It’s Sunday. 10.50am and after a pretty heavy life of drink, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, and especially after the chemical fuelled experience that will forever be known as last night, you find God. You weren’t even looking for him, but in a strange sort of way, God enters your life. You woke up, and he was there. (some smug smart arse will later tell you that he has been there all your life. While this is true, there’s always some sanctimonious halfwit ready to spout Christian soundbites to the newly converted. Slap them. Blame it on a throwback to your former life and all will be forgiven. I’ll probably thank you.) Yet, as a special sort of calm descends over your life, and you finally realise what’s been missing, you decide to start afresh.
10:55am. After briefly saying thanks for your new life, you decide that you want to go to church. There’s a building at the end of your road that might be a church. Well, you think it’s a church. There’s a cross on the wall, but the only thing they ever seem to do is a good line in coffee mornings. Looking out the window you see a few people walking in a churchward direction, all carrying an A5 sized purple book. Thinking that this is probably the bible, you hope you can borrow one. (In the future you will realise that it’s a hymn book. Church of Scotland members don’t carry bibles.) You make yourself presentable, grab a handful of change for the collection and proceed with haste out the door. You are on a mission.
11:03am. You arrive at the church. Slightly late for the 11am service, you plan to slip in the door, slide into a pew and go un noticed. From the inside you hear an organ striking up a tune that’s familiar from childhood – something about all things being bright and beautiful – with vocal accompaniment by the purple book people.
11:04am and things are getting puzzling. The main door is shut and locked. The side door is similarly sealed. There isn’t even a window you can look through as they are too high and mostly obscured glass. There isn’t even a doorbell. Realising this probably isn’t the best church for you, you decide to go to the pub.
11:21am. On the way to the local hostelry, you walk past a church with the doors open. You slip in the back, while someone comes over, gives you one of the purple books, says hi and asks you to stay for a coffee afterwards. You realise you have landed.
And that’s almost but not quite based on real events. A local church has a nasty habit of closing the door as soon as the last person has arrived. 11:01am and the doors are shut and bolted, leaving latecomers to peep through the windows, or hope you can be let in when the Sunday School is turfed out. The justification is that “stuff might be stolen. We’ve had bags go missing.” And I know the actions of this local church are repeated elsewhere.
This is supposed to be the house of God. I know there’s a chance that things can be stolen, but you are not a Christian organisation if you only let in the converted, and only do that on a human timetable. God doesn’t work fixed hours, and I know of and have witnessed many occasions where people have turned to the church because they feel a need. If God lands in someone at 11:23, who are we to turn them away? We should be more open, and by leaving the doors wide, we should be visibly open. If you are worried about security, have an elder standing by, not as a patrol, but to welcome all visitors. Give them a hymn book, invite them for a brew and make sure they get a decent seat. What if you locked Jesus out of his Father’s house? Would he walk away, or kick the door down?
Because I’ve been locked out of a church once, and I can genuinely say that I was late because I was doing a bit of work for another congregation (and as a result, ultimately, working for God.) so I arrived as the first hymn started. Ultimately, it was an unpleasant little church, and I was glad to leave it, shaking the dust from my feet as I left.
But the next time God sends me to your church and I’m locked out, I will bang on the door until I am allowed to enter. For you do not know the day or the hour when the Master (or the Gerbil) will return.
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