It was a privilege and an
experience to visit Ark on Christmas eve. A lot of the people here
are "between a rock and a hard place" and find a refuge in
Ark. Ark is a Horsham charity for people who are homeless or who have
drug or alcohol abuse problems.
Many have experience of
prison and living on the streets. Even in leafy Horsham this is no
joke. The United Reformed Church provided their premises for the
Christmas period and the hall was decorated for Christmas and food
was collected at local churches.
Some of the people who come
have severe mental health problems and have suffered abuse; some
can't cope with the idea of living in a house. Some can't talk about
things. Others can't stop. And my job – apart from a bit of
judicious Information Technology and spud peeling – is to listen,
and learn.
It is the only time I have
seen the smokers congregating outside a church as if it were the pub.
We don't believe in shoving
Christianity down people's throats. Ark's Christianity is the sort
that shares our food with people who haven't got enough. We have a
first-class cook and no shoving is necessary.
The URC is just opposite my own church: St John's Catholic Church. At 11 there was midnight mass at St Johns. For many people it was their first midnight mass. One of the guys thought he was conducting the congregation from the balcony but he didn't disrupt anything. The carols were all familiar and nobody was shy about joining in.
The URC is just opposite my own church: St John's Catholic Church. At 11 there was midnight mass at St Johns. For many people it was their first midnight mass. One of the guys thought he was conducting the congregation from the balcony but he didn't disrupt anything. The carols were all familiar and nobody was shy about joining in.
And who knows they might be tempted to come to Mass some other time too.
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