He is risen indeed, Hallelujah!

Chris writes:
The title refers to the comments made by Marc & Toni a couple of blog posts ago. As Toni mentioned, we discussed this & I said the words how I think they ought to be said (joyfully & with enthusiasm, whilst punching the air with my fist!). Well we said these very words today in our village church & whilst I have to admit I did not have the guts to punch the air (I would have embarassed myself enormously) I am glad to say that with a little prompting from the Vicar, those words were said with real enthusiasm, & joy on the part of some at least.

Unfortunately not everything about the service was quite as positive. There was a relevant story for the kids, and the service finished with an Easter Egg hunt for them too,& there was a good community atmosphere, which was great. However much of the Eucharist was sung which would have been fine except that almost no-one knew the tunes, including some people who regularly attend that church!

This effectively excuded about 95% of those there from joining in, until about two thirds of the way through someone went & had a quiet word with the Vicar & from then on we spoke the words.

There were a lot of complaints about this afterwards with feelings being expressed of how this is one of the few occasions in the year that we can encourage people into their local church, & then we exclude them from joining in. (The tunes were not the sort you coiuld pick up easily either.) Such a pity & such a waste of an opportunity. Not only does it put people off coming, but what does it say about the Church? That we are an exclusive club that you can only join if you know the rituals? I certainly felt excuded, so how must others with a less vibrant faith feel?

I sat with a friend who said she would love to sing the sort of songs we sang at Sarah's memorial sevice, which are of course the sort of things that we sing every week at our church. I pointed her in the direction of The Chapel at Upper Heyford, the next village. This is the church on the air base built to serve the USAF, where the CofE church is vibrant & full of life, reaching the community in a way many churches could aspire to. She responded that she said she wanted it here, in her village church, the community in which she lives, & I can sympathise with that.

There was some suggestion, after the memorial service, that the worship team from our Church took a service here, but that sort of fizzled out. Toni was put in contact with the leader of the Chapel but nothing came of it, but any way that defeated the point. What people had asked for was that we have our worship team lead something here, in our village.

The fact is though, that even if we did manage to organise something, as many people as were blessed by it would be offended by it.

Oh Lord, just how do we reach this community you have put us in?

Sarah's death touched many in our community, but my Dad's death & the aftermath of that, stole any energy we had for following up the advantage. I feel so frustrated by it all.

Chris