Back to Church

I'm told some churches find 'Back to Church Sunday' terribly successful, and make a great effort for the last Sunday in September to invite people who may not have been to worship for ages, or are on the fringes. I'm told.

At 8am yesterday I confronted a church containing 9 people. As I told them, and was rewarded by rueful smiles, Back to Church Sunday seemed in danger of becoming Stay Away From Church Sunday. If that title hadn't been claimed by all the others.

Thankfully at 10am some people did indeed come Back to Church. We had more than a dozen children and over a hundred people all told, including two young men who came in on their own and sat at the back - 'Roman Catholics' I instantly concluded but they turned out to be a local window cleaner and his Estonian houseguest. Instead of preaching I talked through the Eucharist stage by stage which people seemed really to appreciate. It's always struck me that I only knew anything about why the liturgy was the way it was because of studying 19th century church history at college, and then had nothing in the way of instruction until I got to vicar school, so how are the laity supposed to work it out?

It all went on a bit, but wasn't unsuccessful.