giving god a go

on sunday, I went to check out church with those good friends, Russell and Amanda. they have recently joined the local 'goodlife' community of around 500, and they invited me to go with them last week, when I preferred to recover, with my little family, from the previous day's first birthdy festival! so on sunday, I went along to sing god's praises (without first warming up. why don't they do warm up at church?), pray, listen attentively to the messages and meet some people afterwards, amidst the stacks of chairs and noisy, friendly chaos of people free of children (RELEASED to sunday school upstairs after the first 10 mins of singing god's praises. RELEASE THE CHILDREN! I was in fact, waiting to hear the creaking and clunking of massive wooden doors opening up behind us, swallowing up all the children into the space below the stairs). I asked Amanda if she'd ever stuck her head into the sunday school rooms to have a sticky beak. "oh no, work stays at work!" Amanda teaches prep. the service consisted of community messages, updates, fundraising promos, prayers, the sermon (aptly re-named, as at Aran and Kelista's church in Mt Isa, What I'll Be Talking About Today), songs of praise and the communion (which cleverly incorporates the offering. but it's certainly not a give-to-get deal. or bleeding heart. or manipulation. it was explained very clearly by the pastor, Tim. very clever. four and a half thousand dollars last week. five hundred there. on average, around ten bucks each. that, apparently, is a low taking. very poor. very disappointing. but certainly don't feel that one has only money to offer. we all have talents and some time each week. one may offer their talent or time...or money. one may choose the way they honour the continuation of god's work in our community. appropriately, Tim's message was all about generousity). it was the first time Russell and Amanda chose to take communion in this particular church. I don't do communion. I thought, one must need to psych up to walking up and serving oneself bread and juice in front of such a large audience. but these two are performers! ah, it's the beverage they're working up to taking. understandable. no wine now; just juice. it made me think of what we first thought was a strange decision and then thought very sensible and of course, the only course of action in the Mt Isa woolies; the metho and kero taken from the shelves to be stored out the back. if one had put metho or kero on the list, one would have to ask the manager for it. that's right, take temptation away! however, I also wondered if a little of the 4 1/2 K could not go towards a decent cab sav each week...

I'll be shopping around a bit before I commit to occasional attendance (I will always prefer the time at home or at the beach or at brekky with my little family. special occasion church, I like to call it). Kym might feel the need to check out king's with me. their new champions centre is an impressive venue, with state of the art multi media installed; at the very least, it's bound to be a good show!