Do you “do” Church while you’re travelling, or on holidays1 ?
I’ve gotta admit that for a long time, generally speaking, we didn’t. Sure, if we were holidaying with family, we often would go along with them (depending on which side of the family it was, of course); but if we were just travelling ourselves then finding a Church to try for only one or a small number of times seemed too hard.
So how does that all translate now that we’re pretty much permanently on holiday?
Some background: for 35 years or so we were regularly and strongly involved at Granville Baptist, later Granville Community Baptist. Over the last 20 or more years we’ve also had a strong relationship with Tea Gardens Baptist, and would attend there whenever we were up that way. We’re now starting to travel more as we “ease into” the permanent grey nomad lifestyle, and have just recently completed a 4000 km or so 13-week loop around NSW—basically Granville, Jerilderie, Bourke and back to Granville.
And we’ve attended 6 different Churches in 12 weeks (8 if we include Tea Gardens and Granville): Yass Baptist, Temora Baptist, Griffith Baptist, Cobar Baptist, Bourke Christian Church (Baptist) and Lightening Ridge Community Church (Anglican). All of these were very different to each other, with differing styles and forms of worship; some of which we were very comfortable with, others perhaps a little less so. All had time afterwards for “morning tea”, which we generally stayed for when we could.
Most importantly; I (at least, perhaps less so for Reen) came away from each service feeling refreshed and blessed, and encouraged by the evidence of ministry in that community.
So, next time you are away from home and your “regular” Church, why not take a chance on a local Service, you may well be pleasantly surprised, encouraged and blessed.