Friday, 4th March, 2010
Last night we celebrated. A cracking meal, bottles of wine, good company, we celebrated the appointment of Bill and Eeva-Liisa Eugster who are coming to live just around the corner from us in Wooler. Eighteen months ago, Bill and I were talking in Breeze, the coffee shop just opposite my house. We’ve been friends for years from our days in pioneering ministries in urban Teesside in the 1980’s. Shame he has been in Essex and Warrington since then and we’ve only been able to connect a couple of times each year. Over coffee we were putting the world to rights, discussing the merits or otherwise of our respective football clubs, Liverpool and Middlesbrough but we must have said something of interest because two days later I was quizzed by one of the folks who had been in the coffee shop. Intrigued by what we were talking about, my brief chat with her ended with a throw away comment when she said, it would be great if we had someone like him here in Glendale. I didn’t think much of it until I went on retreat six weeks later and as I prayed and reflected on the things that had been important, her phrase came back at me and with it a vision emerged that I wrote down and within 48 hours had fired off a letter sharing it with the Head of the Baptist Union Mission Department. The vision of a new missional initiative, a creative, imaginative exploration into what is faith, the gospel, church and community looks like in a changing rural culture. Fifteen months on and we have a missional pastor who will come alongside a small group of about a dozen people in a venture that we’ve called (or we’ll think we will call) Crossing Places. Exciting stuff. Something that I’ve waited 18 years to see emerge. Something that gives us some great opportunities as well as challenges to give an expression of the Community’s values in a particular local context. I am pretty choosy, a bit of a perfectionist, and so you’ll appreciate how great a commendation it is of Bill when I say that if I had the choice of who I’d like to be my pastor, he would be among the top two. I’m thrilled at the prospect that he and Eeva-Liisa coming to live, work and serve among us.
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