Welcome, Hypocrites!

It must be a slow news month. We've just had "Vicar dares to hint to the most discerning 11 year olds that Santa may not be entirely starightforwardly "real"" in the national press and now we have "Vicar Wants People To Go To Church - SHOCK!".

A clergyman has dared to suggest in his parish magazine that it would be good if the carols people love to sing in church at Christmas affected their whole lives for the rest of the year and indeed brought them to church on other occassions. I am amazed this is controversial.

True enough, perhaps it is not the best politics. Being charged with hypocrasy for turning up at a carol service without going to church the rest of the year may put you off turning up to the carol service rather than make you go every other week. It will be interesting to see if the parish magzine article with its free nationwide circulation draws them in or drives them away.

Let me just say that you are always very welcome to any of the churches I serve whether once a year or every week. We hope you'll come and come back. We'll so "hello" and try to be nice without being too pushy and you are welcome to stay for a coffee and a biscuit afterwards. There's no need to sign up for the flower rota in week one. If you'd like to investigate the Christian faith further, we provide specific opportunities for that, as well as plenty of chances to eat and drink and hang around with Christian believers and so on. 

It's true that the church welcomes hypocites. And that's good news because the fact is, in different ways we are all hypocrites to some degree. None of us lives up to our own best standards and the intentions of our better moments and I can tell you that applies to those of us who normally go to church 3 times on a Sunday perhaps more than to those who don't. In short, the church welcomes sinners, because Jesus did, but if we're to come to him we have to admit that's what we are. And if that seems a bit rude, I'm afraid you have to take that up with Our Lord. He said some pretty outrageous things (especially about so-called religion) and it got him into a little trouble with the powers that be, if not in the Judean Telegraph.