Sally's Service

"Church," said 15-year-old Sally Moore to the vicar, "is dull and boring. What you need is something slick and simple and to the point." Replied the Rev. Richard Coote, 37, of the Church of All Saints in Birmingham, England: "Produce it." And Sally did.

Sally Moore (her father is a medical technician) spent a week rewriting the Church of England's evening service, "in ordinary, everyday words, cutting out all the 'thines' and 'thous' and long, old-fashioned phrases. I cut out the psalms too, because I don't believe teen-agers understand them." Last week Sally's service was held in All Saints after the usual congregation of about 60 adults had heard the regular evensong. More than 200 adolescents packed the church ten minutes early, and while they waited for the service to begin the organ warmed them with what Sally called a "really nice and significant song"--Frankie Laine's My Friend. And before the first hymn, All hail the power of Jesus' name, Vicar Coote warned the congregation: "The organist has been ordered to play fast. Make sure you keep up." At the end of the service, Vicar Coote promised to repeat the experiment. "I'm a square myself," said he, "but my tastes don't matter if Sally's service brings teen-agers to church."

In her teen-age adaptation, Sally forbore to touch the Lord's Prayer ("every teen-ager understands that"), but nothing else escaped her busy blue pencil. Sally's rendering of the Apostle's Creed:

I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God; I believe that He came down to earth from heaven, healed the sick, helped the poor, and preached about His Father. I believe that He was taken and crucified on a wooden cross. That nails were driven through His hands and feet unmercifully, and that He suffered without measure as He died. I believe that after three days He rose again. Showing the world that He was indeed the Son of God; and I believe that all this happened for us that we might all believe in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and three in one and one in three.

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