Is that bigger house really a good idea if it takes us out of the reach of a good church? Is that school catchment area really the place to go if it means we can’t access a good church once we’re there? It pays to think about our spiritual life before we decide to make major life changes.

I am often surprised by those who land in an area of the country and then find themselves sorely disappointed by the church options available to them. Some begrudgingly join the ‘least bad’ option and get on with it, others join what they thought would be tolerable and then spend their days railing against it. Dissatisfaction abounds and some even become disillusioned as ‘the only good church’ in the area turns out to have practices that they find less than excellent. It is a remarkably common story.

In such cases, I have a great deal of sympathy with those who have been moved for reasons beyond their control. For example, in our church, asylum seekers are frequently moved out of the area by the Home Office. They are picked up, dropped in a place entirely unknown to them and told to start again. Such people often find themselves in areas where good churches might be hard to come by. I can think of other scenarios whereby a person, due to matters beyond their control, is forced to moved somewhere they did not and would not pick. I have sympathy for those for whom the choice was foisted upon them.

Of course, in the vast majority of cases, this is not the scenario. More often than not, people move for work, schools, housing. Sometimes it is financial reasons and other times it is family reasons (I do not mean necessary family obligations here). There are many reasons why people might move and almost all of them represent a matter of choice. A legitimate choice, no doubt. But a choice nonetheless. In these cases – the majority of cases – I have far less sympathy.

Where there has been a choice, the brute reality is that your lack of church options has resulted from the choices you have taken.

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