Regular Church

I realise my blogging is like one of those 'Christmas Christians' who say they go to church as regular as clockwork - once a year at Christmas (or even as I heard recently 'I'm a regular churchgoer - baptisms, weddings and funerals!) but I like to think I have a life away from my computer and the wonders of the worldwideweb - that's my excuse anyway.

What's driven me to blog again after 3 months silence is our recent "Groovy Easter" musical passion play on Easter Eve which Derek has blogged about here http://eden.blogs.com/eden/

The church I go to is fairly traditional and I've struggled with it's formality and rules since we arrived here 6 years ago. We've been able to introduce a few things like the occasional service done with a video projector much to the chagrin of some people and have even got the congregation behind some fairly groundbreaking initiatives (see Harvest Renewal on this blog earlier in 2005). This Saturday and Sunday was the first time I began to feel the Spirit moving in the church and people really beginning to get excited about some of the things going on.

Since the beginning of the year I've been working with a small group of young teenagers on a musical passion play using some songs from Godspell, and sketches put together by ourselves. This culminated in 'Groovy Easter' this Saturday which although designed as a 'show' ended up also being worship. The kids then sang some of the songs during the eucharist on Easter Day and by the end of communion pretty much the whole church was clapping and singing along and there was a sense of joy and excitement amongst those people that I've not seen before. In particular the enthusiasm of the young people taking part was amazingly infectious and inspiring and brought me to tears many times through rehearsal and over this weekend.

It's led me to reflect on what it means to experience the Spirit - does it take change and enthusiasm and new things or is it possible for us to experience the Spirit as deeply through meditiation and ritual? Those things certainly don't do it for me in the same way, am I missing something or have I just become a hysteria junky and really belong in a Pentecostal church instead of the Church of England?