We have something for everyone (to get grumpy about)

I noticed one or two bloggers getting rather over-excited about Saddleback church in California where worshippers have a range of services to go to, everything from a country music service (“Country music, boots, and buckles are all part of this worship experience“) to a Spanish service (“La alabanza y el mensaje son en Español. Si su familia es bilingüe la traducción del mensaje será disponible en inglés por medio de audífonos*.“) and lots more besides.

The thinking behind the grumpiness is, I think, that such a setup splits people up rather than bringing them together.

But surely every church does this. In your typical Anglican church in the UK for instance you will usually have at least 3 or 4 of the following:

8am communion service for those who like to get up early
9.30/10/10.30/11am Eucharist/Communion/Mass
Family service
Evensong
Yoofth service
1662 Book of Common prayer service
Some sort of modern worship band led praise service
Midweek communion usually at 10 or 11 am on something like a Wednesday
…not to mention splitting people up into agegroups for different things.

So what Saddleback are doing is no different really, except that we don’t give our services little logos, mainly because we’re not that good on the computer. I don’t think the phenomenon is peculiar to large churches, evangelical churches or any other one genre. So if anyone can explain the reason for the excitement I’d be most happy to hear it.

*I’ve no idea.

Update:
There has been further discussion in the comments on The Parish blog, and now a post entitled ‘Answering Dave’s Good Question‘. That’s because I asked a good question you see.