Happy new year! Look out for a report on an amazing Christmas dinner, attended by some unlikely people, in the next blog. In the meantime, here's how God answered me today:

It was one of those Thursdays when I arrive with my heart like lead but by the time I leave I'm floating. I came in tired and feeling disconnected from church. I have lots of friends at church in different groups but it's so big, most of those people don't even know each other. With with small children at home and living quite a way from the church building, it's hard to find the time to deepen any of those scattered relationships. Sometimes I'm not sure where I belong and what I'm meant to be doing with who in God's kingdom, and sometimes I just want to have a church which is my family.

I mumbled sleepily through worship, then we got onto the Bible passage: the one where Jesus is approached by a man suffering from leprosy. 'If you are willing, you can make me clean,' says the leper. 'I AM willing,' replies Jesus, and reaches out to touch the man, who is instantly healed.

It struck me powerfully - Jesus' willingness to help and his compassion for this complete stranger - and then touching him, as if he were not 'unclean'. All Jesus cared about was answering his prayer, and because he was so completely human, he did it with a simple touch.

One woman at the group described visiting an elderly bed-ridden lady at her home. The lady's daughter and family cared for her, bringing her meals and providing for all her needs - except for one. As the visitor took her hand and stroked it, asking her how she was, the elderly lady said, 'It's so nice to have a human touch. No-one has touched me for months.'

Then, in smaller groups, we prayed. Another woman in my little group wanted to pray about her family - her mother was staying for a long visit, but her daughter was too shy to explain that usually, they all held hands to pray before meals. She felt it would break down barriers between them if they could make this simple gesture together. We prayed into it, and the things I'd just heard mingled in my mind: the small family holding hands to pray, the lonely woman in bed needing a human touch, and Jesus, reaching out his hand to the leper.

It all fizzed in my head and then went bang. I'd got it. It was all about Jesus' body, the church.

I know it's a worn-out saying, but we are his body. When we love one another even in small human ways like eating together or offering a hug we are loving Jesus because he is in our brothers and sisters. When we make a loving gesture to an 'outsider' we are allowing that person to encounter Jesus himself. We can really, actually, cause that person to feel Jesus' touch, by holding their hand.

The little family holding hands; that's us, and the power we have to love one another, if we choose to. And like the bed-bound lady, the world is full of people who just want loving contact - and maybe the church is as well.

I went home energised with the vision that through me, Jesus can love people, tangibly and physically. I don't need to fret about where I live or what I'm part of in my church. It's not about time or place or a ministry with a name; it's about the love and physical presence of God. When I offer love to another Christian, I'm building his church, and loving Jesus himself. When I offer love to an 'outsider', they are being loved by Jesus, and when I put an arm around that person, Jesus is touching them too.