A Good meeting!

A Good Church Meeting?

I entered the hall,

it was full of mingling people.

Groups of happy smiling cheerful souls.

A man sat at a table and called the meeting to order,

he welcomed me as he had all others.

I felt at home, among friends,

yet strangers.

The chairperson spoke with a genuine fervour

of the aims and purpose of their being there.

Others spoke, of how they had been brought

 from dark to light.

Each, one then another,

told of the Good News.

How far they had fallen, 

but now they were back and the way ahead looked good.

I spoke as I had so oft before.

Aware of the love that filled the room.

I was uplifted,

I was refreshed and renewed.

I left that hall as if soaring on the wings of eagles.

A new purpose in each stride.

Oh, that every meeting was just like this,

How glad I was that I was there.

Yet tinged was my heart,

for this was not a meeting of a church,

not a Christain gathering as such.

For I was there that night as a guest

of Alcohol Annonymous.

I had learned much as I tarried in their midst.

For hear I saw the Love of Christ

as seldom had before.

Like no church I had ever known

had ever shown.

Had a leper entered there that night

a welcome they would find.

No questions would be asked,

of why they came or who they were.

As at a good church meeting

A Good Meeting

"My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favouritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to to the man wearing the fine clothes and say, "here is a good seat for you, " but say to the poor man, "You stand here," "or sit on the floor at my feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?"

James 2: 1-4

While on holiday one summer I took time on a Saturday evening to discover where the nearest church was and to read the noticeboard to find the times of the services the next day. I was pleased to discover that the church closest to the caravan site I was staying on had two services the next day. One was to be held at the normal time held every Sunday of the year, but there was also to be an earlier one. It was mentioned that this was to try and accommodate holidaymakers who might wish to make the best of their day. It sounded to me that I had found an interesting and seemingly friendly congregation making arrangements to be helpful for visitors.

I decided there and then that I would attend the early service at 9-30 am. I arrived at the church in plenty of time and on entering I said good morning to those on duty at the door. They were there to be the welcoming face of the church and to make sure I had a hymn book for the service. I got what could only be described as some rather grumbled good mornings.  Nobody asked if I was a visitor to the area? Had I worshipped there before? Maybe I was new to the area and a possible future member of their congregation, but nobody had time to find out. A sullen good morning, then back to the conversation I had interrupted.

I entered the church itself and found myself a seat.  As I sat down I turned to say good morning to the person sitting just a little further along the pew. Just as I was about to speak the owner of the head turned it away from my direction.

The minster came into the church and before the service itself began, he announced that there would be coffee after the service, in the side hall. After the service, I went to the hall and purchased a coffee and waited for some conversation. It did not happen, I was left standing and the various groups who obviously were regular members spoke among themselves. I was left alone. I left alone without a single person even taking the time to acknowledge my existence.

I returned to my car ready to head off back to my caravan and family. In the glove compartment of my car I had a clerical shirt and clerical collar. I had conducted a funeral service just before leaving to come on holiday and had placed it there and changed into summer attire.

I decided to put it on and return to the church for the later service.  This time I was greeted at the door like a long-lost friend. I did not have to even say good morning. When I sat in the pew I had sat in earlier a man sitting further along moved closer and began to speak with me, as did the person sitting in the seat in front of me.

Now possibly on my earlier visit, I had just had a very bad experience and not the normal, but I suspected not. I was certain that the fact I was now wearing a clerical collar had made a vast difference.

I have visited churches where the response had been the very opposite to my earlier experience, but sadly not very often and what I had witnessed and experienced earlier was sadly the norm.

I have been at gatherings and services so often where I have been made to feel like an alien from a different planet. My poem above tells of another meeting I had been invited to be a guest speaker at. I was very conscious of the fact that at this meeting every person who entered the hall was treated like everybody else. It mattered not what they were wearing. Each individual was treated with the greatest respect and made to feel welcome and wanted.  Total strangers were very quickly introduced to others and instantly accepted as part of the group.

We must if we are to take the hand of the man from Galilee, learn that we have to take the hand of the person that has found themselves in our midst. It must matter not what the hand looks like. It matters not the colour of the hand or its cleanliness. This person has been put in our midst and we must react as Jesus himself would have in that same situation.