Why I've missed going to church

While many others are enjoying visiting church online, for those who are glad to be back in the pews, albeit wearing masks, their return has been a reminder of why this has been such a longed-for experience during lockdown.

Diocesan Team Consultancy Advisor David Durston explains why he has missed going to church:

"I am glad I am able to go to church again. I’ve missed going to church. Going to church – getting up, getting ready, getting there – is a little act of devotion in itself. It is a pilgrimage in miniature, and especially when it means getting up and going out early on a cold, dark winter’s morning. I have been glad to follow the Cathedral’s service on YouTube on Sunday mornings, and join in the prayers, but doing it at home is not a pilgrimage.

"Going into a building that is deliberately designed to be place of prayer is to enter a particular ambience. To go into church with other people who have also come for the purpose of prayer is to enter an ambience of prayerfulness. I have been glad to join the Cathedral’s Midday prayers on Zoom, but sitting in front of a computer screen, with all its emails waiting for an answer hidden behind the screen, that does not have an ambience of prayerfulness.

"And I have missed talking to people afterwards, people whose faces I recognise, whose names I may or may not know, whose address and telephone number and email address I do not know, but whom I know as fellow-pilgrims on the way to the Kingdom of God."