This short fifty page narrative by author Robert Banks is quite engaging. This story is told by a fictional character called Publius Valerius Amicius Rufus who is invited to a Christian gathering for the first time. An excerpt from the book is below.
When everyone had seated themselves and Lysias had packed away the game, Aquila bowed his head slightly and asked the spirit of his god to guide all that now took place. As before he did this quite simply and matter-of-factly. After a short pause he then suggested we sing a song, the one the children particularly liked. This met with general approval. Gaius, who had a fine baritone
voice, led off and soon everyone was joining in, the children clapping their hands as they sang. I even managed to join in myself after a while. I enjoy nothing more than a good sing but don’t very often get the chance to indulge. We nearly lifted the rafters off in the last chorus, so goodness knows what the people next door made of it!The song had no sooner finished than Clement closed his eyes and began to talk to his god. Like Aquila, he spoke in a quite ordinary fashion, almost as if his god were a close acquaintance in the same room. As Clement conversed with him, he repeated something that had been mentioned several times in the song, about the world as a present from the god to us. A strange idea, don’t you think? He expanded on this at some length. He went into a lot of detail about so often taken-for-granted things that we use, see, hear and smell every day which come from god’s hands. While he was talking, there were occasional murmurs of agreement from others in the room. At the end there was a loud affirmation from the whole group.
This same pattern repeated itself as different people spoke, women as well as men, and even one of the children. Some of the conversations with the god were as long as Clement’s, some no more than a few words. Most followed up in some way or other the subject which Clement had culled out of the first song. At one stage, for example, the Jewish weaver thanked the god for his generosity to his ancestors, listing a number of things which marked them out from other races, though also apologising for their constant failure to reciprocate. A very hesitant sentence or two also came from Tyro, in which he thanked the god that he now understood how much he had done for him, in particular the gift of his one and only son. At the end of this, the heads of each family present, and one or two of the others, went across the room and laid hands on him, welcoming him into their community and pledging him their future support. He was actually moved to tears by this and could scarcely express his gratitude to them. Despite the strangeness of the occasion, I must admit to being a little moved myself. As they resumed their places Hermas said there was a psalm out of the sacred writings which he felt was particularly appropriate to the occasion. He must have had a good memory for this kind of thing, for the recitation lasted
some minutes.‘Would you like a copy of it?’ he asked Tyro when he had ended. ‘I could easily write one out for you.’
The other nodded, still a little overwhelmed, I think, by what had happened earlier and all the attention he was receiving.
Robert Banks, Going to Church in the First Century