I guess we’ve often heard this, and said it, and in our heads we know its true. But I see in myself - and I’m sure I’m not the only one - that in my heart the church building is a pretty big part of our experience of church!
Where we used to live, one of our Churches met in the Community Hall on the housing estate. The youngsters of the families that came referred to it as ‘The Church’ as that was their experience of that building – it was where the church met that they attended.
For the last few years during the winter we’ve held some services in buildings other than our parish Churches (or in the Vestry) just to be a bit warmer and save the cost of heating.
But as I write this year, 4 out of our 5 churches are not meeting this winter where they usually do. Bolnhurst is meeting in The Old School which is especially popular with its real open fire! Ravensden meets in the Vestry during the winter. And in early January, Wilden’s faithful old oil heater broke down, so we had Evensong in the Vestry and expect to do this until the weather warms up hopefully by Easter as its late this year (20th April) as we’re consulting on a completely new heating system of some sort.
At Colmworth for the last 3 winters we’ve had a January Sunday at the Chapel. But with more pieces of masonry falling off Colmworth Parish Church, the path had to be blocked off too before Christmas. And just last weekend we reluctantly took the tough decision to close off access through the churchyard and to the church whilst we re-configure a safe path route through the churchyard and into the church. We are grateful to the Chapel for welcoming us to join them for our St Denys Colmworth services whilst this process goes through.
And yet we have learnt a lot from worshipping in different places. The smaller settings have enhanced our singing and fellowship and therefore our worship. We have enjoyed what had seemed to be disruption and benefited from it.
Despite what I said at the beginning of this article, I realise I have referred to our churches mainly as the building. And yet as people we’ve still been able to meet and worship God in different places. Our Mediaeval Listed buildings are an amazing testimony to the faith and generosity of our forbears. But the church is the people and not the buildings. And I know we’ll learn a lot through these enforced times of being displaced. And we still welcome all to join us at our services and events. We would ask though you keep an eye on our posters and website to find where the church might be meeting in the next month or so. And it may not be in the usual building…
Timothy Wilson
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