If you simply run up a list of woes in the world and expect God to fix them, prepare to be disappointed. A man prayed fervently every week that he would win the lottery. After a while he had a message from God: “Meet me halfway. Buy a ticket.”

There are basically two forms of prayer in the Christian tradition. One is to pray for a better world. The best intention is to try and see things from perspectives other than our own – a God’s-eye view, you might say.

Then the challenge is to make yourself part of the solution.

The other form is to approach God, in humility and vulnerability. Part of the formula is to ask for forgiveness for “the things we have done which we should not have done, and for the things we have left undone which we should have done”.

We’re not as wonderful as we like to think, and a wee bit of humility is in order. We’re never going to be perfect, but we can aim a bit higher. Honesty is rewarded with comfort and courage.

In both forms of prayer, we end up with some homework.

I go to church every week, and I have grown to love the traditions and the community. The stones talk. I can’t help but be aware of the generations of people pouring out their hearts in this place. We’re all doing our best, in our day.

But the Church of Scotland can get a bit wordy. When I used to take seafarers to Catholic Mass on Sunday evenings, I found the set liturgy, carried by music, profoundly universal, inclusive, and reassuring.

Churches are in a marketplace. You should shop around. Wherever you end up, you’re engaging in an hour or so of being morally serious, with no interruptions for ads. And you’re surrounded by people going the same way. Sharing with others, being willing to be led, is more productive than trying to do it alone.

But there are gaps in the market. Outside the traditional churches, making a very welcome and timely arrival, Junction 42 and Connec+ use Ebenezer church on Bangor Road, on Tuesday evenings. J42 (the name comes from the book of Isaiah chapter 42 verses 6,7 – check it out) is formed to help folk leaving prison to rehabilitate into the community.

There’s a strong association with various forms of addiction, which is where Connec+ comes in. The element in common is STIGMA. To lose your autonomy, whether in prison or in addiction, or homelessness, is frightening, lonely, shameful.

The format for a typical evening is: talk, eat, testimonies, prayers and singing. Open-heartedness is on full display.

On the first evening in Leith a lady was brought out to the front and given a bouquet of flowers to mark four years clean. Stigma was left behind; success and triumph were celebrated.

These are people who have truly been outcasts, in the depths of despair, spat on, despised. By acknowledging their vulnerability and their wounds in the safe space on a Tuesday night, they powerfully uphold and encourage each other.

We who haven’t been there could learn something about truly caring for others.

With Leith a hotspot in Scotland’s shamefully high illicit drugs-related death rate, this initiative is well worthy of support.

I went to Aberdeen recently, and maybe I saw a glimpse of the future. Look up kingschurchaberdeen.com

Under the umbrella The Assembly of God, again it doesn’t fit into the traditional denominations. It’s not my style, but there’s nothing in there I don’t support. They bought the Aberdeen Conference Centre, with its huge auditorium taking around 1,500 folk on a Sunday morning, with room to grow. They have a lot of generous-sized activity rooms, for a wide variety of community and church functions.

Going to church is an exercise in discovering our inner selves, our vulnerabilities and our potential, and how we relate to others and things beyond us.

We are comforted, encouraged, and challenged, as we stand and need it. It’s a lifelong journey.

PS: None of the above is to put down any other religion. All religions have wisdom and goodness, and none should claim exclusive righteousness or superiority over others.

PPS: The late Charlie Kirk weaponised the Bible in a wholly un-Christian way. Jesus would denounce him.