When I was about 14 years of age I went on a school trip to see Shakespeare's Julius Caesar at the Leeds Playhouse. When we got there we found that the company performing the play were doing so as if playing in Shakespeare's time, that is, without women.

I'm sure you can imagine how a group of hormonal teenagers reacted to Portia, Brutus's wife, obviously quite a burly fellow underneath the dress, coming in and in a cracked falsetto announcing "Brutus, my Lord".

After the attendant whispered to us that if we did not quieten down we would be thrown out I spent the rest of the performance biting the arm of my coat with tears running down my cheeks.

The problem was not really with us or with the performance, which was probably quite good, it was just that we were not the right audience for that particular performance; it was too alien.

Church can sometimes feel the same. There are many people who believe in God but find that church is an alien experience. Perhaps the prospect of seeing blokes in long robes is just too much ! However, it is more likely to be that the form of services, the language, the actions and the general feel are not sympathetic with the way that some people would like to express their worship of or their seeking for God.

We in the Churches have been working hard at overcoming some of our historic differences. During that process we have found that God, whilst wanting us to be united, has been guiding us to appreciate and value some of the different ways we worship him; diversity can be a strength. More than that there is a feeling that we should be listening much harder to those who are believers but find the context of the denominational church wrong for them and, if possible, helping them find fresh expressions of worship which enable them to explore their relationship with God.

I hope that you would join me in celebrating our diversity and that in your searching you may find both a church that fits you and the God who draws us, frail and broken as we are, into his presence.

  • Rev PETER WILLOX is Priest in Charge, St John's Church,Ben Rhydding