Sandy Burgham: Spiritual plight of a fence-sitter

List any regular spiritual practices you are involved with," read the question. Hmmm. Like many, I consider myself a "spiritual" person, but what exactly does that mean? My pen remained poised; how could I explain that my form of spirituality remained more in my head than in any form of consistent practice? Sure, there is a splash of meditation here and a few kooky beliefs there, but actual regular expression of spirituality? Well that would have to rate a big fat zero.

I guess my church-going friends would smugly embrace such a question. But for me spending an hour in church just doesn't make the short list of things to do on a Sunday morning. It's not that I don't like the idea of churches, in fact they are among my favourite places to visit when sightseeing abroad. But I have always felt the concept of regular church attendance to be alienating, even though the ritual of a church service would probably provide some respite in a chaotic life such as mine. And I wasn't really sure why.

So I did a quick straw poll among my many non-church-going friends as to why we don't pop in occasionally for a new perspective and a recharge of hope and inspiration.

And this is what I found: while we are aware that churches are not exactly in the position to turn away potential new recruits, the thought of just dropping in for a free trial evokes some basic fears. While we may say, "We don't believe in all of that", there are far simpler things than confusion over Christianity that hold us back.

For starters most imagined causing uncomfortable silence to fall on members of the congregation as they turned to stare at the spiritual fence-sitter among them. And what if one was expected to sign up when one had no real intention of committed attendance every week?

Add to this the thought of a whole lot of overenthusiastic new best friends and most of us want to run a mile.

And then there is the underlying fear of making a fool of oneself for not knowing the drill. "What if you forget the loose change for the plate?" and "How much is one supposed to give?" And then the biggest one of all: "I don't know any of the tunes."

Even the handwritten lyrics projected overhead with the guitar accompaniment are of no real help when it comes to hymns. We have all been at weddings and funerals where we have had to mumble one beat behind the crowd, hoping our voice is either drowned out or accidentally synchronises with those older members of the singing congregation. (This explains why numbers swell at Christmas - thank God for carols, which provide one of the few times that spiritual fence-sitters can blend into the crowd.)

And then of course there is the overall boredom factor. It seems we have a lot of baggage regarding what we think church is like these days - which is probably as accurate as our perceptions of what school is like now.

We seem to imagine highly formalised ceremonies akin to the Queen Mother's funeral. And indeed while the latter drew people of all ages, classes, races and denominations together, we should remember that not only was this a state funeral but one befitting a royal of 101 years of age.

"Times have changed," said the most hip Christian I know. "Most churches now offer a continuum of worship options from conservative to radical services." Marketing to a different target audience, one might say. From highly formal for the oldies to more of a casual bedlam approach for young kids with ambient tunes from a new generation. But this still sounds to me like they are simply preaching to the converted. The thought of a groovy service just wouldn't be enough to get my friends or me.

So what would it take? Well, here's a thought. Recently an agnostic friend went for an uncharacteristic Sunday jog to the waterfront in St Heliers. Passing the local church, he noticed that the cars choked both sides of the road and the church carpark overflowed. The same phenomenon was repeated at the next church, where grass verges were jam-packed with cars, literally clustering around the house of worship.

"Wow," he thought, "maybe church is back! I wonder who goes? What am I missing out on? Why aren't I there? What's it all about? Is this all there is?"

As he pondered the bigger questions in life, he reached the waterfront and there he found his answer. It was actually all due to Round the Bays day.

Hmmm ... rent a crowd. It almost had him.