Column for Kirwan Uniting Church's "Keep in Touch" newsletter 17 March 2019

The problem with extrapolating a parish newsletter article to the Web, is that folk will read it who haven't got the foggiest whom I'm talking about when I reference local people or events. So just let your imagination conjure up the context. For example:

Young Hugo Palu-Shepperson came along to the Friday evening youth activity at the manse last Friday, replete with rugby ball.  If you don’t know Hugo, he’s a very lovely 2yo. who has brought much joy to KUC. A lot of that joy is his uninhibited habit of wandering around the church during a service, helping out the musos (especially Peter Ireland, whose guitar holds especial fascination).

A couple of thoughts come to mind, one structured, the other not. Jesus says become like a little child, just taking for granted that you’re part of God’s family (Luke 18, vv15 - 17). And that everyone else is in the family, so everyone else is your family.  The unstructured thought (this is Ramblings, remember) is that we sit in our nice ordered rows on Sunday, standing up to sing; sometimes, some of us, dancing a little jig for a jiggable song. Eastern Orthodox christians wander around the church during a service, kissing icons, as they feel like it even at the most solemn times of those long, solemn Orthodox eucharists. Peter has a less restricted/restrictive service on the second Sunday evening of each month. There’s much study and experiment of so-called Fresh Expressions of church, including “Messy Church”, where activities which aren’t on the face of it religious or spiritual, precede or are interspersed with all-age worship.

I guess it’s all part of recognising that worship need not be understood only as a formal, what-we’re-used-to, Sunday event, but it permeates all aspects of our lives just as the God whom we worship permeates every aspect of those lives.  Thankyou Hugo  -  “A little child shall lead them”  (Isaiah 11 v6).