When I first moved I carried on going to the Church I joined a few years before. The members are friendly the preaching challenging and I have always felt very comfortable there. Maybe that was part of the problem, perhaps I felt too comfortable and it was too easy for me to take and not give. Well after over a year living back in Croydon I thought it was time to start investigating more local Churches. I feel that I should be worshiping in the community that I live, and that I should be using the talents God has given me to help build His Kingdom where He has put me. Well all this has meant that I am not part of a Church at the moment, the summer has been busy and all too often it has been all too easy not to go to any Church at all, when I don't have to. I have slipped and I have missed it.
This Sunday I had not had a gig the night before, I didn't have a late night so no excuse! Add to that a good friend of mine was preaching at his Church on the subject of sexuality and gender identity. Since he is a friend, and he invited me to come and hear him talk I assumed that the talk would be positive, so I planned on going. Then on the Friday evening I found myself playing as a guest at a concert with the Minister of that Church, so I really had to go.
I am pleased to say that I found the whole experience very positive, it is a Church where I have a few friends so I wasn't a total stranger but was made to feel very welcome, but more to the point I was very impressed to find a "middle of the road" Church of England Parish Church in a very white middle class area addressing these issues. They are doing a series of sermons on Difficult Questions and quite clearly the C of E has found human sexuality a big question since it has been struggling for decades with it. My friends main point was that rather than have any sort of knee jerk reaction as Christians we should stop consider what the Bible really says , look at context, question translation and contemplate how our attitude and actions reflect Christ's love. I had quite a long chat with a few people afterwards, and ended up by offering to go along and have an informal chat and do a question and answer session if enough people were interested.
I came away from the service feeling very positive about the C of E, and the state of Christianity, unfortunately it is not the Churches like this that get the publicity, it is the ranters, the extremist wing that get the publicity and the attention. Maybe this sort of thing can help Christians understand how the vast majority of Muslims feel when their faith is portrayed as hate filled! ~ but that's another subject.
I do feel that things are moving the General Synod passed a very positive motion and there is a strong movement towards an authorised liturgy for marking transition. A while back I did go to a ceremony at a local Church celebrating a friends transition and change of name, that was a very positive experience involving the whole Church family, as far as I am concerned to have an authorised liturgy for something like this can only help. I also have to reflect that this may be the only area of life where the T is getting a better response than the LGB.
Anyway the whole series of sermons can be found here at the time of writing the latest hasn't yet been posted, but it will be!
This Sunday I had not had a gig the night before, I didn't have a late night so no excuse! Add to that a good friend of mine was preaching at his Church on the subject of sexuality and gender identity. Since he is a friend, and he invited me to come and hear him talk I assumed that the talk would be positive, so I planned on going. Then on the Friday evening I found myself playing as a guest at a concert with the Minister of that Church, so I really had to go.
I am pleased to say that I found the whole experience very positive, it is a Church where I have a few friends so I wasn't a total stranger but was made to feel very welcome, but more to the point I was very impressed to find a "middle of the road" Church of England Parish Church in a very white middle class area addressing these issues. They are doing a series of sermons on Difficult Questions and quite clearly the C of E has found human sexuality a big question since it has been struggling for decades with it. My friends main point was that rather than have any sort of knee jerk reaction as Christians we should stop consider what the Bible really says , look at context, question translation and contemplate how our attitude and actions reflect Christ's love. I had quite a long chat with a few people afterwards, and ended up by offering to go along and have an informal chat and do a question and answer session if enough people were interested.
I came away from the service feeling very positive about the C of E, and the state of Christianity, unfortunately it is not the Churches like this that get the publicity, it is the ranters, the extremist wing that get the publicity and the attention. Maybe this sort of thing can help Christians understand how the vast majority of Muslims feel when their faith is portrayed as hate filled! ~ but that's another subject.
I do feel that things are moving the General Synod passed a very positive motion and there is a strong movement towards an authorised liturgy for marking transition. A while back I did go to a ceremony at a local Church celebrating a friends transition and change of name, that was a very positive experience involving the whole Church family, as far as I am concerned to have an authorised liturgy for something like this can only help. I also have to reflect that this may be the only area of life where the T is getting a better response than the LGB.
Anyway the whole series of sermons can be found here at the time of writing the latest hasn't yet been posted, but it will be!
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