Where God's Love is Central
On the second Monday of the month a book club meets at lunchtime. We
bring a sandwich, make a drink and have a chat then get down to a good
discussion. In June we discussed The Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult. On
July 12th we will be discussing two books of the Bible; Peter 1 and
2. We will have a break in August whilst a number of us help with Holiday
Club, care for children or holiday ourselves.
Kath 870737
Timothy Radcliffe “Why go to Church?”
This book was the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent book for 2009 and
it is really very good! It is very readable and has some very good stories
and anecdotes always answering that question- why should we go to church?
Many people believe you don’t need to go to church to be a Christian,
or that if it doesn’t entertain or give a warm glow, that there is no
point. Timothy Radcliffe maintains there are three points to going to
church and the erudite and entertaining way he justifies his opinion
is worth a good few reads. He tells the story of Jane Elizabeth Stanford
who when she visited the chapel in Stanford university which she and
her husband had founded, was shown the statues of faith, hope and charity
and asked, “what about love”. No one dared point out that charity in
this context means love and so Stanford actually has four statues representing
the three theological virtues. His book is based on these theological
virtues
In essence we go to church to grow our faith; to enact and remember
the hope of the Christian message for which Jesus was born, died and
rose again, and finally to receive God’s love so we can leave church
and showing and sharing that love to all we meet.
So why go to church? Timothy Radcliffe states it is about faith hope
and love.
Highly recommended both for church goers and for those who think it
isn’t so necessary as well!