We have had a young house guest for the weekend. Following the success of her younger sisters visit a couple of weeks ago, she asked if she might attend church with us this morning.
I am a somewhat estrwhile attendedee these days - as I work for a Christian organisation as well as being involved with several ministries locally, I often find by Sundays I am rather churched out!
But today i knew there was to be a Christening, and so I was happy to accomodate.
We walked there as it was a beautiful sunny morning.
She asked some questions - what was church like? what would we do there/ who would be there?
I answered vaguely but with enthusiasm. She was interested and intrigued, as only an 8 year old can be, by the explanations of something she knows nothing about.
Then a series of questions which absolutely blew me away: Is God at church? Yes, i said, He is. How do you know? Have you seen Him? Me: well not seen, but I have felt him, like a warm breeze at the beach.
Reflective silence.
What's this christening thing? It's where we introduce a baby to God and tell the baby how special he is to us and to God.
Ok, so is God at church or is God everywhere? Me - well I think He is everywhere.
So why do we need to go to church then?
I had a moment of blind inspiration ( A god moment!!!). Well, you know how your Mum teaches people to dance? And you can dance anywhere right? But sometimes you want to go where you are will other people who are dancing, and where you can learn more about dancing. She nodded, she got that.
So, that's kind of like church. But instead of learning dancing we learn and think about God.
I was pretty proud of that answer.
But it made me realise - she is right. God is everywhere. And whilst I'm sure he is glad that we make an effort to turn up in church on a Sunday, if it's not part of what we do on a regular basis, he probably doesn't mind to much about that either.
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