taste

Over lunch today, Douglas, my 'vicar' friend from the neighbouring church, turned to me and said - "If you ever get the sack, you can always run a Soup Restaurant!"

Tuesdays, of course, are my day for making the soups. His words, I think, were a compliment.

Apart from the thought that I might get the sack - or, as I think he really was meaning, that I might feel obliged to leave the Church of Scotland - it struck a chord. It's a notion I've sometimes entertained.

There's a certain creativity in making soup (at least the way I make it) and there's also real fulfilment in a way of life where people's needs are all being daily met.

Not just their so-called 'spiritual' needs (minister wears 'sober' clothes, listens intently, spouts forth knowledgeably, and reads the Bible and prays). But the many different 'practical' needs their circumstances bring.

I enjoy all that as a much more rounded way of living life. Not the one or the other, but both. And I've often thought that some eating place is just the sort of context where such widespread needs are met.

And where, indeed, a person meets the Lord.

Which is really what we're doing here, I guess.

There are all sorts of folk coming in and out at different points in the day.

The ante-natal classes with the midwife and the mums-to-be (and sometimes dads-to-be as well).

People who've been using our halls for different activities.

Singers who're in rehearsing.

Families stopping by.

People whom we've never met before.

People who've been in with the bricks of the church and are around here all the time.

All sorts. Today it was teeming with people again. Which was great.

And again the girls were just brilliant. It ended up there were only the two of them handling the crowds over lunch. And without so much as a flicker of any fluster they simply served each one.

They must have been pumping away at the speed of tornadoes, I think. But they seemed so entirely at ease, and in no rush at all, and with time for each person there was. Amazing.

A lady was in whose partially deaf and pretty much blind. An older little lady who's begun to come along two days a week.

It was lovely to see how the girls just ensured there was someone that she could have lunch with. Made the introductions and then made her feel at home.

It's often little things like that which make the good news meaningful to folk.

The welcome of God in Jesus Christ is maybe just pretty abstract and abstruse to most of the people we meet.

But when it gets up close and personal like this, a welcome that's got smiles and chat and notices the needs - well, I guess the whole thing suddenly starts to make sense.

I have to say I love it all. And yes, there's hard work as well. I mean the girls must be exhausted when their shift is done.

I was chatting to one when the day was done. She was saying when people are so appreciative it makes it all worthwhile. The knowledge that you have imparted to someone a sense of the presence of God - well, the hard work involved doesn't figure too large in your mental calculations.

While they do the running around, I do a fair bit of setting things up. Shifting the tables, putting out chairs, sweeping the floors, vacuuming carpets, salting the frosty paths. Menial, manual things like that.

The sort of 'building blocks' of what it is we're doing here. We simply want people, whoever they are, to get a taste of the Lord.

It doesn't all happen on site, of course.

A girl from the local community called and I went round to see her at night.

She knew me from the Primary School and that's why she'd got in touch. She was wondering about marriage here in the church. And did it make a difference that the two of them were living with each other and already had a son?

Not that she's all that old (I won't make a guess - I'll leave it like that!).

So I went round to see them, the girl and her man, at night. They're living with her parents for a while. Until they can purchase a place of their own.

Which could, I suspect, be a while.

Their baby boy was also up, so I got to see him as well. A bright wee fellow, just a few months old. And all togged up in an Everton shirt. As in replica strip.

The man the girl is marrying is from Liverpool. Enough said. So we chatted a bit about last night's match (Everton were playing Liverpool at Anfield and earned themselves a 1-1 draw with a goal in the last few minutes: sometimes my interest in football comes in handy!).

But what really struck me was how a football fan's commitment to the club is passed on down from earliest days to the next generation like this.

The wee boy has the strip on from the start. Trained up in the way he should go.

Which is a line, of course, that you've doubtless heard before. And in a slightly different connection. But the principle holds true.

You don't give the children the choice. 'This, my son, is where your loyalties will lie'.

Something fairly similar is what we're on about as well.

Clothing our folk in the colours in Christ.

The service which we offer day by day is really just a sort of 'replica strip'.

The garments of grace which we offer to folk.

Try it on for yourselves. See what the whole thing feels like.

We're glad to give all the people who come just a taste of the life of the kingdom of God.

Some, at least, come back for more.