Choirs, worship songs, after service coffee - the all new religion chat thread

[niminypiminy]

A new place for us to share the lovely, silly and annoying things that happen in church life and share our great love of Graham Kendrick.

I hope it's okay for me to join in here. I became a Christian in my mid-twenties, but have had a bit of a hard time in the last couple of years and totally gave up on my faith and God. I felt very empty and tried to put it down to everything other than my turning away. Recently I have admitted to myself that I was wrong and was looking for meaning in the wrong places and have started to feel much more at peace. I was part of a very active church community previously and am working up the courage to go back.

Does anyone have suggestions of books or podcasts that would be encouraging for me to read/listen to at the moment?

You are more than welcome here Mouse. John Pritchard, Beginning again on the Christian journey is a wonderful book. Also his God lost and found.
I went on a retreat to the Sea of Gallilee with him and he is such a gracious, understanding and wise man, I have massively benefitted from his ministry.

Hello Mouse and Alice!

I, too, shared the belief about Christians, and still find it very embarrassing to describe myself as one without adding "but not like those Christians" at the end.

For me, it was as though God was always there, and I did sometimes pray and thank God and stuff even when I didn't really believe in him. It was like a voice who was drowned out by other voices (in my case, usually the voices of rather bigoted Christians) but wouldn't stop calling me anyway. And the change wasn't really a shift in my beliefs, but more a decision to start listening to that calling voice and see what happened. And what happened wasn't really so much a shift in what I believed but a shift in the way that I looked at the world. I think that beforehand, I thought of religious beliefs as a sort of solid certainty in the existence of God and in His message. But I'm not all that good at believing in supernatural things, which I thought pretty much ruled me out. And the moment when it all became OK was when I realised that faith for me was probably never going to be about certainty or even wholehearted belief, but about trust in what I cannot understand and what doesn't necessarily make sense, and that that's a perfectly valid sort of faith too.

Thank you Dutchoma I will check it out 👍

That's a lovely way of describing it, Broomstick. There's such an honesty in faith which is a bit more wavery and ambiguous - it brings it more into reality for me I think. I would describe my faith as wholehearted but also think doubt is important and should be entertained for balance.

Welcome, mouse, we're really pleased to see you here. What sort of books are you looking for - if you want some classic treatises in Christianity to help you ponder i would recommend Mere Christianity by CS Lewis or Simply Christian by Tom Wright. If you want something more along the line of searching for God in a broken world, i like God on Mute by Pete Grieg and Faith and Doubt by John Ortberg. Sorry no links as on phone.

Welcome, mouse and alice!

Nickel, sorry for all the rubbish still going on, glad good stuff is happening too.

Edd, glad you had a good Easter.

bootygirl thanks for replying re my dad.

And hi everyone else too - lots of messages!

Quick drop in here - dad's funeral tomorrow, panicking slightly about doing a reading.

Glad I went to church over Easter. Got a card from them in the end and some people gave their condolences. Still three people who I would have said were friends, including the vicar, who just didn't say anything at all (despite me being around all four days over Easter) so a bit about that. I guess you find out who your friends are in times like these.

Praying for you for tomorrow, Double. That's really tough. So sorry some church people were rubbish too :(

Praying for you tomorrow, Double. Is the vicar from your church doing the service?

Will pray for you tomorrow Double.

Feel really cross about your vicar. He sounds like the previous incumbent here, who wouldn't take funerals and would cross the road to avoid the bereaved

Gosh niminy

Awful.

Prayers double, will be thinking of you.

I love those descriptions broomstick and niminy. For me there was a bit of a road to Damascus moment, but only once I'd started taking steps in that direction. As some of you will remember, it started in my church-next-door-to-work, where I ended up one day, and then increasingly frequently, just sitting for a few minutes peace at lunchtime. I had no idea why I suddenly thought that was a good idea, having given up my faith 27 years earlier. But something or someone pulled me in, and kept me coming back. And then I realised that I was no longer comfortable with my atheism, that I wanted there to be something more.

But intellectually I couldn't do it, it still made no sense to me at all that there could be a God, let alone a Christian one. And then I started posting here on MN - starting threads about God, and religion and belief, which all turned into bunfights in the end. But lots of posters (including niminy, mhd and many many others) gave me things to think about, and slowly I realised that it was the hard line atheist voices that were starting to sound unreasonable, and the religious types who were making sense.

And then I went to church one Sunday - which is another long story - and it happened to be Pentecost, and I was completely sucker-punched by the Holy Spirit. I was so sure in that moment that God had been calling me and that she had chosen this moment to reveal herself to me. There was anointing with oil, and it felt absolutely like coming home, except to something completely new, quite unlike the faith of my childhood which had been routine and unquestioning and never heartfelt.

And since then I have had no end of times when like niminy I'd find myself thinking 'am I mad? how can I really believe all this?' But each time something brings me back, and I believe that that is God. And each time I turn back to face Him I get a tiny bit of that same certainty that I had in church on the Pentecost day. And like broomstick it doesn't bother me at all that I have doubt - in fact without doubt I'm not sure there'd be any need for faith, and that would make the whole thing a bit pointless in a way.

So now, I'm as certain as I ever will be, even in my doubt, and it has changed my life immeasurably - for good and ill - and I don't regret a minute of it.

Edd thank you for posting that. I've had a really draining day, took a funeral with too many echoes of my own mother's death, had a painful conversation with my sister and cooked the kids a meal that was so horrible we ended up throwing it away. Your post was a like one of those moments when you see the sun behind the clouds. Thank you. And bless you.

PS - I didn't mean it meant a lot because you mentioned me - it's more that it reminded me why I do this ministry thing, which today felt so costly.

oh niminy I'm sorry you had a bad day. I had a shit day too - which is why I'm hanging out on MN - I'm glad it helped a bit; I can't tell you the number of times you've made me feel better

I am reading Kate Nicholas' book Seachanged. Anybody else come across it? We were in the same congregation on Sunday but I didn't realise or meet her.
It fits very well with the faith journey stories on here at the moment.

I also want to say thank you for that post, Edd. The way you described encountering the Holy Spirit - wow. I have goosebumps and tears all at once. And it really is the biggest privilege ever to hear you say some of our MN posts helped you think. We post so much on these threads and it often feels a thankless vicious circle of repetition and putting ourselves out there for more mockery about our delusion etc; to hear you say that makes it all utterly worth it. Thank you.

Thanks for your kind words, folks. Different church doing the funeral and have a very nice priest doing it who I have full confidence in.
My vicar is a woman and I thought we got on quite well until this. I think she finds the deep stuff hard.

Will come back and read properly the rest of the really interesting things people are posting when things are a bit quieter here.

double my thoughts & prayers are with you today. The reading will go fine & even if you 'blunder or get emotional' that's ok. It's for your dad.

I always love getting book recommendations on here! Although my budget does nt. 👍🏻

Thanks bootygirl it went pretty well all in all and I think dad would have approved

I'm glad it went well. I hope that both you and Niminy find comfort in your grief.

Why does this thread disappear on me so much? Hey ho. Found you now. Was wondering how everyone was.

Lovely new people and wonderful testimonies. Thank you all for sharing.

I have described being a Christian as being like a puppy on an extendible lead. I go bouncing off chasing one distraction after another, but always with that sense of God anchoring the other end of my tether. As time goes on, I stay closer to his path, I feel. I've also described God as being like the armchair in my kitchen. I collapse into it without much thought, knowing it is there and always will be. At times when I am extremely stressed/busy/low/just all out of words, can't pray or study or reflect, just being able to know he is there is hugely comforting.

As for Christians being wierd, I know just what you mean. Despite being Christian I avoided the CU people with the big smiles at Uni. Now when I see atheist threads, the Christianity (and Christians) they are so angry with bears no relationship to the reality I see and live.

Double, I'm glad some are coming around. Perhaps everyone thought someone else would organise something. Poor show, and we should do better.

Picklmepopcorn if you press 'watch this thread' at the top it will tell you there are new entries.