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Bulletin 127 Date : 9th Mar 2008
Church is for life …

You have no doubt been stuck behind one of those cars with a sticker in the back window which says, ‘A dog is for life, not just for Christmas’. Well equally true would be the slogan, ‘Church is for life, not just for Sundays’. But how many churchgoers in Britain think that way today?

We all know that church-going has dropped out of the life-style of most people in Britain and since the relaxation of the Sunday Trading laws, people don’t struggle with their conscience so much about how they spend their Sundays. It leaves an ever diminishing band of dedicated people with the task of keeping things at church going.

So how should church affect the other six days of the week? In what ways should people’s lives be changed by their church-going experience?

For me, it is vitally important to commit all that I do to God in prayer. I tend to sit quietly early on Monday morning and pray through my diary for the week, committing every meeting and every conversation I am likely to have, every person I am to meet into the hands of God. Isn’t it reassuring to know, as you start a meeting or conversation, that it has already been surrounded in prayer and that the Spirit of God is already at work?

I went to a meeting at a Fresh Expression of Church recently. I was tired and it was a struggle to pray beforehand and yet I asked God, in a simple prayer, to do for us more than we could expect or deserve. During that meeting, a young lad from the community joined us. While the rest of us were engaging with the material, this young lad was holding a parallel conversation with one of the female leaders. ‘What bad manners’, some might say. But when you realise that this lad’s mother walked out on him and his family when he was four and that he has had no ‘mother figure’ to talk to for seventeen years since, this was God’s healing at work.

And then there’s the surprise phone call from a friend who shares bad news after a visit to the doctor; the irritating email from someone who has taken the huff over something quite trivial; the misunderstanding or the argument over the details of a forthcoming event; the questions and doubts which surround faithful churchgoers at difficult times in their lives. All of these need a greater sensitivity and openness to the work of the Spirit than we would naturally give. But thanks to prayer, God is at work in all of them.

I sometimes wonder how many of Jesus’ encounters with folks were less dramatic than they appear in the gospel narratives. When the woman touched the hem of His garments, were the whole crowd ‘rubber-necking’ to see what was happening or did Jesus take her to one side, away from the public gaze and speak lovingly and reassuringly to her? How many situations that we face day by day are in fact minor miracles waiting to happen, if only we will look at life through God’s eyes?

Yes, church is for life, not just for Sundays. It’s that time of worship and communion with God in the company of other faithful people that can equip us for the unknown challenges of the rest of the week and the opportunity to be like Jesus to the world around us.