How to walk into church, by Tony Payne. Published by Matthias media
Have you ever thought about such a matter as ‘coming into church’? Perhaps you’ve been doing it for years, and it just comes naturally, so a ‘How to’ manual seems unnecessary. But that’s what this little book by Tony Payne is – to quote the blurb on the back, he ‘helps us think biblically about church. Along with plenty of other practical advice, he suggests a way to walk into church that beautifully expresses what church is and why you’re there’. Church on a Sunday – How much do I think about why I’m going, how I’m going, what I’m going there for? There are helpful, short chapters on these questions, plus ’Before I walk into church’ – do I pray and think about where I’ll sit?; ’After I walk into church’ – what can I do while I’m there? Are my interactions just ’vertical’ – focusing on God through the Lord Jesus Christ – after all that’s where we worship him, sing to him, learn of him, But the writer points out that while this is definitely true, the more we focus on Jesus, the more clearly we see through his eyes the people sitting all around us, for whom he died.
The better we come to know the God who sacrificed his Son for the salvation of all of us, the more our hearts are filled with love for the motley crew of forgiven sinners who are our brothers and sisters in Christ. So there’s both the ’vertical’ action of encountering God and also the ’horizontal’ activities of talking with and encouraging each another. There’s a chapter on ’When church finishes but doesn’t’ – the informal church time when we can be presented with prime opportunities to encourage and love and build up people; and finally ’How to walk out of church’ touching on the temptation for some to just walk away from church, perhaps because of some personal dissatisfaction, or some other attraction. Hopefully by the time we’ve got this far through this easy to read book, such a sad thought will be far from our minds. I read this book to Sandra last week, and it provoked good debate and discussion, a little argument perhaps, but it got us thinking about how we do ‘church’.
Steve Piggott
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