Sunday 27 November 2011

ANTICIPATION

Today is the first Sunday in Advent...


In case you are wondering what Advent means, here's the definition...



Today is, therefore, a good day on which to announce – should you have missed the fact – that, in an effort to encourage those whose visits to church tend to be limited to Christenings, weddings, funerals and (possibly) Christmas Eve Mass, the good ol' Church of England has launched a new on-line facility to help you Find a Church Near You.

Another good way is to walk down a few streets until you see a building with either a tower of a steeple (tall pointy thing) which are sometimes (but not always) churches. There are other churches that look a bit like council offices but they usually have the word 'CHURCH' displayed somewhere on or near the exterior.

I checked out the C of E's new service (pun intended) – inserted my postcode and clicked – and found that I am actually living NEXT to a church!

That, of course, I knew; I was hoping it might tell me there was a nearby church with whom we weren't haggling over possible tenancy terms and where I would feel comfortable attending... Oh, well, ho-hum...

Never mind, it is Advent and that means that Christmas is coming!


7 comments:

scb/elizabethanne said...

Wishing you a blessed Advent. Thank you for this post.

Can you put in a post code that's nearby but not your exact one, and see if it comes up with an alternate church? Our denomination, The United Church of Canada, has a similar service (pun blatantly copied) which I think is an excellent idea. (Of course, when I actually go to church, which is not nearly as often as I should, I attend one that's quite a bit further away than the one the plug-in-your-postal-code thing would suggest -- oh the blessing of having a car!

Good luck on your church search, and thanks again for the post, and the video. Now I'm trying to find an arrangement (and alternate) tune that we used to sing in choir in Winnipeg. Hmmm...

Sheila said...

Did you recognise the magnificent building featured in the video?

I can't place it ...

Geno said...

If only there were a service that could tell you which one you should go to! That is my problem.
Good Advent to you my friend.

Brian Sibley said...

scb/elizabtehanne – I am going to have to abbreviate your name very soon! Another church...? The fact is, after 55 years of belonging to various churches, I currently feel pretty jaundiced...

Sheila – The first building is the chapel of King's College, Cambridge. Not sure about the later ones: the building with soaring columns and the distant hint of medieval glass might be Notre Dame or Chartres; no idea where the crypt/undercroft is...

Geno – Well, that's the difficulty: faith is one thing, it's practitioners are, unfortunately, something else altogether! But then that's also part of the Original Idea, isn't it? No one's perfect (ourselves as much as those whose imperfections annoy us!) otherwise we'd have no need for any creeds to encourage mankind to strive for perfection...

Anonymous said...

Mr James's video director must be a Trekkie - the final sequence could be the view from the Enterprise when it goes to warp! All blessings to you and David for Advent, and good luck with the haggling. (RGP)

scb said...

Sorry! Feel free to go back to the traditional 'scb' for my name. I was just trying to encourage folks over to my other blog, my writing blog, which might be of more interest than my current housecleaning at my scb blog.

(note, I'm signing this one with the old scb info.)

WV: cranc -- a wretched blog commenter who keeps messing with her name.

Suzanne said...

There is a church five minutes' walk away from where I live, but I take the car to go way off to another village! THAT is the difference between a friendly, welcoming, dynamic congregation and a dull, mentally stuck-in-the-mud, keep-it-all-to-ourselves one! It's definitely worth the journey!