THE Christian author and journalist, GK Chesterton said, “Just going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car.”

After visiting the tomb of Jesus and finding it empty, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were met by the risen Jesus himself. It was then that he instructed them to tell his disciples to not be afraid but to go to Galilee where he would meet them. Galilee was very familiar territory to Jesus and to many of his disciples, where he and they had grown up and where much of his ministry with them had been conducted. But it was precisely from the familiar, the safe, the comfortable that Jesus told his disciples to go from, when he gave them the Great Commission.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” (Matthew 28.19).

Our churches and the practices within our churches are the familiar, safe and comfortable places from where many regular churchgoers do not want to go from. Our commission, our great commission from Jesus is to make disciples of all nations - or at least the people next door or down the road. Yet many churchgoers have forgotten or wilfully ignored this commission - our great commission has become the great omission.

Instead, for many churchgoers there is the danger of regularly sitting in a church building making “brrrmmm… brrrmmm…” noises.

The Rev Brian Streeter from the Benefice of Egton cum Newland, Lowick with Blawith and Colton