Dear Antikathistas,

First let me say that I do not mind the shortening of the name, though I do think if we shortened to many other names on the board it might get difficult to keep track of, so I just use Copy and Paste when responding to someone with their name.

Thank you for your reply, and I thank the other guys that have made replies here. I was curious what denomination you were, I didn't catch that.

As for me, I attend a Southern Baptist church with a Pastor who's been there 33 years and who preaches from what I would probably call a Landmark Baptist stance if I understand it right, and who uses the Faith and Message almost word for word in difficult issues. He's also Kentuckian (we only just got him to wear normal shoes instead of Cowboy boots within the last decade, and that only a few days out of the year). I respect him and his long standing record, but the church is more likely to do what he says than to publically disagree or advise/ask for something different/right.

Our order of service (First Service) is a song played on the organ as during which the staff and 1 or 2 deacons of the week walk in from a side door to take their specific seats on the stage. Our YOuth minister gives a greeting, the ushers pass out visitors cards, and then we have about a minute where we shake each others hands. We follow that with our senior pastor giving the prayer request and having an alter prayer time. Our youth minister (or Assoc. Pastor if we had one) reads the scripture passage our senior pastor (or who ever is speaking) will be preaching from and leads us in a prayer. Then we have the offretory hymn and a followed by a couple of comments about why we should give, then a prayer from either the deacon of the week, the music minister or (occaisionally) one of the ushers. WE sit down, they pass the plates (for money, prayer request and visitors cards). We sing three more songs, we get a solo, we hear the message and then the preacher gives an invitation and just randomly calls on someone to pray our dismissal prayer. For the most part the congregation tries to stay as far back as they can, and none of them takes notes. I've not talked to our music minister to see what his theological stances are, though I suspect that he's at least a little bit more Calvinistic than our senior and former associate pastors. The songs never seem to have any particular rhyme or reason behind them, they're just random I think, whatever gets picked out on a whim that the organist and pianist can play.

Anyway, that's what we do.

Thanx again all of you for posting.

-Brother Luke