Journey mercies

I went to my friend's church in Ealing last Sunday and it was small, the service a little more traditional and we sang hymn songs, which flows of rhythm are so erratic, my voice is always left trying to catch up with its changes making me sound quite the singer.

The message was interesting enough, and the minister leaves unanswered questions unanswered to focus on the main message of the passage, and it left me wanting to discover a little more.

Nothing that made me say, WoW! I want to be in a church like this!!

When the service ended, my friend disappeared somewhere and I started talking to a guy who sat on my left. We got along so well, we were the last few who remained in the main hall before we decided we should join everyone else for tea outside in the kitchen.

I was never left alone for a minute the entire day in the church! When one left, another stepped in to smile and talk to me. It was incredibly warm and welcoming. Some of the young people at church cooked lunch, which everyone shared as we spent time getting to know one another. And it was about 3pm when some of them started to leave did my friend who I followed to church step in and pointed out that we never did spend anytime together at all the entire day.

I didn't even realise it until he mentioned it, because I was so busy enjoying myself getting to know everyone else. I glared at him afterwards and called him mean.

Mean because in one afternoon I've gotten to know so many people, and when I go to the church in St Albans, where I only know a handful of people, I'm going to sorely miss his church and the people from there and I will quite likely now think of moving to Ealing. His cheeky smile confirmed that that was his plan of getting me to go to his church all along.

The hymn singing and strong exegetical preaching may not have wow-ed me. But the people certainly did. I'm sooo going to move to Ealing now.