Do You Believe in God?

Acts 17.22-31

Summary:

I did a survey once in our local shopping centre, based upon questions posed by a BSA survey on 'Belief in God'. This survey gave me the ideal opening drama to our family service, the theme of which is, 'Who or what is God?'

The reading which gave us this theme is Acts 17.22-31

I found among them an altar with the inscription,'To an unknown God'. What you therefore worship as unknown this I proclaim to you.

The Survey:

Characters:

Church representative (REP)

Ordinary person in the street (OP)

REP:Good morning, my name is ……do you have time to answer a few questions for me on ‘Whether or not you believe in God?

OP: People don’t believe in all that stuff nowadays!

REP: Well according to a (BSA)British Social Attitudes survey carried out as recently as 1998 it found that despite the decline in church membership in recent years, MANY people do believe in some kind of GOD. Over one in five people agreed with the statement‘I KNOW GOD REALLY EXISTS AND I HAVE NO DOUBTS ABOUT IT, while only ONE IN TEN people said they DID NOT believe in God.

OP: I can’t accept all that! We all know that the world began with a ‘big bang’!

REP: Most scientists say the world did have a beginning. Is it not possible that God caused it to happen; that he lit the touch paper?

OP: Ah but who made God in that case?

REP: A good question, it is a mystery. But God isn’t human is he with a life like ours that has a beginning and an end? We can’t possibly know EVERTHING there is to know, or we would be like God.

OP: What makes you so sure there’s a God then?

REP: Well I look at all the wonders of the world, from a new born baby to the intricate working of the human eye or the ear or the human hand… and I think of the great variety in nature with flowers and trees of every size, shape and colour. I think of all the truly amazing and incredible creatures, some in the depths of the ocean where very few people have ever seen them.

I look at all this and I’m amazed…the stars in the heavens and planets all with their set positions, and the sun which is in a perfect position so we won’t freeze or frizzle up.

I believe someone had to have made all this. Do you really believe it could all have been just an accident?

OP: What are you trying to say?

REP: I want to believe there is a point to us being here … some purpose to our lives don’t you?

OP: No you’ve got to live life while you can… enjoy yourself, anyway what about all the suffering in the world, all that chaos and misery! Some God eh?

REP: And who is responsible for most of that? We are the ones who don’t have respect for the world or each other!

God has shown us the perfect way to live, and we go our own way, we do our own thing! We think we know better.