Eight years ago or so Guildford Cathedral restored the gilded angel which was originally famously fixed by helicopter to the top of the tower.

The opportunity (and the means) to undertake this expensive operation was provided by a telecommunications company which wanted to hide an antenna for mobile phone transmissions within the hollow figure of the restored angel.

Many of the churches in our diocese have taken advantage of similar offers from telecommunications companies. One church building in the diocese has a radio antenna cunningly secreted within the cross which tops the church tower.

Such technological artifice provides a welcome source of income for churches but is it appropriate that church buildings should be used in such a way? 

It seems to me that cathedrals and churches should be different buildings. 

That is their attraction for very many people and this attraction goes deeper than different shaped windows and stones. It is about these places being places of worship whose integrity is not compromised by other things like telecommunications equipment - or even by being incorporated into a violent video game! 

A cathedral or a church is "a serious place on serious ground" - that is, it means business as a place where God can be found to be close and where Jesus promised His very presence to those who meet together for worship. 

When Jesus dramatically expelled the traders from the precincts of the Jerusalem temple He did so partly because they were trading dishonestly: "You have made The Importance of being different God`s house a den of thieves" He said. 

But He also ejected the stallholders because they were compromising the integrity of a place of worship: "My house shall be called a house of prayer" He said.

Every year thousands - perhaps millions- of people visit the cathedrals and churches of our country. Far more drop into them than worship in them regularly.  All this should remind us that people regard these places as different, as special, as not like all the other buildings in and out of which we spend our busy lives.  Therein lies much of their attraction.

What is true of our buildings is also true of ourselves. As Christians we should be different and have an integrity about us which others can recognise. This is not because we are paragons of virtue but because we are people of faith - people who recognise our need of God and people who want to be aware of the closeness of God in Christ to us.

The season of Lent, which begins early this month, is part of this process of being different. We have a special opportunity in these days before Easter to focus on God in Christ. We can set aside this time for seeking Him consciously and deliberately so that we might know Him better and serve Him with greater commitment.

Lent is the season for being different - and that's important.