We all need community

Two fifths of older people claim that the TV is their main company. 48% of all adults claim to experience loneliness.

Extended families who once were together now live miles apart.

Once we met our neighbours and chatted in the street. Now we communicate online but often alone, behind closed doors.

And it’s no different in St Albans and Harpenden from St Helens and Aberdeen.

Society is more connected than ever before yet perhaps less involved in real social engagement with each other than ever.

Churches claim to be places of community.

One strength of the Church of England is that it divides the whole country into parishes so no one lives outside one. The model is certainly creaking but is still there.

Christ Church, on the New Greens Estate in St Albans, is again seeking to build community this summer. The Big Lunch takes place every Wednesday in August from 12 noon until 2 pm.

With a bouncy castle, craft activities, sports and a hot meal for everyone, the idea is to give a place for anyone to come to in the long school holidays.

To let people enjoy being with each other. To cut, in some small measure, the loneliness that abounds in society today.

And perhaps some might even come to know the One whom Christians follow who offers real love and community in a way the world cannot know.

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