On why it feels so particular with me.

In the opening scenes of ‘Hamlet’, Queen Gertrude questions her son, Prince Hamlet, why he feels so strongly about his father’s death, given that the loss of a father is so universal:

Hamlet: Ay, madam, it is common.

Gertrude: If it be, / Why seems it so particular with thee?

Poor, grieving, Hamlet, sighing and dressed in black – what an unfeeling mother he has! (Spoiler: it doesn’t end well for either of them).

This week we are saying goodbye to our lovely church, something that I recognise people do, like, all the time, with a cheery thank you and goodbye. So does this really justify a mournful, self-indulgent blog?

It’s only because we love our church family so much.

Let me explain some of the circumstances.

Grace Church was planted in the north of the city, just a few minutes’ walk from our house, whilst we were expecting our firstborn. Prior to this, we were commuting across the city to another church, which was one of two ‘mother’ churches to this new plant. So we were excited about the new church being so close and all the advantages that would bring, and we got to be involved in all the planning stages: where to meet, when to meet, what our priorities would be as a church. It was lovely thinking through what church was really about; we helped contribute to a church promise, which includes the line: “We promise to live as a community of grace”. We soon got to see how that worked in practice. At these meetings we also got to know new people, people who would become part of our new church family. The ‘mother’ churches had particularly asked those living in our postcode area to consider joining, so it seemed 90% of the new congregation lived within a short walk of our house, and we all bumped into each other frequently, like at the local shops.

Then Grace Church finally launched in March 2012, which is also when son number one arrived. So basically, we joined, and then became RECEIVERS. People we’d only just met arrived at our front door with dinner, nappies, cards, lovely gifts. One retired lady I barely knew arrived with a two course meal, and asked, “What can I do help you?” I cried, told her I couldn’t even have a shower because the baby cried if I put him down, and she happily took him whilst I disappeared upstairs, and reappeared later in actual daytime clothes and feeling much better. Also, because of the proximity of many of the church members, if ever it all got too much, I could just stick said baby in a buggy and I’d be at someone’s house in minutes, and if no one was home, I could try the next one on the route.

So it wasn’t so much attending a new church as marrying into a ready-made support network.

Our boys were raised in a community of grace, just like we had all promised as we launched. The boys were blessed with oodles of honourary aunts and uncles, teams of people who loved them, looked after them, taught them, were interested in them and prayed for them. It’s almost funny that they can take completely for granted that there are people around who would drop anything for us, have us all round for dinner every week, accompany us to medical appointments, look after them at short notice, drop round a dinner ‘just because’. That’s just how it works. They have simply come to accept jolly times playing together after church, frequent meetings with all the mums and children, raucous weekly dinners together – it’s how their lives have always run. During lockdown, when my oldest’s Sunday school teachers have continued to write to him, pray for him, send him a silly gift, set up a zoom chat, he kind of shrugged, like, Well, of course they’d do those things for me!

A couple of other examples which come to mind.

I once sent out an email to the ladies’ Bible group – could anyone watch the boys whilst I went to a doctor’s appointment? I got eight offers in an hour.

We recently broke down on the A14. We were waiting on the hard shoulder for the AA to arrive, and I phoned a friend from church who immediately set off to rescue the boys, took them back to her house and fed them, returned them to me for bedtime, and then drove back the next morning to pick us up to take us to church.

Three different women have slept over at our house at different points to help us out.

People have taken the boys off our hands when I’ve been ill or when the childminder was ill so I could get to work.

One family who live just near the boys’ school are very tolerant of repeated disturbances: Please can we use your toilet? Can you admire their costumes? Can you watch them whilst I have this meeting? Do you have a drinks bottle we could borrow? Etc etc.

When we all got nits, one lady offered to come round to offer advice and comb out my long hair.

I could go on and on...

I think I am sometimes in danger of taking it all for granted myself, and then I’m reminded and blown away again by people’s generosity. Each time I’ve had a baby, there’s been a visit from the health visitor with some standard questions about my wellbeing and support – do I have local family to help out, etc? And I blithely responded, no local blood family, but we’re ok and we have a great church family. One lady pressed me, a little dubiously: Well, what kind of support do we get from church? I listed off a few things without thinking: You know, they bring us meals and sleep over and they’ve paid for my older child to have some childcare so I get one-one time with the new baby, whatever. I noticed she’d lowered her pen and was looking at me open-mouthed: “I’ve never heard anything like that in my life!” she said.

I know our situation is not unique – there are many other lovely churches and special communities out there, with faith bases or otherwise. But Grace Church feels so particular to me because it’s our family, that we are so intertwined with, and so leaving is a real sadness. A joy too, with so many happy memories, and the best start in life for the boys, but a sadness nevertheless.

And to those families in particular, our homegroup, our mums gang, our childminder, who have done life with us, mourned and rejoiced with us, cared for us, encouraged us, prayed for us, and raised our children together with shared values in such a grace-filled community, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for showing us what grace means.