Signs and wonders- scary and weird?

When I'm talking with my friends about the church, I find I have to spend a lot of time trying to defend the church from accusations of weirdness.  Even discounting the odder forms of worship or evangelism that are around (I haven't yet forgotten an American evangelist earnestly insisting that bananas are proof of intelligent design because they're a convenient shape for our hands) it can be hard for those within the church to understand quite why those outside think they're so odd.

I'm not talking here about debates over ordaining women or gay people as bishops, which many outside the chuch don't understand, or about scandals like the current Catholic church and child abuse that are condemned by the overwhelming majority inside the church or out.  I mean the practices we within the church consider normal, or at least usual, but which are quite alien to those not in the club.

Take singing, for example.  I've grown up singing, like almost everyone within the church.  But how often does  your average person sing in public (outside church), once they've left school?  Unless they're in a choir, not very often.  So something so simple and so integral to the average churchgoer is actually likely to be quite alien to the general public. 

If we are already making people feel uncomfortable just by asking them to sing, how much odder some other aspects of church must seem!  Speaking in tongues for example.  Or praying for healing.   I've heard that there are fewer miracles in this part of the world than in (eg) Asia.  This is often put down to a lack of faith among Western churches and/ or communities, but I wonder if perhaps there's another explanation.  Such miracles, as seen in the New Testament, are 'signs' of the coming of God's kingdom- signs that God is working on earth through Jesus and his followers.  But in our society I don't know if they would have that effect on people who didn't already believe in the supernatural.  I'm suspect not.  So I wouldn't be surprised to see fewer miracles.  Perhaps we're shy of reporting those that do happen for fear of not being believed and being ridiculed. 

Perhaps we're guilty of over-dramatising our faith.  It is a life-changing experience, but God is interested in the small minutiae of our daily lives, not just the big things.  Perhaps we don't even recognise some of the small miracles and answers to prayer because we're taught to look big.  When the miraculous or supernatural are taking place it doesn't have to feel weird or even special.  Sometimes people fall over or injuries are physically healed, but often- mostly- no one except you will notice that God is present.  Present through a picture, the words of a song, a feeling, a sense, through a hug or the words of a friend- even one who doesn't believe.  God works in each of us in different ways.  He challenges us, yes, but he doesn't want to scare us.  His love touches the world in many ways to do many things.  It's right to make that known.  But let's not scare people by it if we can help it.