You know that feeling when you return home from holiday, and you’re just glad to be back in a familiar, comfortable place? You’ve still enjoyed the break but coming home means we once again appreciate the comforts that we take for granted. Coming home after a tough day is also like finding a bit of sanctuary, a place where you can truly be yourself.

For me, going to Church has always felt like going home. My family was involved with our local Methodist Church and I’ve joked that I did a lot of my growing up there. I felt part of a wide family, who loved and accepted me, supported and encouraged me. It’s not always easy growing up as part of a Church—you want to express yourself and to change things and it takes a lot of listening and negotiating. And of course you question what you’ve learnt and look around at other options. But for me, I’ve always found myself still at Church.

But it’s not only because of the people. You can find community in lots of places, if you are willing to get involved. I grew up knowing the straightforward love of Jesus, for me. And I’m still growing in the Christian faith of a loving, trusting relationship with God through Jesus. God wants us to be at home with God and in God—so that God becomes for us the place and person in which we find sanctuary and become most fully ourselves. In God, the community of the Church (wonderful, creative and sometimes frustrating) makes sense as a group of people all seeking not to be perfect, but to live out the love of God for each other and for the whole world.

God does not want us to stay the same: staying too comfortable in our ‘home’, wherever that may be for you, risks making us too cosy and we can become unthinking and uncaring towards the world, and the people around us. And so God sends us out again, to work in everyday ways to put God’s love into practice. And once we’ve been out, then we can again return home.

Have you found your home with God yet? St Johns Methodist Church has space for everyone – We don't care about gender, colour, class, age or sexual orientation: we just care about people. Why not visit St Johns Methodist Church, Baker Street, at 10:30am on Sundays—you will be very welcome.

Rev. Alison Walker - Minister (Telephone 01707 652978)