To start going to church even though I'm not religious?

[happyclam]

A bit of background.. I've reached a 'settling down' period of my life. I live in a smallish town, lots of new build estates etc. And recently I've really started to feel lacking a community / network? I don't have a big family and while I have friends (who mainly live in a different part of the country) and workmates, I just feel I'm missing out on a local network / community..

I'm not at all religious - but I've started to feel like I'd love to be part of local church or parish community. Went to a Christmas service and loved the whole feeling of it. Is that absolutely ridiculous idea? Is it disrespectful to 'proper' Christians? Or how else do others get a sense of community? Part of me would want to join the WI but everyone is about 80...

All thoughts welcome!

Indeed. I think all Christian denominations do but in different ways and with differing frequency.

🤣🤣 Brilliant!

You would be totally welcome. Some of our choir aren’t religious, they just like singing. Plenty of bell ringers aren’t.

In CofE churches, communion is more symbolic, we don't believe that the bread and wine have transubstantiated into Christ's body and blood like Catholics.
At our church we have a more formal communion each week and once a month we have a very informal communion with the whole congregation standing in a circle. Our vicar is looking into how we can incorporate it into our after service lunch, so we share it as part of a meal as the first Christians did.

Technically the Church of England is both Protestant and Catholic, because it’s part of the one, holy, Catholic Church. It’s not Roman Catholic, which is what most people mean when they say Catholic. But within the CofE there is a big spectrum with some ultra Anglo-Catholic and some very low church and more like Methodists.

Churches will welcome you, sure...especially for their Alpha courses 🤣 It's not disrespectful.
I'm not sure if i would go to Church if i didn't believe or wasn't open to believing... Although I guess it depends what kind of Church it is.
The 'network' or 'community' found in some of the Churches i've been to is not just found merely from showing up on Sunday. It's in the smaller groups which people meet up in during the week for fellowship - to socialise, pray and read the Bible.

Indeed I've attended CofE churches that would be indistinguishable from a typical US evangelical church and ones where prayers to the pope and the angelus are said at the end of the solemn mass. We are a broad church although I'm not sure for how much longer that will be the case.

While you will be welcomed into any church there will always be the hope that you will find Jesus.

Churches don’t just welcome people because “anything goes” they welcome them because they want to bring them to God. It’s naive to think otherwise.

That doesn’t mean that you have to give your life to God or even that you will be made to, but you need to go in with your eyes open to the fact that those welcoming you have an agenda.

I'm an Anglican parish priest. You'd be entirely welcome in all the churches I've served in, and there wouldn't be any agenda.

If you're in England you have legal rights to certain things in your parish church- baptism, marriage and burial - and you can't be turned away from a service unless you're actually disrupting it. A past Archbishop said that the Church is the only institution that exists for those who are not its members. No church I've ever been part of would be anything but welcoming to you - go for it!

No, it's not disrespectful at all.
You'd be very welcome in all Churches I've ever been involved in.
People go to Church for all sorts of reasons, and it would be a sad day that anyone weren't welcome.
Sense of community is a very good reason to join a Church.

I'm Catholic go to church every Sunday would happily welcome you into my church community if you wanted to join. Go for it!

This.

I'm on and off the fence #confused🙄 about religion....and not happy with it...I would love the comfort of a bit of certainty after my long life...but there you go!

OP I applaud you. Absolutely investigate.

Go for it.

OP , I’m sure you would be very welcomed. Don’t worry about ‘cultural appropriation’ , offending , ‘disrespectful’ extra, genuine Christians don’t think that way. In my teens and twenties, I went through a long phase of questioning regarding god and Christianity and religion in general in my teens and twenties ( im now at peace with all that , but im don’t think I m a real Christian or I don’t really put a label on it), and all the groups and churches I joined have always been very warm and welcoming.

In fact, thinking about our only child, it had also occurred to me that the church would be a great community to join, if she wanted to.

I think you are a spirituality inclined person or have become that way , seeking that way,,

Something significant or a series of things could have happened to you, that has made you come to thinking of wanting to look in more meaningful stuff aspects of life maybe,

Religious is different, its ritual aspect of things like waving/wafting of incense , ect.

If you get something out of it, why not go? I miss the sense of community I got from church but haven't been for years. You'd have been welcome in any church I attended.

You are absolutely welcome!

It's not presumed that everyone at church is a Christian. People seek splice in a church for a multitude of reasons - I my self joined a church due to loneliness, low mood and lacking a sense of community. The church were warm and welcoming and I was upfront about my lack of religious affiliation.

When you have religions that are open to everyone and seek converts, I really can't see how anyone could complain about someone wanting to engage. Especially not if it happens to be one of the state churches you're talking about. If you want to go, go.

Go, there's people of varying levels of faith, churches do differ a bit, some are more understanding of people with more holistic beliefs let's say. There's even a book called the Christian atheist about the lure of church to those who don't actually believe. I work for the church and I can tell you that even many vicars aren't believing the literal word, more parables

In my experience, the CofE/Protestant churches are very casual affairs, and particularly in more rural areas, the religion element is actually more of a side-line to the community aspect of it.

It's fine - lots of people go to church for exactly the same reason. And you never know, you might find something in it, even if it's just the benefit of sitting still and quiet for an hour and being given something mildly philosophical to reflect on from the sermon.

Btw obviously pick a moderate church and if they start building any large wicker object don't go that week.

My local catholic church has a sign outside saying "All are welcome here".

I don’t see anyone in the church having a problem with it, how welcome you would feel to keep attending as a non-Christian may depend on the church. I have attended a couple of churches as a non-Christian, one was lovely and I enjoyed attending and never felt my actual faith mattered. At the other I felt like I became a bit of a project with people trying to convert me and convince me to be baptised etc, there was expectation I would attend the Bible classes etc outside of service and felt like I was only welcome if I was willing to commit to Jesus.

On an aside, have you been to your local WI to know they’re all in their 80s? I attended my mum’s group with her once and was really surprised at the range of ages there, my mum in her late 60s was actually one of the oldest and was mostly women in their 30s/ 40s! Think that probably depends on the group though, but might be worth trying before writing it off if you haven’t already done so.