I was in church in London at the weekend. I chose to go to a parish on Sunday morning that I’d never been to before. Its not one that I’m going to name here, but its the kind of church that you might expect a wandering provost to go to in London. Clouds of puff, a good choir and the all too familiar rumble of tube trains during the service.
Now, there was a thoughtful sermon. The choir were very good indeed. (Though the only hymn singing that the congregation got was 2 verses of one hymn, which seemed a bit measly, even at Passiontide). Everything was being done in the best possible taste, and something must be going right because it was fairly full.
However, what was the thing that I remember most a couple of days later? Well, it was the person next to me who refused to shake hands with me or anyone else at the peace. That and the fact that there was neither a cheery word spoken on the way in nor on the way out.
It was a reminder that whatever a church does, it will only be perceived as friendly or otherwise by someone new based on their actual experience of the people.
I presume that I was sitting next to a Mr Beamish.
In the evening I went to church at a congregation that I used to be part of when I lived in London long ago. They didn’t speak to me there either.
In other news, birettas are worn throughout the capital, so far as I could tell from attending these two services.
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