of the hymnal only for Church services
3. Our Church uses primarily the organ for their services but also the piano with the opening and closing hymns.

Hmmm, no one here seems to go to church, or perhaps they have no music in their church?

Perhaps I should have listed this as a poll but I haven't done that before and figured this was just as good.

I go to the Washington, NC SDA Church; we sing from the hymnal only; and use the piano when someone's present who knows how to play it! There is no organ.

Every now and then the pastor will sing an appropriate contemporary song accompanying himself with acoustic guitar.

Here is what we do:

1. Our Church is called the "Fredericton SDA Church."

2. We sing mainly out of the hymnal for Church services, although we may sing a song now and then from a type of a Songs of Praise book that contains songs such as "Majesty."

3. Our Church uses primarily the piano for our when a person who knows how to play is present, otherwise, we use the CD Hymnals CDs or sing without any accompaniment. On very rare occasions we use the guitar.

Thanks John and Daryl for replying. Daryl, I love hearing a well played guitar for accompaniment of the hymns and songs--for a nice change occasionally.

I still enjoy a well played organist or pianist also. At our church we only have about 40 members who show up and we have 5 excellent pianists and 3 good organists!! So strange to have so many at one little church. But it is the only church in the area that is still using hymns only.

We live in a large SDA area and many of the other churches use either a combination of contemporary hymns with the hymnal or no hymnal at all.

But I enjoy other instruments as well as long as they are played well. Nothing worse than someone trying to accompany a song that cannot play well.

I go to the Spencerville Church in Silver Spring, Maryland. We have a very traditional service with the pipe organ accompanying congregational hymns from the hymnal. We also have a very good choir that sings a couple times a month. The choir director is James Bingham who has several hymns in the SDA Hymnal.

Tom

I attend the Sacramento Central SDA Church in Sacramento, CA

We use the church hymnal to sing from for the Church Service and use both piano and the organ.

Thank you Avalee and Tom for answering this question. Both your churches sound wonderful. Tom you are very fortunate to be able to attend a church with such talent!! It sounds like a very large church perhaps.

Avalee, isn't your church where Pastor Doug Batchelor is the Pastor? Wonder if I've ever seen you on TV? on 3ABN we hear the SS lessons on Thursday night and Sabbath mornings!

Tom--I feel like your "avatar" with the 'eye' looking at me like it wants to bite my head off just a bit intimidating and downright scary ..too bad you can't find one that is a bit more dignified - you know, something that looks just a bit more attorney-ish? Maybe just a wee bit more friendly-like?

Debbie,

Perhaps it would be well to allow one to define their own individuality themselves! Actually, if you knew who that picture portrayed you would understand that it is clearly not lacking in dignity. I see it as a serious picture. Since some were offended by my less serious ID, I thought being serious would be more acceptable way to present myself.

Would you prefer an actual picture of myself? How about this one? I hope this is not too scary, since it is really me!

Tom

[ January 25, 2005, 03:50 PM: Message edited by: Tom Wetmore ]

Hi, I attend the Moncton Seventh-day Adventist Church in "Moncton" New Brunswick (Canada eh?)
Our church has about 50-70 attending members (about 120 on the books but that should be a whole other topic)

About half of our services use the SDA hymnal with the organ and piano. This was 100% of the time up until about 2 years ago when a singing group formed to lead the church in Praise service and the at the request of the board they now lead out in about 2 Sabbath services per month. This group uses the overhead projector with Powerpoint conected to one of the sound booth computers. We project on the front and back of the sanctuary so the singers up front don't need books either. The instruments used are the guitar and piano. (yikes we even have the guitar "plugged in") It is a contemporary style but the group is very responsible and prayerful in the songs that are chosen for worship. Some of the songs are from the "old hymnal" some from the "new hymnal" but most are from various contemporary artists.


Sabbath School: This new year we began a very different type of Sabbath School opening program.
Up until now there have been abou 5-15 in attendence for Sabbath School opening. The format was adult oriented. Sing 2 hymns,welcome, prayer, sing 2 hymns (with piano), read mission story, seperate for classes.
This has been changed to have the Children also present in the Sanctuary for the Sabbath School opening program.
The songs are set for young children (the adults have expressed their appreciation for these "camp songs") It is like bringing "Camp Meeting" to our home church. The children have an active role in the program with prayer, explaining the mission story by telling the story not reading it (they prepare all week for this and they take turns "wanting" to do it!) "Bible quizzes" and various oral Bible games being used (about 10-15 minutes) then there is a "transitional song" the name escapes me right now, but it is a very peaceful and worshipful piece. Then we all seperate for our study groups.

This past week we had 42 present at 9:25am, normally there would be about 5-10 present at this time (including the children)
So please pray that the Adults BUT esspecially the Children will want and continue to be "early for Sabbath School"