Issue 6: August 2007
Church & Community in the 21st Century
Address by Roy Searle at the Order of the Holy Paraclete Solemn Eucharist
Open Day at St. Hilda’s Priory, Whitby,
Saturday, 18th August, 2007

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be honouring to God and pleasing in his sight. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity and privilege to share with you on this special day which you celebrate every two years. It has been a joy for me personally and a blessing for us as the Northumbria Community to share with you in our partnership in the gospel. I bring greetings from the Northumbria Community together with those of the diocese of Down and Dromore in Ireland where I similarly have to robe, an unfamiliar “habit” for a Baptist!

There’s a story about a man whose car broke down on the Yorkshire moors. Looking under the bonnet he hears a voice, ‘Adjust the distributor’. He couldn’t see where the voice was coming from but he heard it again, ‘You must adjust the distributor’. He looked up and all he could see was a black horse. ‘Was that you?’ ‘Yes it was’ the horse replied. ‘You have to adjust and realign the distributor.’ The bemused man did so, the car was duly fixed and he drove on. Quite shaken, he drove to the nearest village, stopped at the pub and ordered a drink telling the bar staff what had happened, ‘Was it a white horse?’ the barman asked. ‘No it was a black one’. ‘That’s good’ says the barman, ‘because the white horse hasn’t got a clue about cars!’

Well I must confess that I haven’t much clue or a much knowledge on the subject that I have been asked to speak about but I do have a more than a passing interest as it’s a subject that consumes much of my prayers and energies – the Church and Community in the 21st Century.
There is a considerably greater body of wisdom and experience among you the congregation here today, both from the Order and other friends and supporters. As someone who is part of a new monastic community, the Northumbria Community, I hope you won’t hesitate to share with me the wisdom that you’ve learnt in journeying as a community through many years.
What I do know is that we are in this together and the context in which we ask the issue of ‘the Church and Community in the 21st Century is one of great ecclesiastical, spiritual, cultural and global change.
To quote that philosopher of the 20th Century, Bob Dylan, ‘The times they are a changing’.
I believe that we stand at a Hinge Point in history which provides enormous challenges but also some opportunities as we seek God in the midst of his shaking the church particularly here in Western culture.
The church as one cultural vessel among many finds itself in troubled waters. On the one hand the ship of the church is itself floundering in the cross currents of cultural transition. And on the other, it has become a sort of hospital ship, attracting refugees from a former era who find in it hope of return to more familiar waters. To employ a much over worked analogy, there is a good deal of rearranging of the deck chairs, not to mention angry arguments on the bridge. Meanwhile some distressed passengers are leaping overboard, preferring their chances in the open sea. Mike Riddell

There is plenty to concern us. Despite the odd glimmers of light; the picture of the contemporary church and established religious communities is quite depressing.
Despite the rhetoric the reality is that the church in the West is declining. In the 1980’s one million people left the church in England and Wales and in the 1990’s a further 1.5 million left. A variety of reports chart the decline and note the age profile pointing to ageing congregations and community’s. Running the risk of offence where none is intended, at fifty I am one of the youngest people here today! There are also issues of lack of leadership or a poverty of good leadership in both church and culture.
It feels more like exile than advancement, survival more than revival. Yet when people talk about the demise or irrelevance of the church or the Christian faith, we do well to remember the words of G.K. Chesterton; “Three times in history people have said Christianity has gone to the dogs but each time it’s the dog that’s died.”
By the grace, goodness and mercy of God, his purposes are being fulfilled and his kingdom continues to being served by men and women of church and religious communities who continue to carry the torch of the gospel and pass it on from one generation to the next. Of course, that’s a risky business. And there is within us for whom church and community is important, the fear of what will happen once we let go. Sadly many a church and religious community, (though with our monastic disciplines we should know better), we should know our hearts and not be so liable to the monsters of insecurity, fear, territorialism, and the need to control that get in the way and paralyse the church and our communities from being open to God doing a new thing among us ‘building the new on foundations of old’ and renewing our lives. Sadly we can be left in our churches with the feel of a museum and not that of a movement of God’s spirit.

But let’s not be despondent, for if God is allowing the church in the West to move into exile, we must ask ourselves for what purpose?
I suggest that whenever God allowed his people to fall into exile one of his primary purposes was to call people back to himself, to renew their first love of him, return to his ways and renounce those things that were alien to his heart and kingdom. Isn’t that the history of monasticism through the ages? God raising up the desert fathers and mothers, ‘Anthony’, Pachomius, the Celtic Saints and here in Whitby we remember Hild, together with Aidan and Cuthbert and Caedmon, believers called of God in the midst of church and cultural change to remind people of the first call upon their lives, to seek God, out of which a Way for Living that brings renewal and hope is born. Likewise Benedict, Augustine, Francis, Dominic, Therese, the Jesuits, the Beguines, the Anabaptists, and in our lifetime Taizé, or the founder of this Community, Margaret Cope and the Order here. And that movement, that began as a small tributary some twenty years ago of which we the Northumbria Community are a part, which is now becoming a stream, a movement, a new monastic movement that is spreading across Europe and beyond. Scott Bessenecker of Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship observes the latest burst in missional monastic orders. He writes of "an emerging movement of youth taking up residence in slum communities in the same spirit that I find in the start of the Franciscans and the early Celtic orders, in the Nestorian mission, and in the Jesuits." Bessenecker is working on a book about these "new friars," as he calls them.

We have just had a delightful young Lithuanian woman staying with us at our home in Ireland. A theological lecturer, an Anabaptist, together with her husband they are beginning to establish a new community house of prayer and hospitality in their homeland.

New monasticism has been described as a type of fresh expression of church. In the Anglican’s ‘Mission Shaped Church’ Report, this movement is seen as challenging the church to re-examine those areas of it’s life where there is a weak sense of community, a narrow attitude of enquiry, prescribed programmes, anaemic worship styles, dead institutionalism and a disconnection from the issues of life. It is “new monasticism” that is regarded as being of greater significance than most other expressions of church because it invites us into a deeper spiritual life.

John R.W. Stott, the elder statesman of British evangelicalism, has stated recently that if he were young and beginning his Christian discipleship over again, he would establish a kind of evangelical monastic order. Joining it would be men vowed to celibacy, poverty, and peaceableness.
Fuller Seminary philosopher Richard Mouw, speaking a few months back at Wheaton College, suggested that the church would benefit from "remonasticisation” - the clear and radical witness of a smaller body within the church, calling the entire church to a clearer and more radical witness.

Post Christendom is the context we find ourselves, living in a world where the Judaea Christian values upon which Western culture was built have eroded, they now find themselves competing with many alternative world views, philosophies and ideas that are shaping are changing cultures. One of my favourite books in the Bible is Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae as it addresses many of the issues that we face in contemporary society. Paul writes to believers at Colossae encouraging them to follow Christ not Caesar, to live with the values of the kingdom of God not the Empire. For us today the dominant empire influence is not that of Rome or Caesar but Consumerism. As with the minority group of Christians at Colossae, so we too are called to live out the gospel. Ivan Illich was once asked, ‘What was the most revolutionary way to change society, was it violent revolution or gradual reform?’ “Neither”, he replied, “If you want to change society then you must tell an alternative story” That is surely the call of the gospel to tell and to live by an alternative story and in lies the challenge to the church and are religious communities in the 21st century.

Re-Habiting the Church
Therefore I want us to re-imagine, to reinvent or to encourage movement that “re-monks” or “re-habits” the church.
So what would a “re-habited” church look like?
Characteristics:
• Love of God.
Isn’t the greatest command the call to love the Lord our God with heart, soul, mind and strength. Wasn’t it Jesus’ question to Peter, the one of whom Jesus was to build his church, ‘Do you love me?’ The last time I was here at the convent I was addressing a conference of ordinands who had just completed their theological studies and were meeting pre-ordination. How sad that some of them saw theology as an academic and “dry” subject. How sad that theology with its roots in love of God was taken out of the monastery and put in academic institutions where the emphasis upon spiritual formation, love of God, prayer and worship has been lost or downgraded. Where intellectual and academic excellence and competency in the practicalities of ministry are seen as more beneficial to tat of spiritual formation, love of God. It’s not that I have anything against academia but as someone said, and there is some truth in it, “we are emptying the church by degrees!”
• Relationship.
Where there’s a recovery of that which is at the heart of the gospel, relationship with God, our neighbours and one another. Where we can recover relationships from the frenetic business and activity of running programmes and turning faith into a product that leads to us running churches and communities.
• Community.
The loss of the social doctrine of the Trinity has led to the development of a possessive individualism in the Western world. Individualism is at the heart of modern culture – self-interest, me, mine and my. Christians have to rebel against such, not least because it is an insufficient view of humanity. The only thing that was not good before the fall was humanity alone. Humanity from the Christian perspective is persons in relationship/community. Jurgan Moltmann

To take issue with a former Prime Minister, who stated that there was no such thing as society - there is! And the church and our religious communities must express this fundamental and foundational gift of God and fruit of the gospel, the gift of community. Community that counters the individualism of Western consumer culture; communities where belonging, identity, hospitality, welcome and honour are evidenced. Communities where difference and diversity are celebrated. Communities that create environments where people can “come and see”.
Now I know that the Nun’s here don’t watch a lot of television but in addition to Match of the Day and Coronation Street, I’m sure that some of them saw the BBC series The Monastery and The Convent. How remarkable, not only for those whom the series filmed, but the thousands who’ve since made enquiries and visited places like Worth Abbey because they found in such communities a significant place to explore and to encounter God and themselves. Of course it reminds us that our communities have a missional element to our life and ministry.

• Prayer.
The calling to be contemplatives in a world of action. The pace of contemporary life with it’s frenetic intensity and demanding preoccupations hinders a life that patiently and steadily seeks to centre on the “one thing necessary” that which really matters – seeking, worshipping and loving God.
A life of prayer that will subvert and challenge the busyness and fragmentation of contemporary life. Perhaps one of the greatest contributions that the church and religious communities can make is to subvert the driven culture that destroys people and relationships. Prayer as learning to listen to God, his heartbeat for the world and to know our own hearts, become priorities informing our lives, churches and communities.
• Wisdom.
We live in a world where information and knowledge is easily accessible. Tap into Google search on the internet and thousands of pages and links will flood our computer screens. What we lack is wisdom, where we are led by the Spirit not driven by need or expectation.
• Rhythm and Rule of Life.
A Rule of Life provides a framework, a rhythm and balance of prayer and action, work and rest, study and reflection, productivity and play, cell and community. Where we are both alone and together, where the relationship between solitude and hospitality is exercised, where serving has priority over consuming, where authenticity reigns rather than image. A Rule of Life reminds us of the importance of relationships mattering more than reputation, where we cultivate generosity as opposed to calculating control, where we care for creation, express a commitment to the poor, welcome the marginalized and become a voice for the voiceless.

These among other things become the aspirational characteristics of a Re-habited church.

And here we are in Whitby, reminded with visual symbols all around us and across the river at the Abbey of the influence of people like Hild and the Celtic Saints whom God used, not only to renew the church but to shape culture.

Last night I was staying in St. Benedict’s Room in the Guest Wing and I was reminded of Thomas Merton when he first visited the Benedictine Abbey of Gethsemane in the United States. He exclaimed that he had discovered in the community there “the first real city in America”. A community that lived out the gospel, creating authentic community in a fragmented world. And this is our challenge and opportunity.

The writer, William Stringfellow, observing new monastic movements wrote;
“Dynamic and erratic, spontaneous and radical, audacious and immature, committed if not altogether coherent', ecumenically open and often experimental, visible here and there, now and then, but unsettled institutionally. Almost Monastic in nature, but most of all...
enacting a fearful hope for human life in society”

Dietrich Bonheoffer spoke of the need of “holy, worldly people” followers of Christ who live in the world sustained by the love of God and the claims of the gospel. He also wrote:
“The renewal of the church will come from a new type of monasticism which only has in common with the old an uncompromising allegiance to the Sermon on the Mount.
It is high time people banded together to do this."

As one social commentator noted, “We’ve lost the heart of vow-making, we live in a world that has become so connected to Ipod’s and gaming that calling people to something different is the kind of challenge that younger people particularly are ready to rise to. It’s finding a growing response to the abundance sickness, the affluenza that marks Western society. A group of “monks” might help the church in the West better stand against the pervasive consumerism and individualism of contemporary culture by providing a new ideal way for living”. This is living out the gospel, the good news. This is our task.

Though the new monasticism is a minority movement, Bessenecker says its impact could be far beyond the numbers of people involved. "None of these historical movements were ever a huge percentage of the Christian population," he says. "But they had a disproportionate impact on society. I think we're going to see that in the next 50 years." Pray God that it might be!

May the Lord, by his grace and in the power of his spirit enable us to respond to his call as the church and community in the 21st Century.
Amen.

Issue 5
May 2007

European Wanderings
The last few weeks have seen some important developments. Trevor, Jeff and I were able to travel to Holland and France to share and explore with Companions and Friends who are developing Community linked initiatives and partnerships.

In Holland we were accompanied by Margaret Green and spent a very meaningful weekend with Victor and Tonni, Rinnie and Hans from De Spil, exploring the connections and partnership between ourselves and our good friends there. It was good heart-to-heart stuff; eating, talking, drinking, praying, cycling and boating together.

It was good to welcome a group from Holland at Ballydugan last week on a retreat organised by De Spil. There has developed over the last three years very deep connections and good friends with the folks from Holland, and following our time at De Spil, we enjoyed an equally significant and blessed time with Floor in Arnhem. Ada was away in Canada, but Floor took us on a walking tour of the city, and we were able to spend time discussing the implications of the Community’s life and mission in Europe.

The following day we went on to speak and lead the worship at a Ministers’ Conference on the Dutch/German border, again renewing friendships, and forming new ones with believers wrestling with many of the issues that we have engaged in as a Community for many years.

We then journeyed down to Normandy in France where we were spent two very pleasant days with Andrew and Jane Perkins and their daughter Sarah, and Brian and Cathy Wheatcroft who joined us from their home in the Dordogne. Jeff and I had visited L’Abri previously but it was wonderful having Trevor with us, the Community’s ‘Abbot’, teaching, sharing and together with Jeff and I conferring blessing and affirmation of the work that has begun at L’Abri as a Community house of prayer and hospitality in France. We ventured out from the house one afternoon to the coast and prayed on the site where Columbanus first landed and from where he wandered for the love of Christ establishing monastic communities and foundations across the Continent.

Inductions & Ordinations
Back in Northern Ireland I got into fancy dress again and attended the induction of our new Archdeacon and a Canon at Down Cathedral where I am a Chaplain. Whilst the first ten minutes was taken up with concern over whether I’d buttoned myself up correctly and which stall and when and where to stand, protocol that isn’t really a part of Baptist ecclesiology, I was then able to enter into the service which was rich in liturgy and ritual and which far from being dead legalism communicated, awe, mystery, the importance of recognising and affirming people’s calling.

Issue 4
Easter 2007

Dear Friends and Praying Supporters,

Greetings from the lakeside at Ballydugan in Holy Week. 

I’ve been meditating throughout Lent on Jesus’ words from the cross.  In returning to Portrack, [my first pastorate] last Sunday morning I was sharing about the power of words to make or break, to bring a blessing or a curse, to heal or to wound. I thank God that as we remember Jesus so we give thanks for someone who never used words that damaged or wounded. He was the Truth and spoke the truth. He never lashed out with words of mindless anger or bitterness. His words of forgiveness combated the rage and resentment of others and brought healing to hurts. Where others poisoned by their words Jesus words brought life and blessing, liberation; the blind saw, the dumb sang and the lame danced. Even in the last throes of his own life, as death enveloped him he speaks words of life to the thief and words of life in the accomplishment of his death for us, Tetelestai ~ it is finished ~ the debt has been paid

Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams have yet to shake hands and to look at one another eye to eye but we pray that a day may come when their attitudes and actions will truly signal a new dawn for  the people of Northern Ireland.  There is a statue in Londonderry, entitled ‘Hands Across the Divide’. 

I invite you to join with me in praying for a growing movement of people from both sides of society here who will reach out their hands across the divide and contribute to the building of the kingdom of God here in land from whence the gospel came to many of our lands.  Pray that the Peace Process signed on Good Friday 1998 will be realised through the Prince of Peace, who has come to demolish the walls that divide people and communities from one another.

We continue to give thanks to God for the time and opportunity that we have here in Ireland, despite its challenges and pressures.  We are particularly grateful for those who have stood with us in prayer, whose support financially has alleviated some of the financial anxieties we continue to endure in Community.  I find it one of the hardest things about being and working in the Community that of having the responsibility with others of paying wages, bills and finding funding to enable us to do what we do.  People find it remarkable that we are able to do all that we do within the Community, touching the lives of hundreds of people and influencing many more, running our Motherhouse, wandering for the love of Christ, supporting other initiatives, paying wages, all on an annual budget of less than £250,000.

This is remarkable but, as we’ve embraced in our Rule, very vulnerable!  Our reserves ensure that we are only able to survive for 3 weeks should all income dry up so it is precarious to say the least. Yet we thank God, upon whom we are dependent and rejoice that we are still here and the Community continues to grow and develop. In fact we are in a really exciting and encouraging period which includes the emergence of new leaders, groups, initiatives, other houses and foundations and some significant developments in America and across Europe. Several years ago we were given a word that has both challenged and sustained us as we have recognised our dependency upon God – seek my face not my hand.

For those who prayed for wisdom and movement on our own house front, I can inform you about something that was a huge but nevertheless pleasant, albeit daunting surprise that we are very happy about nevertheless.  When we return to Northumberland we are moving back to Wooler!  Not to Cheviot Street where our house sold at the beginning of the year but to the High Street.  We are buying our friend, Nancy Hammond’s house or rather complex of two houses and The Cuddy Duck shop.  We aim to use the revenue from one house to fund the other half and of great importance is that the work that Nancy has done in establishing, building and redeveloping the property which has been used for a number of Community ventures and which will now continue. She is moving to a smaller property in Alnwick so wont be far from us.

It’s been interesting for me to see how being away from Northumberland has deepened Shirley’s longing to be ‘back home’.  For me, despite my many travels and my ease at being in different cultures, I’ve always felt at home in Northumbria.  Shirley and I have moved on a number of occasions throughout our lives but the rootedness we feel with Northumbria, both as a place and as a focus for our spirituality, has been heightened by the experience of being “away for a season”.

We came to Ireland simply because we were following our hearts.  We came with no definite plans but with a sense that we were meant to be here.  It’s still difficult to say what it is that we’re doing but we pray that our presence here will serve the kingdom and be a means of encouragement both to those who’ve made connections with the Northumbria Community and others with whom we share a commitment to build community and connect with the new monastic spirituality of which we are a part. 
I still find Northern Ireland such a paradoxical place.  It’s beautiful yet ugly, it’s welcoming and hospitable yet suspicious and hostile.  There are many similarities with the North East of England both in terms of geography, geology, sense of humour, friendly faces but unlike Northumbria it is scarred so deeply by its troubled history of conflict. 

I’ve just been meeting with people involved in the Peace Process, several of whom have worked for years with neighbourhoods on the front line of The Troubles and I find it so hard to get my head around the levels of mistrust, pain, injustice and fear that has enveloped people.  The depths of sectarianism are so deep within the psyche of many people that it will take more than a piece of legislation to root out, heal and inform the mind and heart to a different way of living.  Sectarianism manifests itself in lots of established ways, causing conflict with those who are different, of the other side but it also has fresh expressions, for example in the racism that is directed often not subtly but overtly towards those migrant workers and others who are coming to Northern Ireland whose experience of an Irish welcome is far from hospitable. 

An image that troubles me is of driving around what is essentially a very beautiful land but one which is, in my opinion, scarred by some appalling architecture – huge, often ostentatious bungalows and houses that are totally out of character with the landscape.  They are as discordant as I would be trying to sing Don Giovanni.  They sit uncomfortably like the divided communities in which many of them are built.  Some bungalows are so big that you think at first that they are Care homes, some have cost a fortune but look ridiculous like the large house with its thatched roof - wonderful construction but totally out of place.  It’s as though in the architecture there was a lack of harmony, the buildings conflict with the landscape a symbol of the malaise that still exists within this beautiful land and its wonderful people. 

I guess it’s why the vision that our good friend Henry Hull, the Dean of Down Cathedral and Rector of Saul, has of establishing a Community of Prayer is so vital.  Henry incidentally received this vision from God as a result of being in the Benediction monastery at Rostrevor where he felt the Lord direct him to go to Lindisfarne where on that island he received the vision to return to Saul and build a community of prayer.  He is a good man and needs our continuing prayers and encouragement in what is a significant and important ministry.

Shirley and I together with a good number of other folk are committed to sharing in and serving this vision.  But how do you build a community of prayer?  Well as we explore that with the people whom God is bringing across our path and sending, we are praying both alone and together.  We’ve been meeting every Monday night to share Evening Office at Saul and to hold before God in our intercessions people and situations. There is also a core group of people who we have met with each month to share our stories and build relationships. 

One of the lovely things about living here has been the friendships that we’ve developed or made with several individuals.  Good, godly, down to earth people, Catholics, Protestants and the Not So Sure! We’d value your prayers for the unfolding of this vision and for its outworking in the coming months. One of the delights and pleasures of being here is that we have made some very good friends whom we have come to love, respect and appreciate.

Among some of the things that have developed since my last update has been the Leadership Course that I’m running with a church in Belfast.  Once a month on a Saturday morning some 60 people, all leaders from one church (therein lies the contrast with most other churches that I need, certainly in England) gather to explore issues relating to the spirituality of leadership.  These occasions have really helped me to knuckle down and get some writing done on my book on leadership and I am basically sharing new chapters with the leaders each month that we meet together.  I continue to mentor and see a number of individuals, many of whom are in leadership either in church or business contexts and as we look together at issues of spiritual formation my own soul is fed and stimulated. 
I have recently and very happily stepped down as Director of Renovaré in Britain and Ireland and am part of a revised team structure, serving the movement as one of its board members. You might continue to pray for its development and particularly at this time for my friend Richard Foster and the appointment of his successor in the States.
I am also excited by the developments with Metavista, an alliance of folks, the majority of whom are Companions and Friends of the Northumbria Community who are engaging together on issues of church, mission and culture. I have just been sent the first draft of Colin Green’s and Martin Robinson’s new book which addresses such issues. It is I believe going to be a classic and one that every thinking believer should read in due course.  My own book will not be in the same league but hopefully make a contribution to the issue of leadership in a changing church and cultural context and one that specifically addresses issues of spiritual formation and the character of leadership.

Over the Easter weekend, we are looking forward to welcoming Ken and Claire and their delightful children, Danny, Sian and Erin who will come and stay with us at Ballydugan.  One of the highlights for me in travelling to Prague was being accompanied by Ken.  We travelled by car, retracing the days of our youth in the Belgium Ardennes and visiting Community friends in Germany who are exploring the idea of establishing a house of prayer and hospitality in the Black Forrest.  Heidelberg is a beautiful city and I would commend it to anybody as a place of charm and interest.  Following our meetings with friends, Ken and I spent Sunday morning wandering around Heidelberg and what impressed us most about the experience was that here were Europeans enjoying a Sabbath.  We popped our heads around three church doors, loitering at the back of services that were well attended and as we wandered the streets people were relaxed, talking, enjoying one another’s company and dozens gathered in the market square to sit outside and enjoy coffee and other beverages in the warmth of the spring sun.  What was noticeably absent was the lack of any shops that were open.  Consumerism had been dealt a blow, thank God, by the observance of the Sabbath and what a different atmosphere the city was with all its shops closed, many of them having been shut from Saturday lunchtime.  I Britain we were deceived by the political rhetoric back in the 1980’s when the Sunday Trading Bill was introduced and the loss of the Sabbath has done us, I believe, great harm.  Shopping, that great cultural pursuit of the 21st century in Britain, has so eroded time and space for family, friends, God and self and dulled the imagination of people who can think of doing little else than being consumed with shopping.   Worshipping not in church or chapel, but in the shopping malls, taking the offering up with Visa, Maestro or store cards.  

Ken and I loved the Frites and mayonnaise in Belgium, the dark beers in the Czech Republic and especially the éclairs in France and the staff who served us in the patisserie ~ French women are just so beautiful and classy!  The way we were welcomed, served and our goods presented in a beautiful box with ribbons.Such a contrast from the bakeries here in Britain where often you are either barked at, grumped at and your goods despatched in a soggy, greasy paper bag. 
It was a joy on both outbound and return journeys to stay overnight with John & Sue Richardson, Companions of the Community in Wye, Kent and the experience of sailing back over the Irish sea from Liverpool to Belfast in a Force 9 passed us by unnoticed as we slept soundly in our cabin ~ a bit disappointing really! 

I am also very conscious that some of my closest friends are facing some big decisions, particularly in relation to their work. Having just listened to Melvyn Bragg’s excellent Radio 4 ‘In our Time’ programme about the Celtic saint Hild I am reminded of the phrase in our own Hild liturgy, Help me to find the right seat, the fitting task and a willing heart. That is my prayer for my friends, Rob, Gayle-Anne, Colin, Ken, Stephen and Jim.

If you have a heart for animals you might also remember our dog Jasmine. She is a rescued greyhound and has settled well into her new life with us. Sadly she was poisoned whilst out walking on a local beach and took a severe reaction to what was either a toxin or drugs that had been left or dropped on the beach. With the marvellous skill and help of our local vets she has survived her ordeal, fighting for her life for several days she is making slow but steady progress although her coordination has been affected and she is not as steady on her feet. She wouldn’t win any races now!

After Easter, Trevor, Jeff & I are over at De Spil in Holland sharing the weekend with our Companions and Friends there, exploring what partnership might mean for our two ‘Communities’.

We then move onto speak at a Conference on the Dutch/German border with Church ministers before journeying down to Normandy to lead a two day Community Retreat at L’Abri, a “Community House of Prayer and Hospitality” run by Andrew & Jane Perkins

We look forward to being with them and others including Brian and Cathy who have a similar house in the Dordogne.  I hope that there may be time whilst we are in Normandy to go down to the coast where Columbanus first landed on the shores of Europe.  From that place near San Malo he wandered for the love of Christ establishing monastic houses and communities all across the continent.

We have also, though on a much smaller scale, been called to “walk the ancient paths” and as we do so in Northumbria, here in Ireland and across Europe, may the Lord continue to direct our paths and lead us as we carry his light and hope in our hearts and hospitality. 

Thank you again for journeying with us.  Your prayers and support in other ways are hugely appreciated.

Bless you and take care, in the name of the risen Christ,

Issue 3
January 2007
Greetings from Ballydugan!

It is now four months since we left our beloved Northumberland, and journeyed across to a place and people whom we’ve felt increasingly drawn to over the years. One of the great encouragements for us has been the welcome, hospitality and friendship that we have received from folks over here in County Down, both those known to us and others who we’ve been privileged to meet and share with since our arrival.

I find Ireland such a paradoxical place; warmth and hospitality, great humour and respect of people mixed with hostility, sectarianism and a suspicion of people who don’t easily fit into a defined category that attaches labels, perceptions - right and wrong - on people.

County Down is a beautiful area of Northern Ireland and despite what has been a very busy period we’ve been able to get out a bit and explore some of the surrounding area with walks to Murlough nature reserve on the coast, Tullamore, Castlewellan and Delamont and the other places surrounding Strangford Lough. The Mourne mountains are inviting but we have yet to walk in them. I do miss the ‘right to roam’ that exists in England as so much of the land is private and inaccessible but driving around the area one can appreciate C.S. Lewis’ description of heaven, likening it to ‘Oxford set in County Down’.

One of the gifts, opportunities as well as challenges of living in another culture is to see through a different lens the people, places and practices of those who are residents. It is not that Ireland is unfamiliar to us and having prayed and travelled, made friends and stayed over many years, it is nevertheless from a different perspective that our impressions are formed now as those living in the country.
On the positive side it is heartening to see and receive the respect afforded people, something which we who been beneficiaries of, be it with local tradesman, in shops and in casual conversation.

We live in a predominantly Catholic and Republican area of Northern Ireland yet have been treated and welcomed despite our English accents. However, I have quickly learned that it is much easier when questioned to speak of my work with the Northumbria Community than to be identified as a Baptist – an example of labelling but one that carries connotations in many people’s lives in this area.
I cannot get used to the graffiti, murals and painting of flagstones marking out the tribal and sectarian fractions in Northern Ireland. They are visible reminders of a country proud yet wounded whose history and conflict still scars the psyche and informs judgements, seeds insecurities and simmers in mistrust and suspicion below the surface. Beautiful as the area where we live is, we are aware of the impact that The Troubles have had on the people and land. For example, over 250 people were killed in County Down during the Troubles. These included those who were gunned down whilst watching the World Cup football Finals in 1994 at a nearby village pub; those who died from a landmine attack on the main road near where we now live; people from both sides of the divide, those who belonged to paramilitary groups and many innocent victims who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Last week listening to someone who came for spiritual direction who knowing Christ’s call to forgive our enemies nevertheless finds it hard to let go of the hurts and the fears associated with being evicted along with half of the residents in their street in Belfast by a paramilitary group back in the 1970’s. Twelve hours notice given to leave your home, where your family had lived for several generations with no recourse or compensation, only the promise that failure to comply would lead to murder.

In the autumn we enjoyed a lovely evening at the newly refurbished Grand Opera House in Belfast, treated by one of our good Irish friends. It was great to be there and to realise that for so many periods during the Troubles, the theatre was closed because of incendiary damage, terrorists, arsonist attacks and bomb scares. Situated next to the Europa, the most bombed hotel in the world, now thank God, free of such atrocities and their associated fears.

Belfast is a now a vibrant, thriving city of major investment and buzzing with life where once streets rang with the sound of sirens, sounds and symbols of unrest, violence and murder. When I first visited Belfast I remember seeing young soldiers, [boys] at street corners, the military much in evidence, the days pre 1998 when you entered the city centre through turn-styles and heavily armed security checks.
Now, a city transformed where beauty, goodness and creativity are replacing scarred remains of a ‘war torn’ urban environment.
Living in this context I have become more aware of how landscape, history and culture impacts spirituality. I’m also very thankful for the place and spirituality of Northumbria that speaks to me of gentleness, peace and beauty. Not that Northumbria has been untroubled in its history but for a long period now it has been free of war and major conflict. My prayer for Ireland is that we are living with the emergence of the new dawn of lasting peace, reconciliation and justice and trust. Perhaps trust is the key issue and one that requires more forgiving and daring in order for long held suspicions to abate and a new way of cooperative living to emerge.

I’ve witnessed passion that you can see as both a positive and detrimental trait of Irish culture. We witnessed it at Ravenhill Park where Joshua and I joined two friends to watch Ulster beat Toulouse in the Rugby. I’ve seen it whilst watching the parents on the touchline of the local school’s football team match. Men who show such feeling when it comes to politics, religion and sport but who find it hard to express emotion in relationships. Darren Clarke, the Irish golfer who lost his wife to cancer earlier last year showed how real men do cry when he allowed his emotions to show during Europe’s Ryder Cup success. It’s all fascinating to observe - a heavy mix of complexity, contradictions and communities in a Northern Ireland culture undergoing major transition.

One issue that I fear the church will not be at the forefront of is that of understanding the challenges and opportunities of a postmodern culture. Using terms like ‘post Christendom’, ‘church being marginalised’ and ‘exile’ will, I fear, find little resonance within the majority of believers here and is likely to being branded yet more questionable if not heretical than we might already have been labelled!
Yet these realities, I sense, will come all too quickly to the church here in Ireland and the song of the exile will need to be sung in order to relate to the new land, be it one bathing in the tides of secularism, consumerism, materialism, hedonism or fundamentalism.

So what are we doing here? Well as I have stated previously we are seeking to be responsive to God’s prompting, our wandering for the love of Christ has brought us at this time to this place, to be among a people whom we’ve prayed for throughout the years; to find a rhythm of life that reflects our calling to Availability and Vulnerability; to express heart, home, hospitality and hope to those whom God sends across our path and among those whom we are privileged to share with and work alongside.

A few years ago I did mention to a few people that I had hoped to take a sabbatical in Ireland but the Baptist Union Presidency put paid to that idea and far from being a period of rest and reflection our time here is one of considerable demands and responsibility.

There are many good and significant happenings in the life of the Northumbria Community, not least the emergence and transition of our new leadership network, developments in Europe, issues of spiritual formation, mentoring and the challenges of mission and engaging with culture that I am wrestling with and writing about.

It is so important that the opportunity that particularly this year brings will be seized and I am able to write – what on? – spiritual formation, new monasticism, leadership issues and a major contribution to a ‘Rough Guide of the Northumbria Community’. I have started putting ‘pen to paper’ [fingers to the keyboard!] on my writing, turning the MA modules I wrote into a book on Leadership and following an excellent couple of days with Jeff and Jill Sutheran and Pete Askew, followed by a visit from Ian Corsie, we have mapped out the compilation of the ‘Rough Guide’ which is to be written this year. I shall be contributing considerably to this and it should prove an invaluable resource to many within and beyond the Community.

We are thoroughly enjoying being grandparents and, bless him, our first grandchild Isaac was overdue his arrival date, (he must have his grandfather’s genes!) and duly entered the world two days after our arrival here in Ireland. Within an hour of his birth, Shirley and I together with Joshua and Francesca were with him and his proud but exhausted parents, Ben and Judith, in Belfast. The gift of life, a precious gift, everyone a miracle, it has been a delight to see him grow and develop and see the circle of life realised. As I write, I can see his smiling face and look forward to seeing him again this evening.

Having lost our delightful Border terrier, Geordie, who died shortly before we moved to Ireland, my walking companion in the hills for over a decade, we decided to give ourselves a break from the responsibilities of being dog owners probably during our period here. Well so much for that plan! Within 10 days we were at the Dog Pound and came back having rescued a beautiful former Irish greyhound. People used to say that Geordie looked like me, small, stocky, scruffy but good fun to be with; we saw no similarities between this tall, elegant lady, whom we’ve named Jasmine until I dressed appropriately for preaching in Down Cathedral recently where the wearing of a dog collar was prescribed. I realised when I was waking the dog down to the lake that I may not be tall, dark and elegant, neither can I run as fast as I could, but that Jasmine and I looked similar to one another. I in my dark suit, white shirt and dog collar and she all black except for a small white patch on her collar!

Take care,

Prayer Pointers

If you are the kind of person who appreciates some specific prayer pointers then here’s a few….

Give thanks to God for Ireland and the opportunity that we have to be here at this time.
Pray that the land of scholars and saints, who have shaped Western civilisation with the gospel may experience again the grace, goodness and peace of God in the emerging new Irish cultural context.