Food for Thought –What in Heavens’ Names That?

Why don’t people go to church? - that’s the question we set out to answer almost a year ago when we first got together to establish Food For Thought.

According to my mother-in law the answer’s simple. Posed with the question on recent stop while globetrotting between Trinnidad and Sweden, she paused thoughtfully over her coffee and answered – ‘It’s drafty!’

Well……...mmm..you know, - I’m not buying it. There’s got to be more to it than that. Having sat through a match at Old Trafford with the snow settling on my head there’s one thing for certain – it takes more than a draft to put people off.

So what is it,- people don’t believe in God? – well, see – that doesn’t hold up. 98% of Winterslow village in a 1998 survey, given the choice, registered themselves as Christian rather than ticking the box , no religion. You believe in God alright.

OK –they’re just not interested!

If anything – the opposites true. On John Humphries recent radio 4 programme – Search for God, the BBC was inundated with more emails, texts and letters than they could cope with. Listening figures soared. They didn’t know what hit them. Not interested? I doubt it.

Well - OK, maybe we don’t have all the answers but my guess is that there is no one answer. There are many, - big, small, profound and downright trivial. We know, - we wrote them all out, just to see how many we could avoid. Everything from weak tea to threats of eternal damnation. I don’t know which is worse! No seriously, we filled a big page – and we made that our starting point.

So why do we want you to come? well you know, - you don’t have too, but it would be nice. We,ve got good coffee, short sermons, maybe no sermons, chilled out dress code, stuff for the children to do. But really, the biggest reason, because we know it’s good. We know that life can be spiritual, that it works well with God. You don’t have to agree, we don’t ask you to – it’s your journey, it’s your choice. But Food for Thought might help, help to think through the questions that matter – and have fun together. First meeting January 28^th, village hall, minimum drafts, good coffee, we’ll even go easy on the damnation- hey we might not mention it at all. Come and try it, no pressure, you might like it. We really hope you do!

Susan