Over Christmas, Radio 2 broadcast a Christmas message from one of their chaplains. During the course of the broadcast, the chaplain quoted he would like to see people “being church Monday to Saturday and taking Sunday off” rather than as many people do living the other way round.
Although it was made clear that the chaplain wasn’t advocating the idea of taking a day ‘off’ from God, that message does capture a feeling within both Christians and non-Christians in the UK that togetherness, community and searching for a greater meaning is not limited to the weekends.
Especially in the last couple of years, churches across Britain are starting to realise that it is not possible to continue simply waiting for people to come to them, but instead that churches will have to go and meet people where they are. In a post-modern society this is often not on a Sunday morning.
As a result new ideas have sprung up, for example the concept of ‘Messy Church’ where families worship on a weekday through creating art together. There are alternatives such as forming church groups in the workplace not just as support groups, but so that working in an office or on the shopfloor can also become worship and therefore church.
The realisation is that church is no longer just about where we can go, but where we are at.
