May 10th
The Cotswolds are beautiful and had it not been so cold, wet and misty, I might have appreciated their beauty even more. As it was, I spent most of the weekend either speaking, leading, preaching or eating meals. I arrived on Friday night in time to speak with a fabulous church youth group of 14 – 20 year olds. Intelligent, enthusiastic, full of faith, we engaged in a lively, open conversation where they had the opportunity to ask me about anything. A terrific bunch.
As I reflected on the experience and prayed Compline that night, my thoughts turned in contrast to the spiritual poverty of the young people of Glendale where I live. In Chipping Campden every one of those youngsters was going on to Higher education. In Wooler, my home town, it is the exception for any young person to do so. The spiritual poverty allied with depressing low aspiration culture is a real challenge and a reminder that young and old need that transforming grace of God and his good news to provide an alternative way for living.
Herein lies the challenge that awaits the initiative that I’ve been involved in establishing, Crossing Places in Glendale to which we have invited another Companion of Community, Bill Eugster and his wife Eeva Liisa, to come and serve as a Community Minister. Planting the gospel, this is a genuine missional initiative that doesn’t start with prescribed structures, services, building or programmes but an exploration of what faith means in a changing, rural environment. Watch this space!
Overnight in Oxford:
The weekend in the Cotswolds concluded with me speaking at the 365th anniversary celebrations of a Baptist chapel in Oxfordshire. Some of the congregation had dressed in historical costumes befitting that period of history. The sight of a ‘Puritan’ Pastor playing electric base guitar brought me much amusement ~ a contradiction in terms!
As a compensation for my travels away from home, I try, whenever possible, to visit and stay with family members and it was lovely to spend, albeit a very short time, a few hours with Jessica, Nick and our youngest grandson Gabriel.
I was also able to link up for a coffee with Lina, a good friend from the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague. She was concluding her sabbatical by studying in Oxford. A bright, intelligent, creative and attractive Lithuanian, she is a very lively member of the academic staff at the seminary. She optimises for me the very best of Eastern European culture and a far cry from the dour images of how Eastern Europe was portrayed by the West during the former Communist era. The partnership we share as a Community with the Seminary in Prague is a very exciting one and it is very encouraging to hear reports of how the Community’s spirituality and our liturgies and other resources are finding a way to helping individuals, churches and communities in eastern Europe. The Office has been translated, for example, in Russian and is being used in places such as Ukraine, Estonia, and Kazakhstan as well as in Bulgaria and Slovenia.
We are delighted that a few students (Visa’s dependent) are hoping to spend a week with us at Nether Springs in August this year. The Eastern European Communitarian emphasis sits very comfortably with our own Northumbrian Community relational emphasis which runs counter to the Western individualism of so much of society and sadly the church. Jurgen Moltmann, a German theologian, said that the loss of the doctrine of the Sacred Trinity has led to an excessive individualism within the West. It is high time we rediscovered it both in doctrine and practice.
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