Good Friday

Good Friday in the UK is a national holiday. Most people have this day off work. When I was a child growing up in the Catholic church it was a Holy Day of Obligation. As the mass was in Latin for much of my childhood I didn't understand much of what was going on. What I mostly remember was that it was longer than usual and therefore harder to keep still.{g}

Now, I no longer feel the obligation to go to church but actually long to go, to share with my 'faith community' in meditating on Jesus' atoning sacrifice. Except yesterday, I couldn't go. Grace seems to have some sort of throat/chest infection and I had severe cramping pain all day in my tummy. Not sure what was up. This morning I woke with my neck having 'gone' in the night. It happens every now and then- a subluxation, I suppose. A dr once called it a slipped disc but I'm not sure. I just know it's very painful trying to do anything.

Yesterday, Jamie was the only one who did anything much! He took Jack to the Walk of Witness in our town. Most of the churches in the town (all except the one started by an American missionary which only uses the KJV) get together and walk through the town. One man carries a large wooden cross and they stop at various points along the way, though the streets full of shoppers (most of the shops do still seem to be open!) to enact various parts of the Passion story. It's usually well attended and I think it must be quite a powerful witness to the townspeople that the churches would unite to share the Easter story with them. People do stop and watch with interest.

UNFORTUNATELY, the only church who refused to participate in the Walk of Witness, presumably because uniting with the RC church in anything would be heretical, decided it would be helpful to collar passers-by (including the participating Christians!) and hand out disgusting tracts, telling people they were all going to Hell. This of course conflicts with the Gospel message that Christ died for us, to atone for our sins, so that we wouldn't HAVE to go to Hell.

It was a densely packed little tract and the first paragraph vividly explained how if you have ever used the expression 'Oh My G*D' then you are definitely going to burn in Hell. If anyone made it to the end of the tract, a lengthy exposition of various sins, which I seriously doubt, they may have been able to make out that perhaps there was something that could be done about sin, though the Good News was buried somewhat in contorted grammar, Shakespearean language and small print. However, the majority of this tract was devoted to a description of all the sins which will surely send you to Hell, in case you were ever in any doubt as to which they were.

I am SOOOOOOO glad that I didn't crawl off the sofa, in pain, to attend this Walk of Witness and encounter the helpful tract-givers. I might have started a slanging match, which would have been neither edifying for Believers nor a good witness to the Lost.

I have a friend who attends this church and she is constantly inviting us and our children to go with her. She is clearly convinced that we are not saved, perhaps because we don't use the KJV, or perhaps because we don't go to her church. From what I can gather, this is the main purpose of this church, not to engage the Lost but to lean on existing Christians and try to get them to change churches. I think this is called 'sheep-stealing' in missionary circles.

I do wonder how a church composed of people who have all transferred from other English churches is meant to fulfil the Great Commission, for this man's sending church in the US. And yes, I am more than a little angry. I've been reading Revolution in World Missions lately and am being powerfully converted to KP Yohannan's views. Perhaps I'll do a book review here when I'm finished reading and thinking about it.

Later that evening, Jamie went out to church to a contemplative service. Jack was exhausted from a week of late night gigging at Word Alive and fell asleep early. Grace was pretty poorly and I was still in pain so we couldn't go.

The plan for today was to do lots of book searching at car boot sales, grocery shopping in the supermarket, pruning and weeding in the garden, catch up with 'proper' cooking and have a Shabbat meal tonight, but I can barely turn my head so I guess I'll have lots of opportunity to sit and read my Bible (heretic-NIV) instead! {g}