Out of curiosity, how long are the worship services at your church?

[Chester P Squier]

Our pastor recently stated that our worship services are timed to be one hour and 5 minutes. That's about the length of services I have attended over my 3 score and 10 plus years.

Today, on vacation in NYC, we attended a church not far from our hotel in Midtown Manhattan. We attended to 1 PM service. It lasted more than twice as long as any service as I have attended. It started on time at 1, but it was 3:20 when we left. Great worship service, just more than twice as long. An hour of singing, an hour of sermon, and another 20 minutes to wrap up the service. I was certainly blessed by the event, although I was somewhat concerned for my aging wife (my age, just more aged).

I had chosen this church because it had beliefs like mine and the church I attend, as well as proximity to the hotel where we are staying.

Anyway, what is the length of your worship services?

 

[black_doug]

I’ve not heard a pastor give a length of time. My experience has been that we start at 10:30, and finish around 12:30.

If we go past that, it’s usually because people have come forward for prayer after an altar call. However, at that point the service is finished and the congregation is free to go.

 

[BigPapa-53]

Our service starts at 10:30 and it’s normally over @ 11:45. It depends on the pastor and what else is going on.

I attended a few services with my wife at a Pentecostal church before we married that were LONG. The preacher would brag about getting to restaurants after the Baptists and Church of Christ members.

The biggest thing that changes the length of our services is “announcements”. We’ve tried several things to cut this down, but haven’t come up with a suitable solution in the past 30 years. Normal Sunday announcements take less than 5 minutes, but when there’s a special event, SOME “announcers” use the opportunity of an open mic to “preach”. When one announcement takes 10 minutes, that’s too long.

 

[Preacher]

I heard Jim Cymballa of Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir days say if you can't preach it in 20 minutes you need to keep working on it.

In today's society, we are hardwired from birth to have shorter attention spans. Sitcoms have 22 minutes of content for a reason.

We have multiple services on a Sunday due to seating constraints and our service are roughly 1.25 hours. We do run over on occasion. I do miss the extended worship times though, we have been doing 4-5 songs each service but lately have been staying longer on a song and doing a reprise of said song as well. This week there were only three songs on the docket. One of those songs was a reprise of "How great thou art".

 

[Chester P Squier]

I attended a few services with my wife at a Pentecostal church before we married that were LONG. The preacher would brag about getting to restaurants after the Baptists and Church of Christ members.

After reading your post, I googled "David Wilkerson's denomination" and the first result said "Pentecostal."
For some reason, I had always thought he was Baptist. It was the Times Square Church he established that we attended.

Bro. Wilkerson has a really great story.

I heard Jim Cymballa of Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir days say if you can't preach it in 20 minutes you need to keep working on it.

If we had gone to the Brooklyn Tabernacle again, we would have spent more time waiting in line before the service. Assuming the choir is in the loft. When we were there before, they were off for Labor Day weekend. But I have never, ever, ever heard such congregational singing in my entire life. I felt like I was in Heaven.

I have mixed feelings about worship service as a tourist attraction. But hey, forsake not the assembling.

 

[hotraman]

We have two Sunday Morning Services.
First starts at 9:00 am and usually ends at 10:10
Then there is an 45 min break between services:
checking kids in and out, bathroom breaks, etc
Our second service starts at 11:00 am and can go a little longer. Sometime it's due to extended worship and / or teaching time.
Our announcements / offering are a part of worship. We don't do a "hard pause" with our worship.
We will often sing another song, after the offering, and before the teaching pastor comes up to preach / teach.
We are non denominational, but our people love to sing. I invite them to come forward to join us in worship.
My church is a converted K Mart, so we have lots of room.

 

[mRtINY]

10:00 the synthetic bell rings... Benediction about 11:30 +/- :15...

 

[BigPapa-53]

Ours goes:
- Announcements
- Welcome & Fellowship
- Song #1
- Offering
- Song #2
- Song #3
- Sermon
- Invitation Song #4

 

[GoldieLocks]

My Church is generally an hour and 15 minutes... or very close to it. The biggest concern is the Childcare workers and getting children picked up and dropped off. Sometimes preachers and musicians love to RAMBLE ON in their enlightened religious and spiritual fervor ---------- but families have responsibilities and kids have needs and nap requirements. Of Course: a 4 hour church service is awesome IF all these things are written into the meetings ahead of time like responsible adults (for a test of true religious fervor: make the Long winded Pastor and musicians sit with the Mentally Challenged children and youth... occasionally not as fun as it sounds)

 

[Andyfreddy]

My church has 3 services, normally allotted 1:15 for each service. Sometimes they go 1:10, sometimes 1:20. But normally not too long due to the next service coming .

About 16-18 minutes of music. (4-5 songs), 5 minutes welcome announcements, sometimes 5-10 minutes of either prayer or popcorn scripture reading by a whoever wants to, then usually 30-40 minute sermon. Sometimes one of the songs is at the end, often not.

 

[SBClose]

Well...now, thanks to GoldieLocks the band has to play RAMBLE ON as walkin'out music this Sunday.

We're usually at an hour plus 5 or 10.

Staff meeting today the pastor said, "announcements were WAY too long on Sunday". Which led to a WAY too long conversation about why announcements were WAY too long. I would have enjoyed the irony if I weren't so annoyed. I prefer short conversations and shorter meetings. AND...I really don't like announcements even though I understand their purpose.

Our pastor usually hits 20min on his message every time. My wife is preaching this week, she'll be in at 25min. I'm usually 20-25.

This Sunday we'll baptize some folks at the close of the service. I think we have 4 candidates. All the people in the sanctuary will be asked to go to the courtyard (NOT DISMISSED), the kids will go to the courtyard from their meeting place and the blessing and benediction will be spoken from the courtyard after we baptize. Usually about 75% make it to the courtyard, the rest head for Applebee's.

 

[studio]

Just yesterday got off the phone with a visiting pastor.
He wanted to be clear, cut out a good chunk of the service except the essentials to give him more time in the sermon.

So, our two services will come in at under an hour each.

 

[oyobass]

Our service starts at 10:30 and it’s normally over @ 11:45. It depends on the pastor and what else is going on.

I attended a few services with my wife at a Pentecostal church before we married that were LONG. The preacher would brag about getting to restaurants after the Baptists and Church of Christ members.

The biggest thing that changes the length of our services is “announcements”. We’ve tried several things to cut this down, but haven’t come up with a suitable solution in the past 30 years. Normal Sunday announcements take less than 5 minutes, but when there’s a special event, SOME “announcers” use the opportunity of an open mic to “preach”. When one announcement takes 10 minutes, that’s too long.

We have taken to shooting the announcements on video in a more controlled environment, then playing them back at a predetermined time slot in the service. It helps that our youth pastor is a top-notch tech guy...

 

[BigPapa-53]

We have taken to shooting the announcements on video in a more controlled environment, then playing them back at a predetermined time slot in the service.

We did that for a while. Don't know why they stopped.

 

[scooteraz]

Our normal Sunday services are timed to be about 1 hour. Communion services are about 10 min longer. We slot them 15 min apart starting at 9:00. There is a 10:15 and a 11:30. There is also a 0730 morning traditional service that occasionally goes about 1:15, more liturgy on communion Sundays in the traditional services. Sermons are timed to be 15-20 minutes.

I’ve done a lot of work away from home, and in some places there was not a Lutheran church. Well, at least not one that wasn’t ELCA (I think they stopped bein Lutheran years ago) so I have gone to other churches. When I was working I Taichung Taiwan, I attended a BBFI church that had an 1:30 service followed by a pot luck lunch followed by an afternoon praise music session with a mini sermon (like 5 min of teaching) thrown in the middle somewhere followed by folks just hanging out for a while. Hour for lunch, 1.5-2 hours for afternoon singing, up to an hour hanging out. I was truly blessed by that congregation. But not enough to give up on my Lutheran beliefs and become Baptist.
I went to a big Baptist church in Taipei with an evening praise service in English and that service usually went 2 hours. Only about 30-45 min of preaching. However, the praise team would stretch out one verse/one chorus songs to be about 50 times through the verse and 50 times through the chorus. Normal, slow, fast, loud, quiet, whispering, LOUD….you get the idea. Verse Chorus V-V-C-C- Sometime up to 5 repeats of the verse in a row, same for chorus. The last time I went there I had to leave 25 min into a 2.5 min song. For me the stopped being worshipful and was just about the team (or at least team leadership) virtue signaling their special piety. So that stretched out the service. Sad since it detracted from what could have been an amazing experience. I end up going to a Presby church whose pastor was quite Godly a Biblically sound, decent praise team the aided the congregation singing.

I think the length of the service matters less than the nature of the teaching and the fellowship. I’d rather listen to a well crafted sermon that is 5 min long with a good point than a rambling mess that goes 45min and more. So a great 30 minute worship with good fellowship after is better than 2.5 hours of aimless wandering. There is a lesson there somewhere, but it can be hard to find. That being said, the BBFI services and fellowship in Taichung were a special blessing.

 

[black_doug]

That being said, the BBFI services and fellowship in Taichung were a special blessing.

I haven’t there but I hear that God is doing great work in Taiwan.

There’s a retreat centre I’ve been to here which has a close connection to Taiwan. Most of the staff are from there and the counsellors go to Taiwan a couple of times a year to minister.