the apprentice electrician

by John Straughan

Thank you John for allowing me to put your drama on my website for others to enjoy.

Scene: Mess hut on a Building Site

Alan: How’s things ?

Dave: I am glad I’m at work. The wife is going wild, she went to get the baby christened and the Vicar refused. He says we don’t attend his church. What a cheek.

Alan: You don’t go do you?

Dave: So what, just because I don’t go to church doesn’t mean I am not a Christian, I am as good as any of them that go.

I give to charity treat people fairly, if they treat me fairly and I believe in Jesus and heaven and all that.

I just don’t go to Church. I don’t have to go to Church to be a Christian.

You go to Church don’t you? I suppose you think the Vicar’s right.

Alan: Well it’s up to the Vicar I think he is tired of playing your game. What you are talking about , being fair and that, is not being a Christian. That’s just living a moral life and adopting a reasonable attitude towards other people.

That’s only part of being a Christian.

You sympathise with the Christian belief and Hindu and Buddhist and Hippies and the Rolling Stones.

Dave; I like to keep an open mind , so what.

Alan; Suppose you gave a lad a job as an apprentice electrician.

He turns up the first day nice and clean with his mother and father dropping him off. They are so pleased he is going to be an electrician and he has always wanted to be an electrician. Then after the first day he never comes back, you never see him again.

He doesn’t go to College, does not work with electricians, nothing.

You hear later that he is going around people’s houses doing electrical work, telling everyone he is an electrician.

Dave: That’s stupid how can he be an electrician ?

Alan; He thinks he’s one. He says he is as good as, if not better than any apprentice electrician who turned up every day, he does not need all that useless knowledge from College, he just works on small jobs in peoples houses.

He can be a good electrician without any help. Let’s face it you just join up all the same coloured wires to each other, its easy. Brown to brown, blue to blue, green to green.

Dave: Now your being daft.

Alan: That’s what you’re doing, take the baby on the first day and Hey Presto she’s a Christian, you don’t have to go back. You think as long as you don’t  cause anyone a problem, you’re a Christian.

Dave ; Come on then what is the other part of being a Christian?

Alan; Look you must have wondered what you are doing on this earth, why has this planet got so much life, who or what put us here and why. I realised by reading a small portion of the Bible that it was God that put us here. God gave us an apprenticeship for another better life, you have to learn and qualify. God loves us so much he sacrificed his only Son, who stood up against everything he thought was wrong on this earth, to show us the way to live our lives. That’s how important it is to God. You need to learn about this God who gave you everything. To do that you have to join a Church any Church, read the Bible, listen and learn, use your own mind.

Try hard to use what you have learnt in your life, it’s not easy, you have to make the effort, go to Church, learn about the faith and work with other Christians.

God the maker of the Universe is communicating with you, through the Church and the Bible and you would rather watch Match of the Day and pretend to be a Christian.

Dave; This is too heavy for me, we just want the baby christened.

Alan: No you are like the daft apprentice, want your cake and eat it, no effort, no commitment. Do the right thing, get christened, married in a church and I suppose you want a Vicar to say something nice at your funeral.

He will be struggling; cos’ he doesn’t know who you are.

Dave: I tried reading parts of the Bible, I don’t understand it.

Anyway we are always busy on Sundays; it’s the only time I can be with the wife and children. Get small jobs done, like clean the car.

Alan: God gave you all life and has offered you eternal life in paradise. You can’t even make a small effort to learn what he wants you to be. God sacrificed his only son to show you the way, and you want to clean the car? You can’t say I am a Christian really but I just don’t go to Church, you’re as daft as the one day apprentice.

(Exit Alan)

© John Straughan