It often feels like the people who would most benefit from what we do here at Box Hill are often the last people who would think to walk through a set of church doors.
You may recognise them yourself…
They’re the ones who grew up in faith and quietly drifted. Not because they stopped caring about the big questions, but because the answers they were being offered stopped making sense.
Or they’re the ones who were explicitly told, in one way or another, that who they are isn’t compatible with who the church wants them to be.
Or they’re simply people who’ve never had any connection with church at all, but carry a private sense that there’s something more to being alive than what the purely material world can account for.
Most of them would never describe themselves as looking for a church. But when you talk to them – really talk to them – they’re often looking for exactly what a church at its best can offer: a community that takes deep questions seriously, a place where they can be honest about where they’re at, and people who are trying to live with some kind of integrity and meaning rather than just getting through a week.
I think about those people a lot.
I think about them because I know that most of them have already written off the possibility that a place like this exists. They assume that church means certainty, conformity, and a particular set of cultural expectations they’ve either outgrown or never shared in the first place. And in many cases, that assumption has been earned by experience. The church hasn’t always been honest about its own limitations, or generous enough with its welcome.
One of the great things about this small church in Box Hill is that we’re not trying to be something we’re not! We’re small. We’re (relatively!) unpolished. We have more questions than answers on pretty much every Sunday. We have people who’ve been here for decades and people who showed up for the first time last month and weren’t sure what to expect. We have people who believe deeply and people who are genuinely not sure what they believe but keep showing up anyway, because something about the conversation feels worth having.
We don’t ask people to agree with us before they belong. We don’t have a list of positions you need to hold or a particular identity you need to present. What we do have is a table – sometimes literally – where people can sit down, be themselves, and find that they’re not as alone in their questions as they thought.
I don’t know if that’s what you’re looking for. But if any part of this resonates, it might be worth finding out.
Eddie Chapman is the Executive Pastor at Box Hill Baptist Church in Box Hill, Melbourne. The church gathers on Sundays at 10am and hosts the Last Breakfast, an informal monthly gathering over food and conversation, on the last Sunday of each month. More at boxhillbaptist.org.au
Box Hill Baptist Church 