Church Outside the Walls

  

A few days on and I’m still buzzing from the thrill and excitement of last Sunday’s Church on the Street.

It was an electrifying moment when after a short time together in the main church building the entire congregation headed outside to the front of the town hall where a small worship group had already started the music for us to join in with.

After a brief time of singing and praying we split into different areas of service.

Some people joined the prayer base back in the church building.

Others preferred to pray for the town and the church by engaging in prayer walks around the town.

Some stayed with the worship service singing songs of praise and thanksgiving.

Some got involved in tidying up the town, litter picking around the park and surrounding roads.

A large number of people got involved with the street teams: offering free drinks and free fruit to passersby, busking and singing; or in the kids’ zone helping with free face painting, jewelry making and giving out helium filled balloons. 

Our young people were giving free chocolates away.

Yet others were engaged in random acts of kindness, offering to pay for things in shops, or even just giving people a smile.

The atmosphere along the main shopping area was like a carnival, music playing, flags flying and a crowd gathered around the gazebos and tables. It was Church on the Street and it was good.

Our aim or purpose for Church on the Street was to show God’s love and make the church visible and attractive ‘outside the walls’ by doing something positive for our community; and its good practice to reflect and examine whether we met our goal.    

I believe the answer is an unequivocal yes.

At our evening service  (this time inside our building) we heard story after story of people requesting prayer, people engaging in spiritually deep conversations, people responding gratefully to the free things they were given. One man was heard commenting that he’d already had his road tidied up – now he was being given free chocolates; he couldn’t believe it!

As I meet and talk with many people of many different ages I realise that people hold the oddest preconceptions of what church must be like. These tend to come not so much from experience but from how churches and Christians are portrayed or portray themselves in the media.  Being out on the street as we were and engaging in fun things helps break those preconceptions.

But under the fun and excitement we are communicating something very serious to the people in our town: that they are loved by our Father- like God, who like a free drink, quenches thirst and blesses people.  A free chocolate bar cheers people up.   One person commented to me, ‘I don’t know what to say so I’m just saying ‘God bless you’ to people’. But those words may be just what are needed to be heard and may go deeper and last longer than we can ever imagine. If just for one minute that morning someone felt special and loved by one act of kindness we did for them, then for that short moment in time they caught a glimpse of how God sees them.

Church on the Street was a great morning but maybe we should be thinking of making it a great way to be church.