Next week is the traditional [at least, at our church] "Puritan" Thanksgiving worship service. They worship in the style that congregants would have worshiped back in the late 1700's. Men and women have to sit on different sides of the church, even enter through separate doors. Instructions are distributed in advance for making Puritan "costumes," and people are encouraged to construct and wear same. No instruments are used, and all hymns [from the Psalms] are sung a cappella. I lead the music as "cantor", and for my pains am given a professional rented costume. There is even a bit of "congregational cacophony," where no tune is announced; each worshipper chooses their own hymn tune, and somewhere along the way they are supposed to be guided by Divine Providence into unison. [I cheat a bit, and it usually works]. I may post a picture, if I dare. Oh, and they read excerpts from actual sermons preached in the church back in the 1700's. They are mostly pretty deathly dull. The orignals ran to two hours; fortunately, we are treated to only 15-20 minute's worth.
