Going for God:

Faith and Family

Holy Trinity Church, Huddersfield, Sunday 20th October 2019

I have not blogged about being at Church for the last couple of weeks, that’s because neither I nor my wife attended one. We holidayed in Spain and were unable to find an English speaking service close to our resort of Roquetas de Mar in Almería province.

While we were away we missed the big celebration at church, Holy Trinity Huddersfield held their 200th birthday celebrations last Sunday with the diocesan Bishop Nick Bains preaching at the service and I am in two minds about missing it. On the one hand, it would have been great to have been there, buton the other it looked like a full-on celebratory service followed by a party and meal would have been more than my autism would stand. Looking at the pictures the church publihedon Facebook, it looked like there was little opportunity to escape the noise.  Nevertheless, Bishop Nick’s sermon, which is available on the Holy Trinity website, was challenging. Linda and I listened on the following Monday. It is another example of how churches are often unwelcoming to autistic people/people with autism. In hindsight, it is better for my mental health that I was not there. I am really glad to read the positive comments from those who did attend.

As for today’s service, I arrived late as the first song was beginning, unshaven, with uncleaned teeth, and with no pen and paper or smartphone to lake notes. There was no seating availabe downstairs so I sat on the balcony where there was ample space. The holiday was just over, we touched down at Manchester Airport at 11.45pm last night. Home at 1.25 this morning and bed by 2. Not enough sleep so my memory is on the blink.

We started with a couple from our congregation saying how they had been felt led to adopt a child. The sermon followed on from this theme with Jesus saying at the end of Mark chapter 3, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother, sister or mother. The theme of faith and family in a new series on Going for God. The need for single people to be accepted in the church equally with married couples was stressed. I missed the end of the sermon, my bladder was still working on Spanish time.