Going To Church Again

Due to the nature of this blog, it’s not always clear what actually is going on in my life at any one time. I’ll have a thought about something, I’ll create a series about something else and only occasionally will the actual substance of significant aspects of my life emerge. That’s not a bad thing – it’s my blog after all. Yet I do find it good to update you on how things are, so here’s the update on a particular area.

Church.

I am passionate about the church, I love the church, I love studying the church, I love engaging in church and I love the fact that my entire spiritual development and understanding of who Jesus Christ is will only ever emerge in its fullness through the church. That of course doesn’t mean I won’t see Jesus elsewhere, He’s seen on TV through various programmes non-religious in nature, He’s in the newspapers, etc. Yet He has a Body that expresses who He is and that Body is the church. He is the head of that church.

OK so that should be clear about me and the church.

However.

For the best part of roughly 18 months I have not been an active member of a local expression of church. It would take another blog series to go through why that is and this is not the time for another blog series. I would love to share it with you and if God allows in the fullness of time, I will. So the apparent paradox is that I’ve grown in love with Jesus and have grown in a passion for the things of Christ including the Church … and yet I’ve not been living church effectively in 18 months. What’s that all about?

So whilst we’ve been in something of a holding pattern in that time, the desire has been there to connect to some expression of church. Perhaps not the same type expression we left, but definitely a community of believers with whom we can do life and grow in Christ.

Since I’ve been in Bletchley I know there is a Baptist church up the road. I’ve been meaning to visit it in quite some time, but have always managed to put it off for another week. You know the Procrastination Motto – I would tell you, but I’ll have to put it off for another time.

Anyway, finally yesterday I visited that Baptist church up the road. I took the older girls with me allowing the wife to recover from the strenuous labours of the week with the resting Zoë . So we went to the hall and it was 4/5ths full of people of varying ages all going through the regular nativity narrative. Not a problem with me. I may not celebrate Christmas, but the whole bit of how Jesus came to be is in the Bible so it’s worth celebrating.

The ever shy and retiring girls ran up to join other children of their age to sing a song that they had not prepared for. They got stuck into the whole arrangement for them and thankfully came across friends from their school. That was them sorted. As for me, I was comfortable sitting in the seat, singing the songs as they came on the screen and watching a wonderful performance of volunteers and the children. (Of course that’s not to say the volunteers did it for free and the children were paid … although with the amount of chocolate they were given, maybe the children are professionals.)

There wasn’t an overt sermon as such, just a little inspirational talk about Jesus coming into a mess because there’s something valuable in it worth restoring. It was a cosy service all in all. I’ve grown ever dissatisfied with spectator church, so the real bit for me was after all the bits and pieces were done. There I was able to make some fair connections with one or two others and the hospitality shown to me by the members was most welcoming.

There is something about the ritual of attending services that can work well in the psyche and in as much as I have no intention of letting my life sink into the lifeless routine of spectator church, I’m glad a positive step has been taken to engage in productive Christian community as the early signs indicate.

I look forward to sharing more of the story of the church exploration in the coming weeks and months.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

C. L. J. Dryden