Not sure what to think

 For some while now we — Tony (my husband) and me — have been in search of a place we both wanted to worship.

I was very happy in Methodism, and Tony gave it a really good go but never felt quite at home there. That wasn't why I left, but the reasons for that make a story best left to sink to the bottom of the sea.

For a while we worshipped in a very high Anglican Church — all incense and processions. Again it wasn't Tony's thing (at all) but he was willing to go there if that was what I wanted. I liked it, but after I got ill, and wasn't well enough to drive for a long time, the bus times were wrong so I tried a nearer church (Methodist, and had to leave, see paragraph above).

For a couple of years, of course, we ran our own expression of church on Facebook — The Campfire Church that we started when the UK went into Covid lockdown, and it just kept going until more or less everyone had found physical communities to join again.

More recently we went to a low Anglican church — the old-fashioned kind of Evangelical rather than the charismatic sort. Tony felt comfortable enough with that, but I didn't really fit in. At all. There was a darling couple whose house group we went to, really dear people, and I did like the music in the church, though it was all on a karaoke machine, they didn't have any musicians. But it was okay.

Tony wanted to go to church with me rather than finding separate places to go, and I was running out of ideas.

In an ideal world what I'd like is either cathedral worship or to tack onto the worship of a monastery, but neither of those options present where I live. I went once to an Eastern Orthodox service, and found it very beautiful, but I think I'm a bit more informal than that.

I worshipped with the Quakers for a year or so when I first moved back to Hastings, but though I loved the silence I missed the music — and for me Jesus is central, where I think for Quakers these days it's more a meditative political kind of thing. Beautiful in its way, but not really me.

So in the last few weeks we've been going to a church where Tony is really happy — he absolutely loves it, says it feels like coming home.

It's very hip and trendy. Very ethnically diverse. A loud band — the whole place thumps like it was having a heart attack as we approach on a Sunday morning. There are lots of kiddies. The pastor is a very good preacher — the best we've come across in recent years by a long way. Women are allowed to preach as well, which is refreshing. They stick to a spiritual message and don't turn it into a party political broadcast of sorts, which comes as a relief.

The shape of the liturgy is interesting. At the beginning everyone stands up and there is a long time of singing, very repetitive songs with indeterminate tunes in the modern idiom. At some point there's an offering (with card machines!) while the singing goes on and on. Sometimes there will be a prayer put up on the screens for us all to say together. Then there's always a sermon, quite long, usually good. Then there's more singing and an altar call for people who want to be prayed with individually.

At some point there are detailed notices about the life of the church.

Now then — this rocked me back a bit. Last Sunday we went to church and it was the week of the Hastings Half Marathon, so the service was ending early in order for the congregation to go and cheer on the runners as they passed along the nearby sea road.

So there were lengthy and interesting notices about big things coming up to do with a huge programme for restoring the building, and the church had found a goodnatured and cheerful way of encouraging the wild posse of children who attend to walk in church rather than racing round like the Gadarene swine, so that was in the notices too.

There was long long long long singing as usual. Not songs I knew and hard to distinguish one from the other, but hey, that's fine. 

There was a competent (not brilliant) sermon about principles of prayer, based on the passage about Abraham's servant choosing Rebekah as a wife for Isaac.

Some more singing and an opportunity for those who wanted prayer. At that point, as they were about to all clatter off to the sea road and cheer on the runners, I went and got a bus home because I'm not good at long standing (one reason why Orthodox worship doesn't work for me).

So that was all okay except... well... hello? Hadn't they missed something out? Like, any mention whatsoever that it was Passion Sunday.

I still can't get my head around that really.

The week before was Mothering Sunday, and that was marked — nothing about Jerusalem or that it was Laetare Sunday and how it fits into Lent, but daffs for the kiddies to give out to all the women. Women! "Uh-oh," I said to Tone, "let's see how this goes." I mean we live in a world where even our illustrious leaders can't commit to any certainty of what a woman is. Sure enough, one of the kiddies gave Tony a bunch of daffs. "Told you so," I said.

Anyway that was all well and good, but for Passion Sunday to come and go without even a passing glance? Seriously?

I'm not too sure what I think about that.

At Wild Church we thought about spring and nature and new beginnings and the equinox, but that was fair enough — the folk at Wild Church are barely clinging onto Christianity by their fingernails, more into politics really.

But the C of E on Passion Sunday and no sign at all they even knew? Am I in the right place? 

I'm tired of leaving things, I'd love to find somewhere to belong. That was why I started writing stories of course — the community my heart was looking for. So I can still do that.

This is what I would have wanted to sing, on Sunday morning.

Or this (the words of the song are given under the video).