Categories: uncategorized
Date: 10 August 2008 08:00:57
Well, today is the last time Third Party and I will be attending HBBC as regulars. So I thought I'd, briefly, have a go at summing up why the last 8 years there have been at times hard and painful, but generally really good.
It's greatest strength is that in some way or another most people there are or have at some point in their lives been atleast slightly dysfunctional. This means they try really, really, really hard to do things "properly" but somehow it still all ends up having a slightly Monty Python feel to it. However, it also means that when you need it somebody is generally there for you who doesn't necessarily know what you're going through but does know what it is to need a friend.
It's a really diverse church where there are the full range of opinions on most things but somehow a generally happy medium is reached which kind of suits everybody and nobody at the same time and so works (or at times stuggles to work) because of this. I think this is one of the reasons, unfortunately, the place is so risk adverse.
It's a church which supports mission and encourages people to get involved in stuff with organisations beyond the church. However, as with many churches it struggles with getting people to do some of the week in week out basic jobs that need doing.
It's a slightly eccentric, fluffy church full of people with generally good hearts who believe "good" theology, but then end up realising real life doesn't work like that and so end up being more inclusive in practice than they are in theory (or in what they say). It's one of those places you need to look more at what they do than what they say. It's also one of those places which perhaps needs to rethink their mission strategy, (urrrggghhh - I hate terms like that), in terms of working out how to be what they are rather than what they say to the local community.
It's a church which 8 years ago started a journey with a young lady who was new in town and, at that point, had got to the stage of thinking it was easier to be rejected by the church for being a bit obnoxious than allowing herself to fully belong and then getting to the stage of being rejected for any other reason that might emerge. Instead of rejecting or marginalising her they simply loved the heck out of her and her young daughter helping the faith of both develop. They welcomed her into the church household and allowed her to basically "grow up and get a life". As such that, now not so young, lady will be eternally greatful to God for leading her to that church and to the ministers and people she has encountered there.