Tower and Town, April 2015 (view the full edition)Why Do I Go To Church?I was asked the other day why I went to church. A question to which, at the time, I gave some suitably glib answer. But it set me thinking, really thinking... Just why do I go to church? Let me admit that I am infrequent in my attendance at formal church services. I am not comfortable in worshipping en masse and I don't do happy-clappy. I go when the spirit moves me... I go when I have the time... I go when it suits me... all trite excuses, I know, that are without good reason and even less substance. Nevertheless I do go to church. So why do I bother to go at all? Well, my parents were upright, honest and God-loving folk; I was brought up a caring Christian, and we attended church on a pretty regular basis. Then at my preparatory school in the 1940s chapel was compulsory, as it was a bit later at Marlborough College. Old habits die hard, and so you might say that 'going to church is in my blood to some extent'. I am now in my late seventies and so why do I physically go to church? Basically, I go to escape the world for a few minutes. We live in such times of haste and stress and anger, of greed and famine, of war and want, of noise and turmoil, of disrespect and indiscipline, and of unspeakable cruelty... every so often I feel the need to find sanctuary and reflect upon those things about which I can do very little. That sanctuary happens to be my church, be it in the building itself or in the beautiful, tranquil grounds that surround St George's. Here I gain peace, experience true quiet, spend time in thought and try to put things in proper, reasoned perspective. Above all, and unaccountably, I feel able to share my concerns, spill the beans, get things off my chest. My church is constant: it has ever been staple in my life and although my visits there are a bit haphazard I know it is there for me both now and for always. I feel attached to my church as if by an umbilical cord. What a blessed comfort that is. Thank you, Lord. Robert Macmillan |