Sarah and others organised this years Christmas ‘event’ at church using ‘The Peace Child’. This was a production using various members f the church and, basically was about 2 tribes who hated each other. The leader of one tribe could not have children and the leaders of the other were just about to have one.

In a dream the father to be was told that he needed to give his child as a ‘peace child’ so that war would not happen and so peace could prevail. So, the dad gave up his son so that peace was available for all. I guess the Christmas story parallels are obvious.

This afternoon was amazing. The church was packed and after the Peace Child everyone stayed for food, games and just to chat. I say amazing as the majority of the people there were on the fringe of church life and not those who you would see on a weekly, or even on a monthly basis. They were there to see a ‘performance’ and they were there for ‘food’ and I think they were also there because, slowly, we are learning as a church that mission is all about relationship. Many of these people were at the sports centre a few weeks ago, and it was like meeting with friends when seeing them again.

It would seem that if we put on different events that seem relevant then people will come, which as I have started to honestly believe that attractional models of church (Hirsch) are outdated I find quite intriguing.

Could it be that the attractional model can still work in the right environment where there is trust, relationship and no expectation placed on people as to how they should behave, dress or sound? I guess the answer to that will come in time, and I do wonder if we can not, albeit undeliberately, place expectations.

At the moment, however, we seem to have been given quite a large group of people to befriend and love, everything else is quite secondary to that.