Missing church

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 16 January 2005 11:46:36

To-day there is to be one of those 'churches together ...' type services, not in our own church. I know that I'm sounding dismally parochial, but I rather doubt that the organisers have really thought about how to incorporate families with young children, and we're staying at home. I honestly don't think that I could cope with an unfamiliar building, in an unfamiliar location, with, I suppose, an unfamiliar order of service - maybe even an unfamiliar interpretation of what it means to be a Christian.

But I'll try to make good use of the time by tackling head-on an issue which has been rumbling inside my head for a while. And it isn't just me - the bible reading notes which I use seem to be insisting on the importance of Christian fellowship - that none of us is expected to stand alone as a Christian. The problem is that attending church does not automatically mean that one is enjoying Christian fellowship (by my understanding of what that means). The notes recognise that it is possible to have 'only superficial contact with those we enjoy fellowship with on Sundays'. I'm being exhorted to find out what people do for the rest of the week, while the church service is designed to make it as difficult to achieve that aim as possible. Talking in church - what a horrifying thought! So should I try to read the minds of me fellow worshippers? Of course, there's coffee afterwards - but Sunday is emphatically the only day of the week that I have coffee just before lunch. Could we have coffee before the service (tentatively)? And the atmosphere of post-service coffee isn't helpful - if you're lucky you get one conversation - and I suppose that it's OK if I simply ignore the antics of the 'young people' - am I making myself clear?

So, this autumn, I tried to join a home group. Friday evenings. But, if I'm 'good', and get the bus to work, then I can't get home and back out again in time. So I spend a lonely hour or so finding something to eat. And how am I going to get home once the session is over? There aren't many buses at that time in the evening. Maybe I'll get offered a lift. But in that case shouldn't I have taken the car in the first place? So you can preach at me to leave my car at home, or you can preach at me that I should be attending home group, but you can't do both. Anyway, by Friday evening I'm simply too tired to engage in anything meaningful.

I'm thinking that maybe I should be attending the men's prayer breakfast, which takes place on Saturday mornings. Hurrah! the only morning in the week when I can get up not facing a deadline - gone. The principle of the Sabbath - that every human being needs, at some stage, to rest - that must take second place to the requirement that churches are never quite satisfied with what you have to offer.

But I'm serious. Either I drag along with the status quo, accepting that I simply do without genuine Christian fellowship, or I bite the bullet and hand over my early Saturday morning to the church. In the hope that what happens there does constitute Christian fellowship. I simply don't know what to do.