If by ‘church’ we mean standing up and sitting down for an hour, singing a bunch of old songs and listening to a lecture on an ancient book that has no apparent relevance to the time and place we find ourselves in. I’d be bored too – and I’m a Priest. But that’s not what we mean by church.
What we gather together for, Sunday on Sunday, is an encounter with and experience of God who is very much alive and speaking into our lives, personally and as a community. We read the bible because it’s the human stories of ordinary people who, like us, tried to wrap their head around the mystery and the meaning of being alive. We’ve found some of that meaning and entered that mystery a little deeper by following a person called Jesus, who spoke in everyday language about a God we can know and enjoy a relationship with. By encountering God together, we find help for the very real problems of forgiving those who’ve hurt us; finding peace in our quickly changing lives and working together to improve the world around us that seems in such need.
Maybe you too are seeking answers, exploring spirituality and want to make a difference, but you’ve been put off church because you think it’s that boring out-of-touch place I mentioned. Can I encourage you to ask God – who is in everyone’s life – to lead you to experience him and then come along and see what happens. I can promise you that God is anything but boring.
Rev. Lee Johnston (Curate, Christ Church Lanark)
