At Pentecost the BBC broadcast a service from Kingsgate Community Church in Peterborough. I caught some of it and was very impressed that Pentecost in 2009 still looked like the fun times Acts suggests took place. But stylistically it wasn’t a surprise to me. I’ve been around the church my entire life and I know that church isn’t all BCP Morning Prayer (beautiful but a struggle to engage with if your discourse comes from post-modernity) and I know it isn’t all the guilt and despondency which quite a lot of people reckon church is.
And in that situation it’s no surprise that people could be led to believe that God is dead. Their experience of church seems to indicate a weekly mourning of his passing rather than a celebration of his living.
Anyway, I caught a bit of Chris Moyles and his breakfast show discussing this. I didn’t really hear it but I subsequently saw a Facebook post shortly afterwards about how encouraging it was that Chris Moyles was hearing about God and telling the country about it. And earlier today it broke on Twitter and there’s messages pinging about all over the place pointing to the YouTube video of it.
I don’t know where Chris’ local church is. I don’t know who his vicar is, or whether there are any Christians at Radio 1 or amongst his circle of friends. Whilst it’s great to be able to link to a very famous and influential person praising church going it’s ultimately only interesting to Christians. Now, Chris meeting Jesus, that would be worth sending Twitter into meltdown. If all this enthusiasm is married to a slew of invitations that would be ace. I just hope that someone, or many, invite him along to Church, to Alpha, to something that’s churchy (or not) but certainly something that might give him pause to consider why it is that a sizeable number of people, many of whom might even listen to his show, support Leeds, and drink beer, are worshipping God on a weekly basis.