Sunday, 7th March, 2010
I’ve just returned home from a really demanding but very good weekend where we gathered together the wider leadership network of Overseers, Seniors, Trustees, Economos, potential Provincials and Invited others to share and carry some of the responsibilities and decisions concerning the ongoing life, growth and development of the Community. These are heady, challenging but exciting days. I thank God for some really good Companions and Friends with whom I am covenanted together with, within the love of Christ. Their faithfulness to the Community and commitment to its work is commendable and encouraging. It was great to see everyone including Sarah who had flown in from the States and Floor & Ada who had come across on the ferry from Holland just to be with us for the weekend. A mixture of founding generations, second and now third generations. Each one occupying the right seat, prepared to take responsibility for the fitting task and with willing hearts. It augers well for our future.
Two folks who were very noticeable by their absence were Jeff and Jill. Tragedy had befallen them and their family last Friday as Jill’s brother sadly and unexpectedly died within a week of contracting Guillane Barre Syndrome. I am grieving the loss of my elderly parents, but the sudden death of a fit and healthy 50 year old is an altogether different thing. I have known Andrew since the days when he and his first wife were part of the church I pastured at Portrack on Teesside. He had been with the Community years ago and among his many talents was his musical abilities and it was at Spring Harvest on a Community team that he met his second wife. His death is sad, complex and agonising for his family and for Jeff and Jill who are carrying much of the responsibility, to steer their large and extended family through this dark chapter in their lives ~ pray for them.
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.
Sunday, 21st February
At the post-pantomime party held at one of the local pubs following the last night, I got talking to a young professional couple who live in the Greater Manchester area. They’d seen the article in the previous week’s Telegraph about Wooler and decided to have a weekend away in a County they’d never been to before. The experience blew them away. Arriving late on the Friday night at their pub accommodation, they realised that they were too late for either restaurant or pub food. They sat in the bar only to be welcomed by the locals and within minutes were placing their order for the Indian takeaway with people who moments before were strangers who were becoming friends. They were advised where to walk and visit the following day and the landlady managed to fix them a couple of tickets for the last night of the pantomime, (which might explain why there was standing room only). They enjoyed their walk, they were aching with laughter from the pantomime, but more especially talked about an experience of being welcomed in a way that had alluded them in the virtual reality of their network culture and Face book contacts. They will be back because something about the place and the people touched their lives so when they asked me what I did I came clean and told them. You could sense both the intrigue and disbelief. Clearly they’d neither experienced hospitality like this before nor had they any real encounters with people who love God and are trying to follow Christ. I bade them farewell and returned to the main panto group for the speeches. I was so proud to belong to this place and the people, the vast majority of whom don’t share the same faith that I possess. It was only a pantomime but the process of putting it on evidenced commitment, friendship, support, helpfulness, co-operation, laughter and encouragement and the atmosphere in the pub that evening was welcoming, inclusive and a taste of community. How I long that the church might reflect such for that night in the pub I think I saw a sign of the kingdom of God that I haven’t always seen in a church building or worship service context.
Of course, I have witnessed good examples of hospitality in churches and our own Northumbria Community at its best does hospitality brilliantly. Strangers have become friends amongst us and long may it continue.
The architects who are working on the plans for our new Mother House are working on the brief that it is to be a place of hospitality. My prayer for the Community is that wherever we are, alone and together, at the Mother House or in Other Houses, in our own homes or on the road, we express that hospitality of the heart, that welcomes, honours and blesses all whom God sends.
Sunday, 21st February, 2010
The morning after the three nights before! They say that change is as good as a rest and given that I haven’t had a lot of rest recently, the change took the form of writing some of the script and performing in the local pantomime, Robin Hood – Wooler men in tights! It was a cracking time, great fun, enjoyed and appreciated by not only the cast and supporting crew but the three full houses that we played to which represents about half the population of Wooler. Young and old, people from all kinds of different backgrounds, working hard and supporting one another. The after show party on Saturday night was a real celebratory time, a really good community event. I, (the woodcutter) and Paul (Red Riding Hood’s irresponsible Mother) thoroughly enjoyed sharing with old friends and meeting new ones through the experience and whilst Paul has to live down his lemon hair, big boobs, mini skirt and overdone, tarty make-up, I come away from the performance with the reputation of having a big chopper!
Saturday, 20th February, 2010
Wooler is the place to be! Don’t just take my word for it follow the links:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/eating_out/a_a_gill/article7011272.ece and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buyingsellingandmoving/7220711/Downsizing-the-upside.html.
The celebrated food writer A. A. Gill had such a good experience at the Milan Restaurant, which is located behind our house, that he wrote commending not only the food, the restaurant, but Wooler. The following week, The Daily Telegraph did the top ten places in Britain to downsize to and yes, you’ve guessed it, top of the list was Wooler beating Aylesbury, Malmesbury, Faversham to take the accolades which, of course, immediately puts up the price of houses, a not altogether helpful thing for those locally who are trying to buy, but nevertheless a real boost for the local economy.
Saturday, 20th February, 2010
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage, Psalm 16 v.6
It was one of those amazing mornings; blue skies, sun shining, snow on the ground and for once Tallulah, our rescued Irish Greyhound, felt like going further than around Wooler common. She gamely walked with me as we ventured up into the foothills of the Cheviots and reached a height whereby we were able to look over Glendale and Milfield plain. Wooler, the Market town nestling below us, the panorama of hills and valleys, woodlands, fields, hedgerows just beginning to show the signs of spring breaking forth from the winter. It was one of those ‘good to be alive’ moments. Paradoxically, of course, my mind was still occupied with the thoughts associated with grieving the loss of my parents. I look out to the coast and towards Chatton and the Mill House that they lovingly restored and where their famous hospitality touched the many that passed through their doors. It was they who brought me to this place as a child.
Whilst I travel extensively, I am always glad to return home; to this land, to this county where I was born, to this place where I was first called to ministry and where hopefully, within the next two weeks, a vision that I had for a missional initiative in Glendale will be realised.
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