{"id":3829,"date":"2011-07-06T06:05:19","date_gmt":"2011-07-06T10:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=3829"},"modified":"2011-07-06T06:05:19","modified_gmt":"2011-07-06T10:05:19","slug":"church-services-too-long-complains-british-bishop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/church-services-too-long-complains-british-bishop","title":{"rendered":"Church services too long, complains British bishop"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rev. Jonathan Gledhill, the Bishop of Lichfield, told a group of clergy in a speech in his London diocese this week that church services have become too long, recommending \u201cclergy should aim to keep the time of worship to no more than 50 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bishop continued to say that worship has become \u201ctoo complicated, leaving people who are not regular churchgoers feeling confused and excluded.\u201d<\/p>\n

“One of the reasons for our recent decline in churchgoing is we are not making the occasional worshipper feel welcome,” he said.<\/p>\n

“You have got to be quite tough to come to some of our services if you are not a regular attender. We’re praying for longer and we’re singing for longer.”<\/p>\n

Most religious leaders say Sunday morning church services already have to compete with shopping, lying in bed, or taking the day off, and the idea of spending two hours dedicated to worship is not very appealing in today\u2019s society.<\/p>\n

\n

CLICK HERE to read more<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rev. Jonathan Gledhill, the Bishop of Lichfield, told a group of clergy in a speech in his London diocese this week that church services have become too long, recommending \u201cclergy should aim to keep the time of worship to no more than 50 minutes.\u201d The bishop continued to say that worship has become \u201ctoo…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2204,1030],"class_list":["post-3829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","tag-christian","tag-church-services"],"yoast_head":"\nChurch services too long, complains British bishop<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/church-services-too-long-complains-british-bishop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Church services too long, complains British bishop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Rev. Jonathan Gledhill, the Bishop of Lichfield, told a group of clergy in a speech in his London diocese this week that church services have become too long, recommending \u201cclergy should aim to keep the time of worship to no more than 50 minutes.\u201d The bishop continued to say that worship has become \u201ctoo…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/church-services-too-long-complains-british-bishop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-06T10:05:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Church services too long, complains British bishop","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/church-services-too-long-complains-british-bishop","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Church services too long, complains British bishop","og_description":"The Rev. Jonathan Gledhill, the Bishop of Lichfield, told a group of clergy in a speech in his London diocese this week that church services have become too long, recommending \u201cclergy should aim to keep the time of worship to no more than 50 minutes.\u201d The bishop continued to say that worship has become \u201ctoo…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/church-services-too-long-complains-british-bishop","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-07-06T10:05:19+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/church-services-too-long-complains-british-bishop","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/church-services-too-long-complains-british-bishop","name":"Church services too long, complains British bishop","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-07-06T10:05:19+00:00","dateModified":"2011-07-06T10:05:19+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/church-services-too-long-complains-british-bishop#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/church-services-too-long-complains-british-bishop"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/church-services-too-long-complains-british-bishop#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Church services too long, complains British bishop"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3829"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3830,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3829\/revisions\/3830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}