If you go to Devizes, you’ll find Monday Market Street and Thursday Market Street. The names hint at something older: a time when the market sat at the centre of daily life.
For centuries, marketplaces have been the heart of a community – often right alongside the church – where the sacred and the everyday meet. York, Norwich, and countless other places tell the same story: not just trade, but encounter. Markets were never only about goods; they were about people, ideas, and connection. They were, in many ways, the original social network.
We see the same pattern in Scripture. In Acts 17, Paul is in Athens. He goes to the synagogue – but he also spends time in the agora, the marketplace. And he doesn’t stand apart. He listens, observes, and engages. He notices an altar to an “unknown god” and uses it as a starting point. Quoting their own poets, he builds a bridge from what they already know towards the God revealed in Christ.
The principle still holds. Our “marketplaces” might be supermarkets, high streets, or social media – but they are still places where people ask questions, share ideas, and search for meaning.
So the task of the Church is simple: to be present. Not withdrawn, but engaged. Not speaking from a distance, but alongside others, in the middle of ordinary life.
Because the search for the “unknown God” hasn’t gone away – it’s just happening in different places.
And so this week, as you go about your business, remember: every encounter matters. Every conversation is a chance, however small, to reflect something of the God in whom we all live and move and have our being.
God bless,
Revd Paul