Why would a church call itself St Michael’s and All Angel’s?

All the other churches I have served have been named after human characters in the Bible – People who wrote the Gospels or who were integral to the spread of the faith in the first century: People like St Mark, St John, St Barnabas and St Paul.

These people are like us in lots of ways, people whose lives were a little like ours; people who, if we met them and managed to get past the barriers of language and culture, we could have a lovely conversation with over a cup of tea and a piece of cake.

But Michael, and the other angels… What would we do if we met them? We probably wouldn’t offer them a cup of tea. We would probably not be able to speak, and maybe we would faint with fear, as so many people in the Bible seem to do when they encounter an angel.

Why name a church after something so mysterious and scary?