Making deals you come to regret

I’ve moved house, moved congregations, and all that!   So no blogs for a while, sorry.

This week, I’m all stressed out, because I think I made a deal without realising the cost.

Last Sunday, I was talking to the kids at church.   I told them we had would be taking communion next Sunday, and asked them if they had any idea what communion was all about.  Being faced with about 10 blank faces, I realised something was amiss.

Had they, I asked, ever been to a communion service?   Shaking of heads.   So, did they know that we passed around a loaf of break, and a shared a cup of wine?   More shaking heads.   This is a megaproblem.   If kids growing up in the church don’t know what communion is like, let alone what it represents, or indeed what is actually going on, how can we expect them to take it seriously when they reach an age of responsibility.

Truth is, this is another example of how we, in my beloved Free Church, don’t take the Gospel all that seriously.   It’s great that people come to church services, but we don’t expect them to see what it’s really about.   Communion forces us to remember that we exist to exalt Jesus Christ.   It teaches us that his life, ended at Golgotha, is the single most important event in the world and that without this focus, the Church is nothing.

But, coming back to the narrative, the kids don’t know any of that.   So, I made a deal with them:  If you come next week, you’ll sit in for the whole service, and I’ll preach foryour benefit, so that you’ be able to understand what communion is all about.   The work involved is more than usual.

EDIT: In the end, none of the kids came that Sunday.