Part 3 – Church Service

This is very interesting to hear about. Church service is an act of worship, a preservation of tradition, a restoration of faith, and an affirmation of community. As stated before, church services are done in the Amish families homes throughout the entire house. The men and women with children are separated into different rooms of the home. The Amish mothers are normally in the rooms that their children are in along with grandmothers and sometimes aunts.

The Church service normally last about three hours. Yes, I said 3 hours. Worship begins around 8:00 am. There is not just one preacher, normally there are between 3 to 5 preachers and a bishop. They normally start with a prayer for everyone in the house and then a song. The songs are sung from the Ausbund, which is a Hymnal that is used by all of the Amish. This Hymnal was started over 500 years ago. It has had revisions which now makes it over 500 pages. Most of them are written in High German.

We will continue this next Sunday.

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