For those of you who love church, we thought you might like to know what church life was like in the 70’s. In the 70’s,  church took up most of your day. When the Bible says to take one day off a week to rest and recharge from your weekly work routine, you certainly did.

At 10am it was an hour of Sunday School. You had a 15 minute open session with everyone in attendance to sing some toe-tapping, youth-focused, Christian choruses, learn new songs, welcome first-time guests, and hand out prizes to people who brought the most people with them to Sunday School. After the open session everyone made their way to their specific classrooms where you’d pick up your colourful weekly Sunday School flyer packed games, quizzes, artwork and articles about growing up strong in the faith. The Sunday School teacher would engage everyone in a lively discussion about life with Christ. At 10:50, the bell would ring and everyone would make their way to the auditorium for the 11am worship service. 

Morning worship service would begin with the pastor coming on the stage and turning his back to the people he would kneel down at one of the chairs on the stage and pray for God to help them have a good service, and for new people to take the important step of acknowledging their sin and receiving God’s free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. The atmosphere was electric. In the early 70’s the western world was in the middle of a revival that was sweeping the youth of the day. Many long-haired hippies were finding Jesus and began walking away from drugs and alcohol, and starting a new life toward holiness and evangelism (sharing the faith). The focus was on Christ’s soon return to take His bride (church folk) with Him to heaven. Every day felt like, “This could be the day!” Evangelists like Billy Graham were packing stadiums all around the world as he led his multi-day crusades sharing the wonderful message of hope and transformation through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Christians had their own cafes where various speakers and Christian music artists would frequent and share the Good News of Christ. While folk singers and folk groups were getting a lot of air-time on radio and at cafes, Christian rock groups were beginning to emerge. Notable Christian rock artists like Larry Norman, Randy Stonehill, Phil Keagy and Keith Green began captivating the hearts of young people. They were promoting a full-on, ‘pedal-to-the-metal’ walk with Jesus Christ. Watch the movie’s Woodlawn and Jesus Revolution to get a greater sense of the times back then.

In the 70’s, big screens in church auditoriums hadn’t come on the scene yet, churches used hymn books to help people follow the worship leader. They would begin with some happy, upbeat hymns then slowly shift toward slower more worshipful hymns. Sometimes the worship leader would take time to tell the history of the song, or take a minute to read the poignant lyrics of a specific verse of a song. This made the worship service richer and more meaningful.

After the welcome and announcements they would have someone or a couple come and sing a special song they’d prepared for the service. 

After that they would ask someone from the congregation to stand up and lead a 1 or 2 minute long prayer for those who were struggling, for upcoming events, and for the community at large.

The sermon was 30 minutes or so, and would always close with the pastor weaving the Gospel message in at the end. At the very end he would ask everyone to bow their heads and close their eyes. He would then ask if there was anyone who wanted to receive Christ as Saviour, or a healing touch from God to raise their hand. The would close with a prayer and a final hymn. 

Following the service, people would stay and chat for 20 minutes or more. Those who could afford it would go out for lunch, usually at Swiss Chalet.

After a lazy afternoon people would come back to church for the 6pm service. The evening service was similar to the morning service but with more of an evangelistic emphasis. At the end of the service they would invite people to the altar to ask God for greater insight on the topic discussed during the service. People would pray for each other. Prayers were lifted to heaven for healings of physical ailments. People’s faith level was super high, there was no limit to what God would do for them. The time spent at the altar were the most moving parts of the service. Following the service, people would often go out to a restaurant for a coffee and enjoy each other’s company.

This was a typical Sunday. On Wednesday evenings there was Bible study and prayer. 

Consequently, with all this ‘God time’ in people’s week, this helped mature people quickly in their faith.

In addition, once a year or so the church would invite an evangelist to hold week long or 4 day long meetings at the church in the evenings. These were gifted individuals able to effectively share the blessings of living a life completely committed to the Lord Jesus Christ.

On top of that there were parachurch ministries like The Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship that had monthly meetings for men to hear testimonies of business men whose lives had been dramatically changed through Jesus Christ. Women had monthly Women Aglow meetings they could attend. 

In addition, in the month of August our church would get permission to hold outdoor church services at a mall parking lot, where people could enjoy an evening church service in the comfort of their own vehicle. Every service would end with an invitation to come to Christ. 

If you belonged to a larger church, you had the opportunity to join their Bus Ministry. The bus ministry was responsible for picking up children in the community for Sunday School. Some churches had as many as 20 busses. On the Saturday before, each bus would have volunteers knock on the doors of homes on their route to see who wanted a ride to Sunday School the following day. 

There you have it. That was church in the 70’s. Hope you enjoyed going back in time to see how church was done back in the day.