Oliver stood a little stage-struck at the front of the little church. This strange man in a strange suit, in front of all these people, was asking a question that was more complicated than his four year old brain could handle. He must have wondered whether it was some kind of trick. At his age, I probably would have wondered that too. After all, the Reverend Miller, a stranger to Broad Haven Baptist Church, was offering him the choice between a pound coin, lying open in his left palm, or the promise of something better, enclosed secretly in his right.
This rather-Morpheus-like visual demonstration was my first experience of the Baptist phenomenon known as 'preaching-with-a-view' - something prospective Baptist ministers do as a kind of interview with the congregation before they decide (or he decides, or the deacons decide) whether they'll all get along in the symbiotic relationship of Baptist Church and Baptist Minister. And this being a Baptist church with Baptist children, the prospective Reverend was giving a children's talk - before the children went off to Sunday School.
He was right though. That is the key question. Oliver, being four, reached out and took the pound coin, despite the fact that Miller had promised him that there was something better in the other hand. I don't think he was tremendously disappointed either when the preacher then revealed a two-pound-coin to the rest of the congregation. I thought about that moment for a long while afterwards. In a strange way, it seemed wholly relevant to my own situation - wondering whether to leap into the unknown or take the comfortable route of that which I can see lying in my path. It felt for all the world like God was asking me that same key question. Do you trust me?
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Later, I found myself in an altogether different church. Where Broad Haven Baptist had been lavender and mahogany, Calvary Church, Haverfordwest, was plastic flowers and vinyl trousers. It was quite a place. Middle-aged ladies with lacquered hair sat behind the electric organ and piano respectively, Hugh Laurie sat behind the drums in a shirt and tie and clicked in time with the incredible music, and all around, the congregation was filled with bored children in their Sunday best, slumping into their bucket-seats, young men in suits, and balding men wearing cream slip-ons, purple-socks and tight fitting shirts from the 1970s. For a while, I did wonder whether I'd accidentally had some sort of time-travel-related accident.
Then, the pastor (who led everything else as well it seemed) preached for 64 minutes on the Second Coming. Presumably, the way to encourage your congregation to long for Jesus' return, is to preach for such a long time that they're desperate enough to pray for it there and then. I jest, of course. Actually, when all the tangents about the folly of the 'Modern Church' were removed, what he said was pretty solid. I'm not sure how much practical application the smiley folks would have taken home with them, but it was at least, all true I think.
The weird thing was that I felt far more at home in the stiff wooden pews of the Baptist church this morning. Weird because Calvary was much much closer to the kind of church I grew up in, and in fact I still know some people who would feel so comfortable there they'd be planning the coffee rota before the tambourines hit the velvet carpet. The reasoning I came to in the end, was that God has been the God of the journey for me - and this shocking leap backward into the past was a jolting reminder of where my own Christian journey has taken me. And actually, yes, I'm not 5 any more with a clip on tie and a fascination with flicking through the hymn book. At Broad Haven, the structure confused me (I still don't understand the significance of the enormous pulpit) and the preaching style was harder to listen to. Yet, I heard God far more easily through it - and I enjoyed his secret company in the quiet times. Funny how that works out.
For the record, I hate the tambourine. Perhaps that had something to do with it.
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Today's maths news, by the way, is this:
three thousand six hundred and one, times eight hundred and seventy three... is three million, one hundred and forty three thousand, six hundred and seventy three. Which I thought was rather neat.
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