First Impressions
Perhaps you were surprised when you entered the building. On the outside it looks like a mid-Victorian church; inside it's rather different. There are no pews, the platform and holy table are positioned along the side, there's more light than you might expect in such an old building and a shop stands in the corner. You can understand why it's been called St Habitat!
To be honest, not every visitor likes the church this way. It's worth pausing for a moment to ask why the changes were made. Buildings communicate a message. Even though churches that are dark and cold may say something about the mystery of God, they run the risk of making God seem remote and locked into the past. We hope that this church says that God is the Living God, that he is always our contemporary and that the church is a place of welcome, warmth and celebration.
This is one reason why many activities take place in the church which you would not expect to find in a sacred building. It will be used for blood donors, art exhibitions, ceilidhs, concerts and cream teas. It has housed weddings and receptions, the ceremony at one end and the meal at the other. Most Sundays will see the congregation drinking coffee in the same area where they have just taken communion. This inevitably means that the building will get dirty and knocked about. Does this show a lack of reverence? Perhaps our ideas of reverence need to be revised. Reverence, love and fellowship have to be embodied in order to mean anything. A church that serves God and the community will mean a certain amount of mess, dirt and damage.