A Badge of Honour image

A Badge of Honour

0
0
0
Last Sunday we launched a new congregation of Gateway church. We have purchased and renovated what was a Methodist church building, and our local paper, the Bournemouth Echo, gave us a nice write up about it.

For much of Sunday this article was one of the ‘most read’ on the Echo’s website, which means thousands of people looked at it. The Echo is a really good local paper, but those who leave comments on the online version are somewhat notorious. So I was amused to see that the first comment the article generated was this:

Sounds like one of the new Happy-Clapper churches, many of which seem to be targeted at the economic migrant populations.

I almost think we should adopt this as our new strap-line: I’d much rather we be known as happy, than miserable. And we’ll gladly welcome people from anywhere in the world. What looks like reasons for a dismissive attitude towards us is actually something we’d wear as a badge of honour. But isn’t that so often the case for us Christians!

← Prev article
Next article →