Cavedwellers - Church and Trains

In a land far away in a place called long-ago there were a number of men who continually complained that all they did was the daily grind.

home - train - work - train - home

It was obvious that train was a large communal part of our daily living.

We'd walk to the train, Wait for the train (thank you WAGN), get on the train, sit on the train (most days), get off the train and then, at the close of the day, repeat (in reverse) the whole process again.

At first it was two or three of us gathered together chatting about Sunday's service and engaging in a bit of (sometimes noisy - you have to meet me to understand) banter! 

Then we got into talking about God and God-stuff.

Then the 'proper' Christians left the carriage and went down the train until they were safe from any fall-out!

AND

ordinary people came and sat with us.

And listened

And joined in a bit

And shared

And became part of the family.

On Fridays we started the habit of bringing sweets and sometimes even doughnuts in and handing them around.

On (Good) Fridays (or near to) we passed around Creme Eggs.

people either loved or loathed us - but we were a very real presence of Church on that journey and friendships, support and the odd oasis of God's love and presence was found in the midst of it.

Christmas came and the local Indian Restaurant was booked for what was to be the first of many 'Not the Christmas Dinner' meals and we pretty much filled the place with men.

Christmas the second saw us fill the place again, this time with the late and much lamented Pete McCahon who entertained us with magic.

  Over the years the group has found itself continuing with the Christmas Dinner (not always an Indian though), golf ranges, go-karts, clay pigeon shooting and even getting the dads to take the Kids somewhere for the day to let Mum have a well-deserved break (There was this air show see . . . ),  the annual barbecue in Tim's garden and, of course, making the pilgrimage to :

All in all, what started off with some gobby IT bloke and a couple of other believers has managed to show people that we Christians are probably as bad as they feared but weirdly nice (and attractive) with it!

And the pastoral opportunities (more on that later).

Pax

Cavedwellers forum - a response

The forum that is to be found at http://www.cavedwellers.co.uk/forum/index.php was supposed to be a place that provided people with the ability to discuss things without the awful name-calling and finger-pointing that I have encountered in so many other forums (not all Christian either). nb. It is 'forums' and not 'fora' according to the clever Oxbridge language type on R4 a few years back) of a supposedly Christian nature.

It has a few members but hasn't really taken off for a number of reasons, perhaps the biggest being that unless there is a secure-looking email address (and I check the addresses with various of the anti-spam utilities) the person applying just doesn't get in.

So in answer to the comment posted today (or perhaps yesterday, not sure which but it was one of them) the answer to your question is "Yes' we'd love more people to come and play but unless you can be validated (SaucyFrenchUnderwear is not an account name that likely to make the cut) and don't have an email address ending in .ru or some gibberish name, chances are you'll get in! Of course I might well have messed up the approval thing as some days there are a great many weird and wonderful names and addresses applying and if this is the case, I wholeheartedly apologies.

And if you want to, what will you find?

It's a place where liturgy, theology, sport, general stuff, prayer (about and for each other) and many other things can be found. It's a place where we can disagree but we do so politely and reasonably such that we learn, teach or merely work from a place of common understanding. It's not liberal (although we have some who would consider themselves liberal) it's not fundamental in the worst understanding of the term. It is a place where people across a wide spread of church can discuss and engage and from that dialogue be both blessed and a blessing.

Who on earth could ask for more?

So there you are anon - an answer for your question. I have posted it today as a blog entry so that it might come back onto your radar (assuming you might look at this blog as you wrote on it) and perhaps to answer others who might have tried, or thought of trying, and wondered what happened.

I hope this helps,

V