Missing the Mark

"In the bleak midwinter".

It's that strange time of year.
I've been back at work for a week and a half, but most of the world here has been in 'hibernation mode', barely appearing except for the necessities.
It's no doubt understandable in the midst of the darkness of the short days, but it can often work hard upon those who are alone.

I've spent many of my free hours in study and had an opportunity to deepen my sharing regarding the faith with someone close to me. They visited church over Christmas, like many do, and wanted to enquire into finding somewhere worthwhile attending to discover more.

Christmas is, no doubt, a very busy season for many churches. The church I attend holds about four times the services in December that it does the rest of the year as people in their hundreds come. The question, no doubt, should be, what do you do about that?

Having found a list of reasonably local churches to the home of my enquirer, I set about searching through their web pages to see what they were about and what was happening in the next few months. I eventually found a church that was very effectively setting out its stall regarding what was going on and where it was coming from, but for that single church that was warmly reaching out there were many others that had nothing to say to people, like me, who were searching for somewhere to connect after Christmas. Sure, there were plenty of 'in house' items mentioned, be they local fetes or "specialized" groups for youth, or worship, or students, but nothing for the average person that was wanting to find a way to turn up and learn more.

What a sorry state of affairs.

We've just had the season which, hopefully, unwraps something of the richest treasure given to our sullen world, and that should at least generate some measure of curiosity amongst those who have passed the threshold of our gatherings, so is it really the time to go silent?

Closing down for a few warm days together is fine, so long as even in the midst of that, we're already thinking about what is just ahead and making sure that we're ready to welcome others in to enjoy the radiance of the glory which Christmas brings.