I went to church today.

Nothing special in that; some three million of my fellow Britons did too.

In my case, though, it was a bit different. I don’t believe in deities. Not those of the Greeks of antiquity (not even when the Romans took them and changed their names), not those of the Vikings, though they live on as part of the days of our week, nor the Judeo-Christian, Muslim, or Hindu versions, regardless of their popularity in certain environments.

The sun would still have risen had Montezuma taken a day off from removing people’s hearts, rain will fall or not fall irrespective of whether villagers dance till their feet are nothing but worn-down stumps, and praying, however earnestly, for someone’s salvation the second you hear that he’s been in an accident won’t magically make him undead.

Yet at 10:30 this morning (plus an additional ten minutes of characteristic unpunctuality), I was present at Living Rock Church of my own volition, preparing to experience a morning’s worship.

Quite the paradox. Vegetarians don’t go to the butcher’s, feminists don’t visit strip clubs … and atheists don’t frequent churches.

I’d known how my Sunday morning would be spent for a few days. My parents are people of faith, and it impacts on all parts of their lives. One of these ways is in my mother’s propensity to help people that she knows from different churches over the years. She seems constantly to be busy with supporting a lady in her eighties whose only son lives a couple of hundred miles away, there’s a blind couple just up the road whom she helps regularly, and then there’s Ted and Esther.

These two are adorable. Think of the grandfather in the advert for Werther’s Originals; that’s Ted. Hand on heart, they’re the kind of elderly couple that we all dream of being but few will ever emulate.

In case it’s not evident from that description, I have a lot of affection for Ted I love his way of addressing me as ‘son’, that gentle Sunderland lilt, the fact that he doesn’t ever complain about anything. He’s a one-of-a-kind gentleman.

The other thing that Ted has in my eyes is credibility. Even in his 50s, he was a hard-drinking army man. Ungodly would be a likely adjective for him to use, I reckon. He’d had the hedonistic life, had lived all over the world, and was an achiever in his field. Yet he walked away from it all to become the unequalled chap that he is now, well into his 80s. If Ted tells me that his way is the way, I’m more inclined to listen to him than I would be someone who was, well, not the kind of person who would have sampled another way.

My relationship with Ted is marked by genuine affection, but also his determination to have me follow in his footsteps. We’ve chatted at length over the years and, because of my respect for him, these have passed by without the unpleasantness that might’ve been prevalent had another person kept on pushing the issue.

On Thursday morning, I received a phone call.

I’m glad I’ve got you, son. The Lord’s been telling me that it’s time for you to climb over the mountain instead of walking around it. Now at our church, we’ve a young Norwegian man that I’d like you to meet. We’ve had 34 saved just this week. I’d like you to come. You know the love Esther and I have for your mother, and how much we respect your father, and that’s why we’re asking you.

Funnily enough, I didn’t even cogitate, think of excuses, anything:

Sure.

So that was that. I’d decided in advance that this would be a sealer. I’d say to Ted at the end, “Right, I’ve done it, and nothing’s changed. Please don’t try to convert me ever again.”

His church is based in a village called Stoney Stanton. I’d been aware of it since it was founded in, I think, 93, although it was based in a village called Narborough at the time, the offspring of a small number of people.

How things change. It turns out that they changed location because they developed their own building. They’ll need another one if they continue to grow at the rate that they have been doing. There were, I think, 53 conversions in a short period of time, possibly a week. I can see why.

The place radiates happiness. In the same way that you can walk into a room and know that something has gone off, you can’t help but notice the positivity at Living Rock. It abounds with joy. Hand on heart, it was the best church atmosphere I’ve ever been in.

I intended to make this a long post detailing my two hours there. Unfortunately, I had to do some work at work and it’s now late, so my motivation is sapped. I’m pretty sure that I’ll write more about the day later though.

It was anything but a waste of a morning. I might even consider coming back, so nice an environment was it. That’s not to say that I can change my views. Ted said that I’d had the exposure; it was now time for me to choose to follow the path. The problem is that it doesn’t work that way. It would be nice of me to start believing in Santa Claus, if I were promised a bounty of gifts for doing so. Of course, I couldn’t start believing, no matter how great the incentive. It’s the same here. I don’t believe in the Judeo-Christian god. Yes, I envy the people at Living Rock their happiness, but I can no more switch the belief switch for God any more than I can for Santa Claus.

But I still wouldn’t rule out going back to Living Rock. I don’t like jazz music at all, yet there’s something rewarding about watching a jazz gig, seeing people in their element, happy and joyful. I felt the same watching the congregation at Living Rock.

I never would have considered a church to be a place for anything other than worship, but Living Rock is testament to the contrary.

I’ll post more tomorrow, especially if I can have a relaxing day in the office.

Tags: Church, Living Rock

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 12:59 am and is filed under Observations, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.