Three years on but have I found a spiritual home? But then do I need to?

It's just over three years since we moved into Banbury and retirement from active ministry. I can write honestly saying there has not been a single moment or thought that I made a mistake in retiring early. Neither do I miss for a moment regularly leading services let alone all those meetings. What I have experienced is the challenge for anyone seeking to find a church and sticking with it, and of course  the knowledge that there is no such thing as the perfect church.  That begs the question does it  mean all you can hope for is one which ticks enough boxes to enable you to stay part of it?

One of our daughters, husband and children have been trying to find a church after their own got messed up by the arrival of a new priest some years ago. Lots of people began to leave the church, and after trying very hard to stick with it, they decided to move on and find another. They have been to a number of churches, and if you have children that can be really hard. While the preaching and worship might work for you as an adult, if it does not have what is needed to bring your children along as well, then its a non starter. If it has activities for children then you stand a chance. But if in it's theology it's everything you don't believe in, then that creates another challenge. So a number of places have been visited, even on a  number of occasions, and the latest one seems good for the kids but the theology of the church maybe a struggle. 

Anyway back to my own experience.

Over the past three years we have worshipped most weeks at our local anglican church, but it's been balanced out by attending a midweek Methodist circuit communion service. This later service on the whole has been a real source of encouragement and sustenance with a level of preaching that makes all the difference. Revd Colin Morris in his book 'The Word and the Words' with some humour  floats the hypothesis that boring sermons are generally the product of dull personalities. It's worth a ponder.

We have at our anglican church for over seventeen months experienced a vacancy which will come to an end in just over two months time. So we hang in there and wait to see what a new priest will bring to the mix.  On a personal level, I have found it increasingly frustrating to attend worship knowing that it is very unlikely the service, and more specifically the preaching, will relate to the world. There is a dullness. I have sat there most weeks listening to holy homilies. More often than not, they do not mention the world in which we live and are supposed to live out our faith. Am I asking for too much? Is the fact I am at heart a Methodist. I know there's many a poor sermon preached every week in many methodist chapels. But the expectation is still there that the preacher will engage with the scriptures in such a way to make sense of the world, to offer a word from God that brings Hope and challenge. 

Of course the church is more than its weekly worship and as time passes we have become part of our anglican community, wherever appropriate we have  joined in many of its activities. Yet we miss the presence of children and young people, and wonder how that will ever be addressed. Unless it is can there really be a future for an ever ageing congregation?

Thankfully we are able to be supportive of the Messy Church which takes place at the main Methodist Church in Banbury where we attend for mid-week communion. Amazingly it has a rich and diverse range of children and carers who attend each month with  a committed team of volunteers to help make it happen. This offers a glimmer of hope and reinforces that perhaps having a foot in at least two camps means you can have a couple of spiritual homes. 

Yet added to all this I continue to participate in an Iona Family group which brings a whole different dimension to spiritual life which helps to sustain me.  So I find myself part of at least three spiritual  homes. I certainly don't think I am the poorer for being in three very different communities of faith, rather the opposite, and maybe at this moment in life this is necessary. 

When as some do you reflect on the trinity as a community of three maybe, just maybe, I need the three faith communities.