Howard Dobson ‘speed dated’ his way through the Christian denominations to get back to the heart of worship 46 churches in 46 days

When I knelt to pray at Westminster Abbey on Ash Wednesday in 2011, I had no idea how the Ver y Rev John Hall’s sermon would inspire me. Within 24 hours following a said Eucharist at St Matthew’s, Westminster, my Lent discipline was fully devised.

Having drifted into the idea of going to a different church service at a different church throughout Lent, I changed gear, enthusiastically planning my spiritual journey through as many different styles of worship in as many different denominations as I could fit in, thankful for Lent as a peg for it all.

You see the Dean had explained that Lent is a time for giving something up, taking something on, and for fasting - the second of the two prompting a once-in-a-lifetime ‘special operation’. For one thing as a writer of modern worship music used in churches in the UK and US, I wanted to get back to the very heart of worship and find new direction by understanding more about what worship actually is. More than that, having no housegroup attached to my local village church in Hertfordshire, I was missing that chance to meet up and talk about God midweek, to the extent that I was desperate for a season of daily worship.

Over 17 years of churchgoing, I’d developed some real favourites and my CD collection was full of inspirational sounds: Delirious?, Rebecca St James, the Vineyard’s Cindy Rethmeier and Brian Doerksen, Britain’s Chris Eaton and Stuart Menzies Farrant; my favourite worship song of all time is 1997’s At the Cross by Randy and Ter r y Butler.

It was time, though, to get back to basics, to break the mould, to discover something new about God, which I did by fitting 46 church services into my daily routine (before work, in a lunchtime or evening), and into a pre-booked holiday in Spain. Modern worship songs, by the likes of Matt Redman and Chris Tomlin, enjoyed at Hitchin Christian Centre and St Albans Vineyard, complemented classic hymns at Westminster Baptist Church and Taize chants at St Bride’s, Fleet Street; the magnificence of choral evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral juxtaposed the worshipful silence of the Quakers in Hitchin, the beauty of Latin Mass, and the brass bands accompanying the traditional outdoor Semana Santa processions through the streets of Seville.

To the catalogue of priests used to reciting Evening Prayer alone, who were suddenly interr upted by a breathless writer and public relations practitioner banging on the church door desperate to join in so as not to miss a day of his Lent discipline, and to the nuns in Cordoba, Spain, who were more than likely bemused at why an English tourist just had to join them for prayers, I apologise.

It was like speed-dating my way through everything the Church had to offer, knowing I would never be able to return to most of the churches on my list, and neither would I meet again the Anglicans, Catholics, Jesuits, Methodists, Baptists, and members of the United Reformed Church, Vineyard and free churches, I met along the way, to whom I am extremely grateful for their hospitality and fellowship.

What fascinated me at the end of it all was time of collective worship made up of chants, worship choruses, hymns, or whatever you’re into, would be the next logical progression in the quest for a more-fulfilling worship life.

Going to a whole host of different churches on different days is a recommended solution though and is certainly life-changing. Tr y it.