Discussion Forum

I had to look and think about this as to be honest i really don't venture far as im normally there at church with at least 1 child with me, anyhow the frontage looks tidy and there are posters telling those that come past about what activity or celebration is coming to our church, the pathway leads us to the front door. Sometimes the door way is littered with smoking parafanalia, i am happy to assist in sweeping the area as i think it takes a congregation to look after a building not a single person. the clock is now working and the bells ringing, people are quick to notice when they stop but it does not encourage more to step through the door. I have as chaplain sat and listened to a man who visits a grave regularly, he just wanted chance to talk about life as it was, he talked about helping with maintaining the grounds and i let him know when our lovely man was about to see him as help in any form would be welcomed.

thinking about call and vocation, i see god working in creation, through the living and the dying and new life and in everything that i am surrounded by. God created the world as told in genesis and i see that by teaching my family about recycling and caring for their world we are following Gods teaching on looking after his creation. When thinking about the church, I see the building and it being a place that people can come together. The actual church i see are the people (the congregation)who come to worship and the people and families that come together to form a new family celebrating and worshipping God. God brings together people. We need to care for the world and the environment, without this we would not be able to live. God taught us in the beginning to care and recycling, looking after oceans, looking after other nations is also important to. God teaches us to love our neighbour as our self.

After reeding Mary and Marthas story it struck me that it was similar to mine and my wife jans church life. once we had joined our church we both went in differant directions Jan volunteered for everything helping at our mother and toddler group, lunch club, coffee rota you name it Jan would do it. I just wanted to learn it wasnt enough to read the bible i wanted to understand what it all meant. Things havent changed theres so much to learn, its fair to say we threw ourselves into church life.But the way we were welcomed in church was very different. people were very kind and encouraging towards me but Jan wasnt as lucky as me some people were very unkind to her. her willingness to help anyone who needed it was seen as her trying to take over. i cant explain why we recieved such differant treatment it would be nice to hearyour thoughts on this chris