Talking During Worship

I first noticed this phenomenon many years ago in a Methodist chapel near Milton Keynes. Chatting during a service. I'm not talking about whispering furtively at the back.Two people just broke off from paying attention and started talking loudly about a young female villager who was "no better than she should be." During the reading of the Gospel. With only twelve people in the congregation.

And I fell to wondering what to do about it. I believe the more mainstream denominations suffer from this most with people who've received communion, while others who've received. It can't be great, kneeling to receive Our Lord's gift to us while in the background you can here Elsie talking about her rheumatics, or Brian spelling out how many pints he had last night.

And we have the same problem during our more sacred moments. Lifting the Great Tea Light for all to wonder at the dancing flame the other day, I heard "So I've tried TCP but I might need to try that Arsenal instead." Distracting, irreverent and possibly dangerous.

So we've been experimenting with some possibilities. One is getting the Beaker Band to play so loudly that nobody can hold a conversation. But this can only work during moments of silence.

Or there's the "naming and taming (but not shaming)" method. This is where the leader stops the whole thing, points at the chatterers and accuses them of possessing a spirit of gossip. Ideally at this point a few big blokes will remove the people with a yacking problem and remove them to a soundproof booth to await the arrival of the local exorcist.

Then there's the possibility of wiring sound-detectors  into the sprinkler system, and dumping a gallon of water on the offenders. Of course, when we tried this we ran into a problem during the "cream cracker service". It's no fun as it is getting a dry cracker sticking to the back of your throat. But getting a bucket of water over your head when you try to attract help is adding insult to injury.

But in the end, you can't beat fitting ejector seats. Any gossip goes on these days, we just deposit the offenders in the field outside. One of these days we really must fit a retracting roof - it's costing us a fortune in tiles and plaster.