Inspiring Budapest

“Mum, where are you?” Was the moment I realised I had just gone up three floors in the wrong apartment block for our Airbnb! It was late and I was tired after the long journey, what a relief to see Hannah at the door of the right block just the doorway before. It is a perfect apartment (except for the three flights of stairs with no lift!) Directly behind the Gellért Baths and a 3-minute walk from the Danube, and best of all my lovely daughter here to spend time with her Mum for a few days.

This is the last place on my ‘European’ tour but had been the first place I had decided to come to. Last October I had the privilege of being here for a European Conference for the Protestant Churches looking at ‘mixed economy churches’, the bringing together of old forms of church life and new. On the first day of that conference a young Hungarian woman Pastor, from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hungary, had spoken briefly about the work she was doing in one of the poorer districts of Budapest, and there was something about her and what she said that, even with that brief presentation, made me want to know more. 

So here I was, with Hannah in tow, spending the morning meeting and listening to all that Marta has done in Budapest. We took the Metro over and then walked the last 10 minutes; it was clear we were no longer in ‘tourist’ Budapest. We finally found the large door to what looked on the outside like an old run-down building, but as we pushed it open it was like coming into a little oasis; this was Mandak House. A large central garden area with trees, children’s toys and play equipment, washing hanging up, a decorative mural on the entrance wall. Hannah said, “This is like Olinda”, which is the family area in Taize that we have visited throughout her childhood. She was right, there was that same welcoming but chaotic sense, something special.

The layout is a large central garden area and then it is surrounded on all sides by buildings, which as Marta described, have been home to a wide range of people over the years. The church itself is simply part of the rooms that surround the central area and is directly opposite the courtyard entrance from the street.

Marta emerged from one of the rooms and we sat down in her kitchen over a cup of tea and talked (well Hannah and I sat down, Marta did the usual multi-tasking of cooking lunch for children while talking about the history of this place). The house and all the grounds were given to the Lutheran Church over 70 years ago by a woman who had no children to pass her inheritance onto. The large room that is now the church was a stable for the animals and the central area was simply stones and rocks. When the church took over the house after the 2nd World War, they started to plant trees and greenery and so this beautiful garden began to grow. 

At that point there was still no church despite the Lutheran Church owning the buildings.  It was during communism in the 1950s, at a time when many churches were being demolished and closed that they turned the stable into a church. It was like a quiet rebellion, this small hidden away church being opened ‘under the radar’ when so many were being closed by the communist regime. During this period a group of religious sisters moved into the building, their nunnery had been closed down, but they moved into the house here, no longer dressing visibly as a monastic order but ‘secretly’ keeping their common life of prayer and community going in this place. I had a sense that these buildings had for a long time been a place of prayer and sanctuary for many and that they continued to be so.

The Lutheran Church has recently celebrated 50 years of women in the ministry and Marta recalled how when they first started training women at the theological college, they did not want the women and men to live together in the same accommodation so Mandak House began to house women theological students. Marta said that many of the older priests in the area have fond memories of Mandak House and all the romances that were born here: the male theological students coming and helping carry the coal out of the cellars for the women, the last kisses through the letter box. A place full of memories!

In recent years, though, the church and the surrounding buildings were increasingly slipping into disrepair. The attic rooms had no proper fire escape so could not be used, most of the small apartments around the courtyard housed elderly members of the church community, there were mushrooms growing from damp issues in the buildings. When Marta arrived the buildings were a health and safety nightmare! So, in some ways it is no surprise that she was told that the church hierarchy had decided they wanted to demolish the complex, there was only a small congregation, the buildings were in very poor repair and by selling it the church would make a lot of money as the land could be used for redevelopment.

This was Marta’s first church as a newly ordained minister and she quickly realised that the church had sent her for hospice ministry, to help the church die well, she was very shocked and was not prepared to start her life as a minister by closing a church. Marta comes across as a very gentle person, she is softly spoken, stops and listens to people, but she also clearly has a steely determination to do what is right. The decision not to do as she was asked, as a newly ordained woman minister, of course brought her straight into conflict with the Church hierarchy, she was seen as a rebellious and lacking respect for the Church authority’s guidance. 

So, what did she do in response to try and convince them? She organised a party! (A woman after my own heart!) In that first week she decided to arrange a church party in the garden. She had connections with a singing group who she asked to perform, she made flyers and invited people who she had connection with in the neighbourhood, she invited everyone who lived at Mandak House (and they invited their families), her friends made food and she invited the Church hierarchy to come too, and the they were amazed! Marta herself called it a miracle, suddenly this place that they had perceived as dying was full of life and they agreed to allow her to ‘give it a go’.

It was not an easy start, many of the small older congregation were not happy with what they saw, so many ‘different’ people in what had been ‘their’ space, children dancing in the church, a young woman minister who clearly did not respect the hierarchy of the church. The congregation basically split; 50% were totally opposed to Marta, they were very right-wing and racist in what is a very Roma neighbourhood (the Roma make up about 8% of the Hungarian population but they are very discriminated against and live in a high level of poverty. In the area of Mandak House they make up about 30% of the population). The half of the congregation that were opposed to Marta’s ministry tried hard to blackmail the other 50% by saying they would leave if she stayed. It was an extremely stressful start, and I was impressed how she had managed to stay strong. She said that for the first three months she had hardly been able to speak because she was so stressed. Importantly the Bishop was by now very supportive of Marta and really encouraged her to stay strong and to not quit. The 50% in the end left, in reality only four people, but they were extremely hateful. How ever hard it was for Marta it had to happen for the new things to emerge. 

I am always a fearful of conflict and find it very hard but what Marta has done at Mandak House would never have happened if she hadn’t had the courage to both stand up to the church hierarchy and to those within her own congregation. Such conflict is not easy and obviously painful, and something to be avoided, if possible, but sometimes it is also necessary. I thought the words above the church door (which are the Lutheran Church motto) was very apt: ‘A Strong fortress is our God’. 

It was interesting listening to how Marta had then started work in the area and how, much like me, her focus had been, and continues to be, on building relationships. She began by talking, networking and connecting with people both in the church and in the community. In terms of the church community, she used the ‘membership’ list, most of whom she never saw at church but who continued to give financially, and she went and visited every member on the list. By doing so she started where they were, but also confirmed that the majority were in the 80s, old and ill and while delighted to see her would not be the basis for something new. She recognised that she could spent her entire time supporting this group of people, and while that is important, she felt that is not what she had been called to. Many of us as ministers today will arrive into a similar context with an elderly, often housebound congregation, and it is important to recognise what our calling in that context is.

Parallel to that she visited all the NGO’s in the area, all the Government groups, all the community groups, and would say: ‘Please drink coffee with me and let’s talk about what you do and what I can do with you’. Marta loved this relationship building and reaching out to the community around and she is clearly very good at it. From those connections ‘a river began to flow’. It was also the same time as the new more right-wing Government came into power in Hungary and many of the NGO’s and community groups lost their funding. Marta was there both as an individual but also significantly representing the church and was there listening to these groups at a time when it was very difficult: She said: “I listened to their work and their political struggles, in housing issues, 3,000 drug addicts living in this neighbourhood”.

In the beginning there wasn’t physical space to offer, that was something that began to emerge in time. Marta came in as a Pastor and bringing that status into political campaigns for housing, speaking at political meetings, supporting the local groups. Marta was there in a representative role. I found that very interesting as I have always shied away from the idea of having a representative role, and here it was clear how powerful that could be. Through Marta’s visibility new, younger people came and connected with Mandak House, it was an organic growth through providential encounters people were brought in who were interested in getting involved in the wider community and some also connected to Church. There was a children’s group for the Roma that was started in partnership, a creative arts project and much more over time.

Crucially she also managed to get money from the supportive Bishop to begin to make the building usable; a large sum came from the giving of the German Lutheran Church and other sources to begin to breathe new life into the crumbling building. A community room was created, the student accommodation in the roof area became usable again. The flats and accommodation were increasingly filled, and the money raised from the rents could go back into the building. As the older people died the flats became available and she then offered them to the local NGO’s to use and rent. A local Roma support group moved in, a group for Fostering and Adoption, and then after the Syrian Refugee Crisis a local refugee group rented a room, and they then went on, over time, to rent a further five flats, as and when they became available, as crisis apartments for refugee families. Each family live for a maximum of three months as they get themselves back on their feet. A little Ukrainian boy on a plastic scooter sped past us as we chatted as if to illustrate the point. 

Marta (and the church) have used the space so creatively with the constant focus on the poor and excluded, her Christian vision is at the heart. While the rent helps the whole place keep running it isn’t about simply renting the space it is about how you offer a space for community partnerships to grow. Every Wednesday there is a community dinner that is open for everyone, that brings together all the people who are based here and makes it so much more than renting a building. I would have liked to ask who are the body that decide who can rent the various spaces and how is it managed but it slipped my mind. I suspect it is the board of the church and in the long run expanding that group will be important.

The church itself is a small traditional building and the Sunday style is liturgically and traditional. During my ‘tourist’ time in Budapest Hannah and I visited St Stephen’s Basilica, the contrast of this hugely ornate building and the simplicity of the church at Mandak House was very marked. For me it was this simple building that once was a stable that spoke to me far more of God than all the gold and grandeur.

Marta feels maybe it is time to find ways to begin to change and move in terms of worship but she wanted to respect those older members who remained. There are only five to ten people on a Sunday. When I joined them on Sunday morning it was a very simple traditional service with no children but a younger age demographic than some communities (in other words not all in their 80s!) Marta wants to begin to focus on the worship but has the big challenge of a range of separate worshiping groups but only the Sunday morning having a formal status and power. There are several things that she will need to address moving forward both in how to find ways of making sure the place of power and decision making reflects the whole community, but also how to open up the worship to connect with the many people who are drawn to Mandak House.

On Fridays they have 25 children coming for play and bible stories, then their parents come and join with them for a meal. This is effectively another worshiping community but because it isn’t liturgical and there is no communion, she doesn’t feel that it can be recognised as such. There is a huge challenge for Marta in terms of how to connect these different communities that she has grown and is part of. She is very aware that the Sunday gathering has not been her focus but begins to wonder whether now she needs to find a way to develop that in new ways.

The Lutheran Church is stricter and clearer on liturgies around communion than my own tradition in the URC, and that makes it more challenging. She does not want to upset the older community and is aware of the different tensions around. This also links in with being welcoming to the LGBTQ community (again in Hungary there is a huge right-wing hate rhetoric against the LGBTQ community that many simply accept). At Mandak House they allow the Christian LGBTQ community in Budapest to come and use the church on a Saturday; so, included but not part of, separate but supported. At the community gardening event, they all came to help, from the LGBTQ community, the Friday group, the residents, all working together on the beautiful garden and slowly the relationships began to build. Mandak House is a place of building bridges through the use of the space, but also very critically, through the relationship building that Marta has been, and continues to be, involved in. I recognise parallel challenges to my own context where so much of the community and relationship building has been through me as an individual and how to expand that, so it has a level of sustainability and is more than an individual. Marta spoke of similar challenges but she also has the focus of the space itself as a way that connects people.

I thought of the party she had started with at the very beginning of her time and wondered whether a party was needed again to bring together all the different worshiping groups, but a party that was focused on worship, on sharing the bread and the wine together. Her theology gives great emphasis on communion so to find a way for these different worshiping groups: Sunday Congregation, Saturday LGBTQ, Friday family….and then maybe the students and refugees as well, to share in communion together, even if only occasionally, would be very special.

Marta herself moved in 9 years ago and lives with her family, she has had three children during the 10 years of her time here as well as all she has done with the community. I asked her how she found living and working in the same space, that total overlap of relationships. It clearly is mostly good but at times she has also been near burnout. When the Ukrainian refugee crisis hit it was particularly overwhelming. Mandak House opened their doors and were a place where people came, with over 200 to 300 people coming every day in order to access support. Marta realised it was too much and the decision was made to rent another building and employ someone to manage the refugee work. The funding came by making the Mandak House congregation (tiny as it is) into a legal entity and it became a United Nations Partner Organisation. This was a huge piece of work and a bureaucratic nightmare, but it has meant that they are able to access a much, much wider range of funds for the amazing refugee work that they are doing. 

Marta took us across the city to the building that is now used for welcoming refugees. It was closed the day we visited so we only saw the space not the people, but it was easy to imagine what an important and vibrant place it would be. There was a big room with places for children to play. There were 2nd hand clothes for those who needed them, opportunity to sign up to language course, help offered in looking for accommodation and work and of course the support in navigating the complicated Government system. It is remarkable to think that this all grew from what had been happening in Mandak House and that it was primarily through Marta’s gentle determination and ability to work with people that this had all happened.

Marta commented that she is not very good at publicity and struggles to get those sorts of things done. Sometimes we get very focused on how things look, what we present to the world, this was a place that was about the content and not the cover and it was hugely inspiring. I have come away with so much to think about and reflect upon.

This is a link to a video that was made about Marta and Mandak House and probably gives you a better understanding of all the work she is involved in. YOUTUBE VIDEO

I am now on the Eurostar home at the end of a nearly 24-hour train journey back from Budapest, including a lovely night on the sleeper watching. It was a wonderful visit. I found my time with Marta and looking round Mandak house so inspiring. I also had some lovely times with Hannah enjoying the baths and a cruise down the river. I can’t quite believe that I will be back on the Eurostar this time next week as I head to France for a week at the Taize community. I feel as if my sabbatical is like a delicious meal with so many different and tasty courses. There is, therefore, a lot to digest! These last 10 days, as I have travelled and visited SO many interesting church communities, has been amazing. It is so easy to only see our small corner of the world and forget the ways in which people are faithfully trying to live out what it means to follow Jesus in so many inspiring ways…..I have also loved my trains!! The green way to travel, and the best way to travel!

On the train

I found myself messaging my old friends in an irritated fashion as I waited in Berlin for my delayed train to Budapest. “It’s an eleven and half hour train journey and it’s already ten minutes late!” The wise reply came: “That’s only a blink of an eye in an 11 hour journey, you’re still in rushing mode it sounds to me, switch to slow mode Ruth!” So I did, and the journey is beautiful, despite a crammed train (thank goodness for my reserved seat) the views of the River Elba with picture postcard villages, craggy outcrops and rolling tree covered hills, is just lovely. I have sat and knitted, enjoying just letting the world go by, now time for some writing. 

When I arrived in Berlin in was a hot humid evening and the smells and sounds of the city reminded me, a little, of years ago in India. It was that buzz and heat and also, probably, the visible poverty on the streets as we came out of the station. I loved my brief visit to Berlin and have increasingly noticed how energising and exciting it is to step out of my own culture and community for a while. One of the great blessings of this little ‘European’ trip is that I am mostly staying with family and that, combined with visiting local Church projects, this has given a real glimpse into specific communities and places and a reminder, in our increasingly isolated UK, of the wider world.

I was staying with Katie, a close relative. They have lived in Berlin for 14 years and so know it very well. The area they live in was seen, 14 years ago, as a rough area to live it, but in recent years gentrification has been a huge issue. This has particularly impacted housing with many people facing eviction and huge rent increases as landlords have attempted to ‘cash in’ on the changes in the area. It still remains, though, a very ethnically diverse area with a strong Middle Eastern feel: families sitting out on the street at cafes, smells of delicious food wafting, grocery stores with a wide range of fresh fruit and veg. 

The Church project we were visiting was, surprisingly, only a 20 minute walk from Katie’s apartment and so their reflections on the context of the church community were particularly helpful (Katie works in a wide range of community engagement activities). STARTBAHN, is based in a large church building and in their publicity describe themselves in this way:

‘STARTBAHN is a place for diversity, rest, spirituality, community, neighbourhood, political work, culture, enjoyment and celebration.’

We had been invited to join Moritz, a Minister in the EKD for lunch. Moritz works 50% in a ‘normal’ parish church and then 50% at STARTBAHN. As in every place I have been the welcome was warm and generous as he shared the story of STARTBAHN. He began by showing us round the building, which is central to the focus of the work here. The congregation had shrunk to unsustainable numbers and so a decision had been made to close the ‘church’ but rather than lose the beautiful building and the Churches presence in the area it was decided to try and do something new and creative with the space.

The central space is circular and all that really had to happen was the removal of the pews and ‘styling’ the space into a more modern and open style. It was a very lovely space that is very attractive to use for a wide range of gatherings from dance performances (one of Katie’s friends was performing there later in the autumn) to meditation groups. There were also a wide range of modern art pieces that had been produced at different times. The visual style of the whole space (including the logo of STARTBAHN) was young and ‘arty’ and would connect well with the demographic they are seeking to attract, a young community who have little or no connection with faith anymore. 

Attached to the church, but separate, is a cafe that is not run by the church but is a business venture that pays to use the space. It is interesting that the cafe space had not been used for a more community focused cafe but simply for a business? A comment I heard from someone who had been to the cafe was that it was expensive and felt part of the ‘gentrification’ of the area. We didn’t go into it ourselves so this may not be true, but it certainly was not presented as part of the project or vision and this may have been a missed opportunity.

A key focus at STARTBAHN is being open to the community and most days in the week the building is open for anyone to come in and just use the space. This ad-hoc use of the building by individuals has not, as yet, really happened. To be honest I am not surprised, how ever beautiful the space is inside it is just as daunting for individuals to go into and also unclear what they would be going in for? I suspect this is an area that will need to be developed more in the future with a clearer sense of whether it is an open space or a bookable space or a mix of both?

I was interested to discover what faith focus there was in STARTBAHN, whether there was a central ring as at the HECHT project in the Netherlands. The old worshipping community had left and so there was no continuity with the past (something that often makes it easier to start something new). I didn’t see, though, a clear vision, with regards to building a new worshipping community, the focus, rather was on the space being open for anyone to come and explore in anyway they wished. So on a Sunday there is ‘The Church of Interbeing’ which is not run by the church but is ‘held’ by the church. Moritz described it as like an incubator, they were providing a safe place for something new to grow. He does not lead it but will, when he is able, attend it and, if invited, contribute. The website describe the gathering in this way: ‘An experimental community ritual to reconnect to ourselves, each other, and the whole of life’. They are not a Christian group they are a spiritual community and may well be an important part of people’s journey. 

I come from a liberal open church community that genuinely welcomes new ways of exploring faith, who believes that there are lots of blurred edges and often struggles with fixed ways of believing. I am not from the ‘evangelical’ fold, but I found myself wondering whether STARTBAHN was a place of such openness that there begins to be no core? A ring doughnut with a hole in the middle rather than a doughnut filled with jam? Why were the leadership not starting their own faith community or at least opportunities to explore faith? Of course they could host and build connections with the ‘Church of the Interbeing’, in the way they already are but currently there is the implication that ‘is’ the worshipping community? Or maybe I am missing the point (this was a short visit and I wasn’t around on a Sunday), maybe this was exactly about letting go of control and power in terms of what worship is offered and seeing what others bring and emerge? There is, of course, a children’s focused worship but this seemed to be the only place where there was confidence about something that could be labelled Christian? Maybe it is such early days  that things are just emerging, but it surprised me.

I was also interested in how the structure of the project worked. Ultimately this is about a Church building which is owned by the Diocese remaining open, so at a very fundamental level ultimate decisions have to be made at the Diocesan level. The Diocese, though, have entrusted those working at STARTBAHN with the ability to make most of the decisions. My understanding from our conversation was that the place where decisions happened was at the Wednesday lunchtime meetings. On a monthly basis these meetings would be open to anyone who led a project and was involved in the community to come along, but in reality there would only be around 10 to 12 people. My understanding was that that group, an open and organic group, where vision was discussed, was the key decision making group. On a more day to day basis the weekly Wednesday meetings would be attended by Moritz and the other key workers (I think around 3 or 4 people) and immediate decisions would be made there. I am aware I may not have understood this aspect of the structure correctly and at such an early stage it is not surprising if it is only slowly emerging.

There was also for me, underlying the whole project, the question as to whether this was just a church of gentrification? It was clear, that to an extent, that was the group they were trying to reach in the focus and style of all that they were doing and, while it is important to be connecting with all sorts of people, to enable people to see that church and faith have a relevance, I wonder if STARTBAHN are not crucially missing connecting with those in their neighbourhood who are suffering from the impact of the gentrification and increased costs in the area? Would the project not be ideally placed to find ways to connect and bring together the whole community? Of course this may well be part of their focus, once again this was a brief visit with only a snap shot of what they are doing, but it did seem worth noting. STARTBAHN is an exciting and venture with loads of possibilities and it is connecting with a very different demographic. 

As I write these short ‘pen portraits’ of the communities I am visiting I do wonder what a visitor would write after a similarly short visit to my own community? My reflections, in the end are just to help me look from a distance, with some new insights and critical eyes on the community that I have the privilege of leading.

The train journey continues, the countryside is changing and many people got off in Prague so it is less crowded. Time for some more knitting and possibly a wander to the buffet car in search of a coffee.

Community Connecting

I am on the train to Berlin and looking forward to six hours to stop, look out the window, knit, and finally write up some notes on the fascinating visit to ‘HECHT’ yesterday. When I planned this trip I didn’t factor in quite how tiring it would be seeing and meeting all these different church communities, plus the pleasure of catching up with family. I woke up this morning with a sore throat and feeling very tired. But, even in the midst of tiredness I am also feeling energised and excited by the new sights and sounds all around me. 

I had a brief hour and half in Amsterdam before my train left and I went for a short wander in this beautiful city. From the minute you leave the majestic central station there are canals and bikes and picture postcard images. In search of a good coffee I headed off down a nearby canal side cobbled road, past ‘Coffee Houses’ where you only needed to breathe deeply to know what was on sale, over pretty bridges, dodging numerous bikes, and finally stopped in a quiet square for a restoring coffee. 

Yesterday was mostly spent visiting a really interesting Pioneer Church community in a new build area in The Hague. Richtsje (my Dutch cousin Maurits wife, who is also a Minister in the Protestant Church of the Netherlands) arranged the visit and it was hugely helpful to reflect with her on what we had heard and seen.

We were warmly welcomed by Marjolijn one of the two paid workers at HECHT (the word means something like ‘connected’ in Dutch). They had started seven years ago and only in recent years started renting the space that we met in. The space is in a big office block on the very edge of the new housing area. While not ideal, as it is not central to the community, there were no real options in terms of places to meet. It was clearly difficult to rent any schools or government buildings if you were a faith group and there were almost no other community spaces available, so when they started wanting to meet as a community on a Sunday this was the only real option. 

They have made the large room that they have into a relaxed cafe style space with a mixture of old sofas, chairs and coffee tables, numerous plants, a kids corner and a bar area for serving coffee. There is also a screen and PA and the whole space has an ‘arty’ coffee shop vibe. It may not be geographically in the ideal space but they have turned into it into a great resource not only for themselves but for other groups to use. 

The new build area that Hecht has evolved in is of a significant size, around 45,000 people in total. While there were some strong similarities in terms of work and approach with CWW, the geography of the area they are connecting with is very different (we probably have around 6,000 people in Broughton & Brooklands). The area is often seen as a ‘start up’ place for young families with the aim, in time, to move on. But equally for those who move into the area from some of the poorer parts of The Hague, this is seen as the aspirational area to be in. 

At the heart of Hecht is a focus on community connecting and community building, often through natural connections and networks. Marjolijn began by explaining her own context and early involvement. She has lived in the area for many years and she spoke of how at first she tried connecting with the two other Churches in the area (the PCN had planted two churches into the area) but neither of them had the missional impetus she was looking for. At that time she had young children and she found herself quite isolated and so decided to try and reach out to other young Mums.  Through connecting locally with other mums, slowly a large Mums group grew in the area. In starting the Mums group Marjolijn recognised that there was a real need for connection in the community, and not just for the Mums. 

It was at this time that she crucially met Arnout, he was from the Gereformeerd Vrijgemaakte Kerk, (at least I think that was the denomination?) They had a few churches in The Hague and had seen this large new housing area growing up to the south. The Protestant Church of the Netherlands (PCN) had, as I said, planted two churches into the area but GKV were interested in doing something more creative, while also possibly planting a church. Arnout had heard of the community connecting work that Marjolijn was involved in and they began to plan and dream together.

From this meeting the vision of HECHT was slowly born. Funding was found from both the national and local GFK for one funded full time worker for 3 years and then renewable for another 3 years. Rather than employ one person they creatively split the hours, initially between three people and then in recent years between two people: three days for Arnout as pastor and 2 days for Marjolijn (with communication and a million other roles). Of course by using the funding this way this emerging church community got more for its money, with both the creativity of two people working together plus more hours with two part-timers (Marjolijn readily admitted she worked far more than two days a week). 

HECHT is a very organic community but is also underpinned with a very clear vision and structure. The best way to visualise it is like the concentric rings on a tree truck. The outer rings are about community connection and the inner rings are overtly faith focused. It is the outer rings where the wide range of community groups will sit; the Ladies Night, the ‘Philosophical meal’, the cooking group and many more. This outer ring is not about sharing faith in the spoken sense. What is key to understand is that the outer circles have an integrity in themselves, they are not simply there as a ‘route in’ to faith. Marjolijn stressed the need for people to be confident that the community focused groups are exactly that, without any hidden agenda. While this outer ring is not about the route in, they also do need to have permeable walls so that it is easy to move between the different rings. In the inner circle there will be things like the Alpha course, the home groups and the Sunday gatherings.

It was very interesting to me that the HECHT began with the outer rings; with community groups and connections, which is exactly how I began in Milton Keynes. They also, as I did, started with their natural connections, the Mums group, and then later on begin to see what the community needs were, exploring what is needed and attractive for people in the community. In a sense a slight shift from very organic at the beginning to more strategic as it grows.

The role of ‘Community Leaders’ is very important and something that is quite unique. Such leaders are committed Christians who have, over the years, been drawn to HECHT. From the very beginning there has been a clear policy of discouraging people who are ‘church hopping’ and simply want to come and be part of the next ‘cool’ thing. This has meant that, at times, Christians who have expressed an interest have been positively discouraged and if they have wanted to get involved have been asked a number of key things: do you live in the area? Do you have a heart and passion for the area? What can you give? When speaking in the afternoon to Helen, one of the community leaders, she put it like this: Where is your passion and how can you start a community from your passion? Such a ‘high bar’ means that the Christians who are involved are all ‘Community leaders’, people who come with passion and commitment to the area and for community connecting and involvement. The word ‘calling’ was used a few times, those Christians who joined and became Community Leaders were there because they felt ‘called’ not simply because they fancied something different.

While I have huge sympathy for the desire to stop people ‘church shopping’ and have, in a way discouraged people from coming to CWW in the past, I do wonder about the different passion and gifts that people bring which would mean they were not people to start community groups? The people who are the ‘prayers’ in the community or the ‘supporters’ who would work alongside and support those who ‘lead’. There needs to be a place for them in core and leadership of the church community, maybe there is in HECHT, it just wasn’t clear to me. But I am also impressed by the ‘high bar’ and wonder whether sometimes we do not challenge those committed Christians who have joined CWW enough? The ‘community connections’ that have been the core of CWW are maybe getting lost? Maybe we need to ask people more often “where is your passion and what could you give to this community?”

EDIT: Marjolijn kindly emailed me the following in response, particularly, to the paragraph above.

“Maybe I can explain a bit more on the questions we did not talk so much about. As about supporters for prayer and so: from the beginning we had a prayer group, which was formed mainly by non-HECHT-participating christians from the mother churches, and prayer letters to praying people and churches (apart from newsletter for the neighbourhood). Prayer always has been our ‘back bone’. We still have prayer-hours and I should send the prayer letter again – thanks for reminding! And now we are getting into a different phase, we also have THUIS members (who are christians) who are no community leaders. Sometimes people fe have personal issues and therefore cannot be a community leader (for now). All THUIS members/groups have a task within THUIS though, even it it is serving coffee, watering plants, writing name stickers etc. We try to make sure peoples talents are used. Teenagers help with technique/beamer, kids clean up the kids corner etc. We want the main focus to be the neighbourhoud still, and will not become the consumer-church type.” 

The community leaders were not asked in the beginning to leave their ‘home’ churches and over the first five years there was no ‘church’ in terms of a Sunday gathering. The Community leaders, though, did meet (and continue to meet) fortnightly where they would share and pray together. In a sense these meetings were the heart of HECHT and the place where many of the key decisions were made moving forward. About 18 months ago, as their Sunday gatherings increased in number, the decision was made to ask the community leaders if they would be willing to commit full time to HECHT and step away from their ‘home’ worshipping community. This was a personal decision that most took. It has, of course, impacted some of the local churches where they have come from but was critical in the growth of HECHT.

In terms of the inner ring and the faith focused work, the first Sunday gathering started monthly just before COVID and is called HECT on Sunday. On the website it is described as “a meeting with each other and perhaps with God’. This has a very low level faith content, making it an easy step from any of the community groups. It is not like a standard Sunday service, there are no bible readings and it is theme focused and was started in response to people’s desire to explore a bit more. It’s about creating a smaller stepping stone from the community connections to a place where people can talk, creating a space to enable a deeper level of conversation.

Then 18 months ago ‘THUIS’ (which means ‘Home’) started once a month on a Sunday, and from October will be twice a month. While, of course, having a very open focus, Thuis, is a bit more like a service with prayers and bible readings and music and also once a month Holy Communion. There are all ages at the Sunday gatherings with an average of 40 people with 50% under 16 years (much the same make up as CWW).  With all age groups present at the gatherings they, like us, sometimes have the issue of noisy children! As mentioned earlier, this was the moment when the community leaders committed to joining HECHT on Sundays as well as their midweek commitments, which meant there is a core for the Sunday gatherings. An off shoot of this has been that many of the leaders have teenagers so there is now quite a teenagers group in the Sunday community which is leading to new areas of growth and development. The numbers not part of the leaders group is quite small at the moment but that will probably grow in time. 

With the shift to regular Sunday gatherings Marjolijn was keen to stress that the community, outward focus remained their prime focus:

“We remind our community leaders all that time that ‘Tuis’ (Sunday gathering) or our own community it is not the first purpose, our first purpose is the communities and networks in the neighbourhoods.”

I found this a really interesting challenge as I think at CWW we have shifted over time to focusing on the Sunday gathering and maybe have lost some connection with the community as our main focus. Do we need to find ways to re-focus? To reclaim that at the heart of who we are? Is that something we need to do in how we structurally work? Also the challenge to those who are already Christian and are choosing to join the community. Do we look at what they bring to the community. There is clearly a danger that if you focus on the Sundays you start to lose energy for the community connection.

There has been a recent structural change to HECHT that I found very interesting, a new foundation called RECHT (which in Dutch means justice) has been set up without the Christian focus but still structurally part of the same body. This will enable them to apply for funding for community activities more easily and many of the outer ring community groups will move under RECHT. They have been very clever with the marketing and language because the logo for both groups looks very similar and so even visually it is clear that there is a connection but it will help secure funds from places where it is difficult when there is a Christian basis. As Marjolijn said there are many things that they do which have a real worth and integrity of their own that they want to be able to grow.

I was very struck by this decision because we effectively did something very different for the same reason. In 2015 I was one of the key people helping set up Broughton & Brooklands Community Connectors (BBCC) in the area. I invited together people who were involved in the community and from that the group was born. One of my key motivations was to make sure all the community stuff could be funded and sustainable in the long run and it seemed to me that enabling a separate community group to develop would be the best way forward. This means that many things that were started by CWW now have no connection with the church community beyond the individuals, like myself, who are involved. I was struck by the power of what HECHT have done through setting up RECHT there is a structural ongoing connection. It made me wonder whether this would have been a better route both for BBCC and for CWW? Would each have them been strengthened if we had kept or created a stronger connection? 

In the afternoon we spent time with Helen, one of the community leaders originally from the UK. She has been part of HECHT for the last five years and runs a coffee morning for international families. A while ago Arnout (the Pastor) approached Helen because he had been having conversations with a number of retired people who were looking for a way to give back to the community and he remembered that Helen had talked about the need for support for children who have Dutch as a second language. From that discussion grew the group that Helen now runs, bringing together older Dutch people to support and help young immigrants. A subsidy from the municipality was applied for and then Helen was employed to run the group 2 hours a week (she is already a ‘freelancer’ in terms of her profession). Building on the weekly group funding was applied for in order to run a two week summer camp for the same group of people (which is what we visited). In future this group will move under ‘RECHT’ structurally and it is about the ‘outer’ ring, community connecting with no overt Christian focus or ethos.

It was a really fascinating day with Marjolijn and also Helen. I felt very inspired and challenged in relation to the way we work at Church Without Walls, particularly in terms of our community connections and whether we challenge those who come to CWW enough. Many things to reflect on as I continue my journey.

It has been a really wonderful visit to the Netherlands, both a joy to see family and fascinating Church visits, and I have also been reminded of how much I really like this country (I am after all a quarter Dutch but have not visited in nearly 20 years I think). 

Windmills and Churches!

The Netherlands is full of bikes: white haired old ladies with pearls, Mums with two (and sometimes even three) children somehow all perched onto the bike or trailer, kids chasing along, teenagers hands free on mobile phones and bicycle lanes that are like the red ways of Milton Keynes on steroids. My sisters family have always loved bicycles, long before they moved to the Netherlands just over two years ago, so it is no surprise that she managed to sort out a bike for me while I have been staying and planned our travel with bikes in mind. On Sunday morning, with a bike rack on the back of the car, we drove the 20 minutes to Dordrecht and parked near the house where we would be having dinner in evening. Once there we cycled 30 minutes across the city to the church where we were visiting in the morning; past canals and houses, over the big river (that we would later get the ferry on) and arriving in time for refreshments. 

The Bathhouse (Het Badhuis) was started about 10 years ago with the vision of a minister, Peter, from the nearby Dutch Reformed church. The building itself was an old bathhouse, a place where in the past people could come for a bath or a shower when they didn’t have such facilities at home. There were even a few locals who still remembered that time from their youth; 10 cents for a bath or a shower! It was in the village of Zwijndrecht, which is now, really, not much more than a suburb of Dordrecht. My understanding was that The Bathhouse had been converted into a community centre but had then been disused for a number of years and the minister saw the possibility of re-opening a community facility in a relatively poor area with few local resources. There was a lot of criminality in the area, a lot of poverty but over the years the work of the church through The Bathhouse has made an impact and crime has dropped.

The initial focus was on community ventures and this was supported by finance from the local government. The Bathhouse is now a thriving community centre with a wide range of activities every day of the week. The church is the key instigator of all that happens in The Bathhouse but the majority of the activities remain clearly community focused, this allows for the support and funding from government. This is about ‘Kingdom building’ and reminds me of the duel focus of my role when I first arrived in Milton Keynes: ‘Supporting Community & Growing Faith’. 

The faith aspect of ‘The Bathhouse’ is focused on the Sunday morning gathering and the offering of the Alpha Course during the year for anyone interested in exploring faith. The gathering we attended was an informal Sunday service with many similarities to Cafe Church back at CWW. When the Sunday gathering first started it was with the idea of a ‘low threshold’ for people to attend, very easy and informal and not difficult for people to move from a community gathering to the Sunday gathering. Over time the Sunday gathering became more formally connected to the ‘mother church’. But overall there is a blurring between the community and faith aspects of The Bathhouse.  

When we arrived at 10.25 most people were already there for the coffee and cake before the service. It seemed to me to be largely a white working class community, mostly of retirement age, with about half a dozen people of working age and a couple of children. There were around 20 adults in total. Most of the ‘leaders’ of the community, including the preacher, had come originally from the nearby ‘sending’ church. They do now have a Pioneer Minister, Gerben Bremer, who, I believe, is primarily based at The Bathhouse (unfortunately I wasn’t able to meet him as he had engagements elsewhere).

We were warmly welcomed with coffee and cake (the cake because it had been someone’s birthday). The tables were around the edge of the room with people sitting and chatting. There was nothing to signify that this was anything more than a coffee morning until you noticed the bibles on the tables and the large cross and candle at the front. We were introduced to our translator for the morning and the speaker at the service as well as a number of other key people.

The theme of the service was hospitality and there were a number of things that struck me. At CWW I shy away from using more than one reading as I am aware how unfamiliar with the bible people are, but at the service there were three readings, as for a standard service (Old Testament, New Testament and Epistle) and people are given the page numbers to look up the readings where they sat. It struck me that through using more readings and even more, through having bibles there they were encouraging learning and literacy of the bible in a way that maybe at CWW we could learn from. 

The music took me back to the early days of CWW when we had no (or limited) musicians as all the singing was to YouTube tracks projected onto a screen and I was reminded of how lucky we are to now have a few musicians and therefore ‘live’ music. The simple lighting of the candle at the beginning of the service to signify God’s presence was a reminder of how, even in a building that is so clearly a community space, through simple acts and symbols all can be reminded that this is now a ‘sacred’ space. 

The talk was considerably longer than we would have had, but with few children and the adults clearly attentive it worked well. At the very end after the service effectively finished there was a time for discussion, but this was a whole group discussion rather than table based. People reflected on the challenges of hospitality in their context as well as stories of hospitality offered to them in the past. There was a sharing of people’s prayers and concerns and a real authenticity to the whole gathering. It was not a large group but it was clearly important to those who came.

I discussed afterwards about children and how they tried to reach them. They talked about the lack of engagement with faith and how difficult it is with the younger age group. They do run a monthly children’s group that is faith focused, but I had the sense that it was quite a challenge to get children and families to attend. Of course currently the length of the service and talk, while clearly appropriate to the adults attending, would not be easily accessible to families.

The connections between the wide range of community outreach and the Sunday gathering is strong. They also run a regular Alpha course for people to attend and a fortnightly community meal where there is a very short bible reading and reflection. The key volunteers running the community activities are also the key leaders on a Sunday. All of this means that there is a level of trust between the community and the church. A sense that the church is a group of people who really care about the community whether they choose to come on a Sunday or not. This loving of their neighbour, welcoming of the stranger through the communities activities is about demonstrating the heart of the gospel and not just preaching it. 

On a practical level, The Bathhouse is not big and the current community could not grow very much in the space where they are meeting. If families and children chose to come on a Sunday it is hard to think where they would fit. The community clearly are a church, they share communion 5 or 6 times a year (fairly standard for the Reformed Church tradition they were birthed from) and there have been baptisms. Many of those who attend have some church background (they are of that generation) but it may not have been in recent years and this is somewhere where they feel welcomed and accepted in a more relaxed and informal style.

After our morning at ‘The Bathhouse’ it was time for a few hours being a tourist and we cycled off to the ferry on the river. It was an afternoon of ‘messing about on the river’ as we went from one ferry to another (with our bikes in tow) with the UNESCO World Heritage site of Kinderdiyk as our aim. What a beautiful place, a picture postcard of the Netherlands with windmills stretching into the distance and the water lilies decorating the canals. Then it was back on the bikes for the 30 minute cycle for our dinner destination, a winding route that was greener than the mornings cycle with fields and trees.

‘The Life House’ (Het Levenshuis) was an entirely different experience but generous hospitality was the theme that ran through the day. We met at Sandra and Fred’s place for dinner along with Aryanne and Tom. It was a beautiful area and we sat in their gorgeous summer house in the late afternoon sun for a delicious dinner. This was a long way from the down to earth community focus of The Bathhouse, instead we talked about how to reach those searching for meaning and direction in their lives, the people with one foot in the church and one foot out (and some with both feet firmly outside). This was about the educated, the middle classes and the young….those who may currently be in the church, but for how long? Who begin to feel that it no longer connects with their questions, their concerns. This is how they describe the focus on their website:

“We went in search of what drives and inspires us deeply. This is how the bible and psychology came together. As a team we have a heart for people and their personal development”

‘The Life House’ is an entirely different sort of Pioneer project with, at one level, no geographical focus (although they are seeking initially to connect with their neighbourhood), rather it is about the deepening of people’s spiritual and psychological life. It is about helping people connect faith with the many other ‘life’ questions that they have and beginning to see that faith is not some separate Sunday ‘hobby’ (that is increasingly dated) but something deeply relevant to the big questions of life. Because of this ‘The Life House’ is not easy to quantify in terms of numbers and ‘success’.

It was the brain child of Aryanne, who is a physiotherapist and re-trained to offer more ‘wholistic’ support, and Sandra, who is a psychologist and researcher. Their husbands are also fully involved and part of the core team. It was three years ago during the 2nd lockdown, when Sandra and Aryanne were walking together that the idea was born as they talked together.  Then about 18 months ago it became a formal Pioneer Project. 

The physical context, from which the idea has grown, is the new neighbourhood in which their home church is placed. It is a relatively big church (certainly compared to most mainstream UK churches) with around 300 on a Sunday and many more members, but they are very diverse as it has been formed through the joining of a number of congregations in recent years and, like other churches, the older age group is significant. This is a wealthy educated area, mostly two wage earners in the household but often also with high stress levels, high burn-out, and very disconnected with the church. The aim is to have a linking function between the home church and the local community, not necessarily to bring them into the church but to connect with them in terms of faith. 

But it is also about connecting with those currently in the church community who are on the journey away from Church. It is about pre-empting the writing on the wall in terms of church decline and looking inwards to those within the church who may soon leave and not just to those outside who have drifted or never connected. As Aryanne said this group “form the bridge; they have one leg in church and one outside” you want to keep them “for God, not for the church”. It is about giving them the tools to sustain their faith in a very changing context. I thought it was a very interesting reflection that we focus so much in Pioneering on reaching those outside the church but we also need to recognise that we need to reach those who are in the process of walking out the door and to understand why.

Currently they offer two courses as the heart of what they are doing, one for 16 to 25 year olds and one for 25+, and each course costs to attend. This is about encouraging commitment and valuing what is offered: “I have paid for it so I will attend and fully take part”. People pay for a gym programme to improve their physical health, why not a spiritual and psychological programme to improve their mental and spiritual health. Obviously that doesn’t actually cover the costs and there is some limited funding from the national church and they are now a charitable trust and so will be able to apply for funds more easily. This last year was the first year of running it and there were around 16 on the young people’s course and about 8 on the older course and there was a mix of those in the church and outside. Currently the numbers are very small but they are looking to grow and expand next year.

It is very early days, just a year and half old, yet so many interesting ideas and possibilities. I asked if they would be looking to roll it out more widely and they said that had been their vision…in a sense train the trainers to offer this sort of thing all over the place. It struck me that the key challenge will be how to connect with the right people to come to the course. What they are doing sounds brilliant but so often it needs personal invitation and recommendation and it is getting it out there. I would love to be able to offer this sort of thing to my community, it is the sort of thing that I can imagine connecting with a whole group of people both in and outside the church. But you need the person who can be that connecting person, to make the introductions.

What a day with so much to think about! On Monday I move on to visit another Dutch pioneering context and a visit to my cousin Maurits and his wife Richtsje (a Minister in the Dutch Reformed Church). 

Dutch Days

Yesterday was my first day of travel, that, rather blissful feeling of being on my own on a journey leaving family responsibilities behind! A busy Eurostar, but time to read and knit, and then an easy journey to Breda and my sister to welcome me as I arrived.

This morning I woke in the early hours to the sound of torrential rain and thought for a minute that I was back in the tent on St Agnes. Strange dreams followed of attending Quiet Church at Church Without Walls, but knowing I wasn’t meant to be there, because I was on sabbatical, so hiding in the garage and keeping Luca (a young boy in our church community) company while he played with an enormous marble run….luckily my sister Mary saved me from any more weird and wonderful dreams by bringing me a cup of tea in bed!

The sun came out and we have had a very Dutch morning; cycling to the open air swimming pool for a lovely morning swim, a coffee and cake at a nearby bakery and then getting the shopping (still on our bikes) from the local grocery. Later today we are off on a walk to see a windmill.

Yesterday on the train journey here I read most of ‘Life Together’ by Bonhoeffer. I felt as if I was looking back through a porthole into a different time. An age where ‘truth’ always had more weight than ‘experience’, where there was an expectation of bible reading and knowledge, where a Christian family would be expected to have daily devotions. It felt a world away from my context and experience (maybe for some Christian circles the distance would not feel so great) but there was also much food for thought.

The slim book was written on the eve of the the 2nd World War and was written in response to Bonhoeffer’s role as head of the seminary for the ‘Confessing Church’ in Germany. It is written, therefore, primarily with pastors and leaders of the church in view. He is from a strongly Protestant background and that focus on the bible and simplicity shines through.

He begins with an exploration of what it means to be a Christian Community and again and again stresses that “Christian community means community through and in Jesus Christ”. He suggests that it is when we bring our human ideals of what it means to be a community into the building of a Christian community that things begin to fall apart. Almost as if by holding onto an impossible dream of the perfect community we are unable to face and recognise our failings (which will be there) and so are unable to trust the community and ourselves to God’s love and grace alone. In community terms it is as if we try and ‘make ourselves’ into better people through a whole set of self-help programmes, which we will mess up (of course) rather than recognising that God works through and with our failings and it is only God’s grace that is ultimately the transforming presence in our lives.

“Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it.”

I found this a really interesting idea, that we should not flinch from the ‘ugly aspects’ of our Christian Community, in fact we are in as much need of ‘communal grace’ for our failings as we are as individuals, and that rather than focusing on building the ‘perfect Christian community’ we are called to focus on growing as disciples of Jesus. 

Bonhoeffer goes on to explore the place of human love and relationship within Christian community. He is very critical of the role of human love and places it in opposition to something he calls ‘spiritual love’. He sees the idea of spiritual love as something that is not self seeking that “does not desire but serves”. It seems to me that he is critical of the sort of human love that seeks to manipulate others, of Christian communities where there are intense ‘human’ relationships that, in the end, become the focus of the community rather than Jesus. 

“Human love breeds hot-house flowers; spiritual love creates the fruits that grow healthily in accord with God’s good will in the rain and storm and sunshine of God’s outdoors.”

In many ways he is suggesting that we need to stop dreaming of some amazing Christian community where everyone loves each other perfectly; in fact it is exactly that sort of dream that will in the end mean we are furthest away from ‘true’ Christian community. We will all have moments when God will have given us “the uplifting experience of genuine Christian community at least once in (our) lifetime.” But these moments are fleeting and not the day to day bread and butter of our common life. “But in this world such experiences can be no more than a gracious extra beyond the daily bread of Christian community life”. If we constantly seek some human high we miss the heart of what it is to be in community because “We are bound together by faith, not by experience”.

The challenge of this view of Christian community for places like Church Without Walls is that we focus on ‘belonging before believing’ where people, who would not yet see themselves as people of faith, are bound together by ‘experience’ and NOT faith. But maybe the key is that the core of the community must be focused on faith over experience, on a relationship with Jesus over relationships with each other. This is not to suggest that there is somehow a tier of community, this group are the ‘true’ Christian community, these others are just floating on the edge and wanting ‘friends’. It is far more fluid than that, and I am reminded of the book ‘Friends in Christ’ that I began with and the emphasis on God reaching out in friendship to each one of us and therefore we reach out in friendship to those around us. It seems to me that the ‘human love’ that Bonhoeffer is so critical of is part of the journey that we are on. It is where we all begin, but maybe not where we are journeying towards or ‘end’.

After his focus on the nature of Christian community Bonhoeffer goes on to explore the pattern of a day for a Christian community reflecting on worship and work, on prayer and scripture. For our secular age the pattern of the day that he suggests seems a world away, and yet the reoccurring theme in all three books, from such different writers and times, has been carving out space in each day for a rhythm of prayer and bible study. We are in a different time and how we carve that space out maybe very different to 70 years ago, but Bonhoeffer highlights some helpful aspects.

I loved his reminder of how crucial it is how we begin each day (again something John Comer was very strong on… don’t begin it with your mobile phone!) I am a morning person and from the moment I wake up my mind is racing with the day ahead, and so Bonhoeffer’s comment that Christians should not begin the day “burdened and oppressed with besetting concerns for the day’s work” is a challenge. When I wake up I usually have my cup of tea in bed and listen to ‘pray-as-you-go’ and since January I have started swimming, first thing, three or four mornings a week and I find the physical action a good way of slowing myself. But let’s be honest, Bonhoeffer is expecting much more of me than ‘plugging’ into an app and going for a swim!

The communal nature of prayer and worship was so strong and reminded me of what an individualistic society we have become. The focus on saying the Psalms together and recognising that we are saying them for the community so that even if they do not resonate with us they maybe do with another “Even if a verse or a psalm is not one’s own prayer, it is nevertheless the prayer of another member of the fellowship”. The same with prayers that we offer not just for ourselves but for the whole community.

The section on hymns was fascinating, particularly as we are a Christian community who do not sing very much. Bonhoeffer effectively saw hymns as the way of saying prayers and scripture together and therefore the focus was entirely on singing in unison. In fact he was extremely critical of solo, or even harmony singing as if it would take away from the true focus which would be as a community finding a way to pray together the same words before God. This is something we rarely think about and yet was so key in the past. There is, though, something that is very powerful in bringing together a community as they prayer together by singing the same words. I thought of the way our community always sings a prayer of blessing together at the end of our meetings and how that is a unifying moment.

It was probably the section on scripture that was for me the most challenging, simply because I was reminded of how thin my own bible knowledge is, even as a minister in the church, and also how very little people know within the church and how rare regular bible reading is. I listen to a daily bible reading but I don’t very often ‘read’ it? Most of those within our church community, even if they come from a church background (and many don’t) will have read very little of the bible. How do we find ways to engage a whole new generation with the bible when it is now, to nearly all, something entirely unknown? One line from Bonhoeffer did encourage me in the varied ways we seek to connect with people and how this is an ongoing journey with the bible (he was speaking of children but it can be understood more broadly). 

“God’s Word is to be heard by everyone in his own way and according to the measure of his understanding. A child hears and learns the Bible for the first time in family worship; the adult Christian learns repeatedly and better, and he will never finish acquiring knowledge of its story.”

I have a chapter left of this little book and hopefully will have time to put down some thoughts during my travels over the next few days. It is time to go and explore a bit more and walk to the windmill. Tomorrow I am off visiting two new Church communities and there will be much to reflect on (but not so much time to write!) 

Back from a walk in the lovely countryside near Mary’s house…windmill and water!

The Journey Begins

Tomorrow I am off on the next part of my sabbatical. I am spending 10 days travelling on trains and visiting new church communities in different parts of Europe. I am beginning in the Netherlands staying with my sister and my Dutch cousin. I then move onto Berlin for a couple of nights (another relative to stay with) and finally Budapest for three nights. I will try and share general impressions as I go along and probably post more in-depth reflections later.

I love train travel and I bought a two-month interrail pass (15 days travel over two months) so that I could make the most of this time and also travel in as green a way as possible. When asked what I was most looking forward to a few months ago, the very first thing that popped into my head was sitting on one of the many long train journeys and having time to reflect, read, pray, knit and watch the world go by!

I have spent much of this week starting to write the story of Church Without Walls (I am not intending to put that on the blog until the end of my sabbatical and it is in a finished format). It has been so interesting to look back to 10 years ago and think about the very, very beginning of this community. The miracle of what has happened here, the providential encounters with people, the excitement and risk of starting something brand new and the lessons to be learnt as I look back. I hope I manage to capture it all, but I am beginning to sense what a big task it will be.

I have also started a new book (not as much time for reading this week, or maybe I have simply found it harder to allow myself the time to read?) I have two books by Dietrich Bonhoeffer that I am intending to read. Bonhoeffer was a German pastor, theologian, who was born in 1906 and died at the hands of the Nazi’s in 1945. He was an anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church and his writings have been hugely influential.

I borrowed both books on a visit to my Mum’s last week. They are well worn and well loved. Bonhoeffer was a favourite theologian of my Dad, who died last Autumn, and I know that Dad would be so pleased to think I was re-reading Bonhoeffer, who was such an inspiration to him. As I read the language is old fashioned and I have to mentally ignore the male language, but it is clear already there is huge richness and timeless wisdom to be found.

The first book is called ‘Life Together’ and was originally printed in German in 1939 and first translated into English in 1954. The title of this slim volume points to the focus, Christian community and this line, early on, certainly sums up what I have read so far:

“Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more of less than this”.

There is already a clear resonance with Brother John’s book ‘Friends in Christ’ where we were reminded that Jesus must always be the focus of the friendship we find in community.

The second book is much more substantial ‘The Cost of Discipleship’ was written earlier in 1937 and focuses on the Jesus teachings in ‘the Sermon on the Mount’ and the costly nature of following Jesus. Written in the context of the rise of Nazism in Germany and the role of the Christian in terms of the costly nature of following Jesus, I think it will be a powerful read.

Time to finish my packing and write some more of the CWW story, tomorrow there will be plenty of time to read!

Interview with Tonya Hicks from St Agnes Church

Every summer, for about the last 16 years, we have spent two or three weeks on St Agnes, one of the five small, inhabited islands off the coast of Cornwall called ‘The Isles of Scilly’. On the Island there is a small Church which on a Sunday I have always attended. Dave, in the early years would stay and look after the children, and in later years liked to have a lie in!! (The service is at 9am!)

This little Anglican church is dedicated to St Agnes of Rome and has a simple beauty to it. The first church on the site was built in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, but it was destroyed in a gale. As the campsite is just along from the church, and we have often experienced the full force of the winds from the Atlantic Sea, I can well imagine that happening!! It was rebuilt in the eighteenth century, but then was again destroyed and the current building is from the nineteenth century when the islanders rebuilt the church using the proceeds of the sale of a wreck. The bell in the church was also taken from that wreck. Behind the altar at the front of the church is the most beautiful stain glass window in memory of those lost at sea and is a reminder of the power of the sea that is all around.

As I was worshipping there this summer, I thought it would be interesting for my sabbatical reflections to talk to Tonya, who is effectively the Church Warden for St Agnes: “I look after St Agnes on a day-to-day basis. It’s like it’s my church!” I wanted to ask her the sorts of questions I have been asking the Church Without Walls community; how did she end up at St Agnes Church? What, if any, church background did she have? Why has she stayed? Has it helped her grow in faith? What, if anything, is missing for her? Tonya is a similar age to many of those in our church community, with her children having left home in recent years. But her context is so totally different, the church of a very traditional style on a tiny remote island. Would there be any similarities in her reflections on church and faith?

Tonya very kindly agreed to meet me and to allow me to record the conversation. It was a wet day on St Agnes and I was happy to leave my tent and meet instead in the four walls of Tonya’s farm house kitchen. I began by asking her about the current numbers involved in the church and how it structurally worked. The winter and summer months present very different pictures. In winter there a two ‘regular’ people: Molly, who plays the organ ( and must be in her 70s/80s I think?) and Tonya, who is there to make sure everything is ready (readers, communion etc). As Tonya said they are both there “because we have a job to do” which can actually be helpful as it removes the question of “do I feel like going?”.

In my conversation with Tonya I was very interested in the significance of having a ‘job’ within the church and how that helps us in our discipline and journey of faith. It is something we are often negative about, the idea that people come because they have a job, but there was something important and compelling in the way that Tonya spoke about it in relation to the whole of her faith journey as something positive.

In terms of winter attendance there are also occasionally two other islanders, depending on health (both elderly) who will come and a 5^th person who is a Catholic, and with no easy way to get to the bigger island for Mass during the winter months, will join those at St Agnes Church. In the summer season the congregation is swelled by the many visitors on St Agnes and the congregation can be as many as 25 and is often around 12 or more people. Services are weekly in the summer months but reduce in the winter months to fortnightly or monthly. St Agnes is a congregation that is part of the Parish Church based on St Mary’s and there is a ‘Chaplain to the Isles’. There is a PCC (Parochial Church Council) for all the congregations and Tonya is the representative for St Agnes.

Tonya grew up on the mainland and went to church with her mum as a child.  Her Mum had not been very involved in church during her adult years but when she had children she returned to church and was asked to help with the children’s group and so, like Tonya in later years, she ended up as a very regular member of the church because she had a job to do. Her Dad didn’t go to church, but Tonya and her brother would go regularly with their Mum, and as Tonya grew up, she ended up helping her Mum with the children’s group.

When Tonya was about 18 her Mum had a very bad accident and nearly died, the church was very important providing a community of support to her and the family with lots of prayers and practical support. Tonya particularly remembers that when her mother was in intensive care the Vicar would visit nearly every day. It was clearly a tough but formative time. “A really awful time but with some really positive things”.  As she moved into her twenties Tonya, like many others of that age, fell away from church. She described it as a time when she: “closed my eyes and got on with what I wanted to do”.

Church remained at arm’s length for many years, with only an occasional visits for midnight communion, but when Tonya and Ben got married it was back at her home church, a place that had continued to remain somewhere of welcome and belonging to her. She shared this lovely memory of the church and their wedding:

“When Ben and I got married (on the mainland at my home church), we were keeping costs down.  So, we went for as little as we could get away with – low key reception in my parent’s garden, only the flowers in church that were already going to be there, and no ringing of the church bells afterwards, so we wouldn’t have to pay the ringers.  But then when we came out, our church ringers had come anyway – as a mark of respect and love for my mum – and they surprised us by ringing us out.  It was really moving to me, to hear that love ring out!”

 It was, though, when they moved as a family to St Agnes with two young children of their own, that she began to properly reconnect with the Church. “I always believed in God; I had just been putting it on the back burner”. Tonya wanted their children christened (3yrs and 9 months) and from that point onwards continued to take the children to church.

This is a story I often see in my own community, those who have had a positive experience of Church in their childhood often want that to be something their own children will have the opportunity to experience. Tonya described that sense of belonging, that she had in her home church in this way: “A place of friends. Where people knew me and would always say hello. A comfortable safe place for me.”

I was reminded as we talked of the importance of Church being a “a place to belong”, how often the catalyst for people returning to explore faith for themselves in later life is because of a childhood positive experience of church. They either want to rediscover that sense of belonging and faith for themselves, or they want their children to have a similar sense of being part of something. Faith is there and part of the journey, but it is not always clear and straightforward and is often connected with a sense of home, belonging, community and care.

As Tonya was regularly in church, she started doing a small Sunday school for her own and other children. “That was very helpful for me because I had to focus my mind every week on what was going on. Find out what the reading was going to be and what was going to be happening.”  Tonya found having to explain things simply for her children and others was also very helpful for her in terms of learning and discovering more about faith. Over time, because she was regularly at church, she was asked to go onto the PCC. Not long after that the only other person from St Agnes on the PCC decided to step down and asked Tonya to take over more of the day to day running of the church. Her response is one many of us would echo: “Couldn’t really say no, if I am not going to do it no one would.”

Tonya’s journey of faith has been very strongly linked to having a ‘job’ within the Church, firstly leading the children’s group and now as the effective ‘Church Warden’ for St Agnes. This has given her a strong sense of belonging and she recognised that it had also helped her not simply drift away: “I know as a person that if I wasn’t doing what I do here I would give myself an excuse not to go”.  The conversation was a clear reminder to me of the value of roles and responsibilities within our Church communities and how they help give a shape, a discipline, when we find it hard to do ourselves. I have always pushed against rotas and roles within Church Without Walls, seeing it as something that many people felt constraining and unhelpful, but it is interesting to reflect on the way that such roles can actually be supportive of people’s faith journey.

Tonya suggested that the negative side of her role was that it had not given much space for reflection, but the winter/summer pattern of Island life helps, as in winter there are only fortnightly or sometimes monthly services giving a ‘break’ from the responsibilities of keeping the church going. The discovery of online worship during COVID has also been important. Early in the pandemic she started joining a Zoom service recommended by a friend. It was at 9am on a Sunday which was her ‘time for church’ and it was, in a way, the first time in many years where Tonya really ‘chose’ to go to church and ‘chose’ where to worship. She found the services “really, really helpful” and reflected that she might this winter look at joining again.

It was clear that for a small remote island community the opening of online worship and meetings during the pandemic could well have an ongoing positive impact. The off islanders on the PCC are now able to join all the meetings regardless of boats and weather through having hybrid meetings in-person and on Zoom. There may even be the possibility of Lent Groups on Zoom etc

I asked Tonya where she was able to find people to share her faith journey with? Clearly geography hugely impacts with such a small island community. She said that she felt closest to the other ‘off islanders’ (there is one main Island, St Mary’s and then four ‘off islands’ with very small communities). Tonya reflected on the way that when they got together at PCC they bring a common experience. “Doing things in a small way, with very few people, in a community, all of whom would like the church to be there but don’t want to go, or don’t have a belief.” Tonya went on to reflect the way that the smallness, in a sense suits her. She is not someone who seeks big groups, which is probably why she is happy living on a small, isolated island.

Looking to the future Tonya didn’t see the church growing but equally did not see it disappearing. “People feel the history of the church very strongly as part of the community. It feels like a building that lots of people appreciate.”.  While there are very few baptisms (after all, baptism is a involves a clear faith commitment) there are still weddings and funerals that all happen in the church. If someone dies in the community everyone attends, it is a mark of respect. Equally, if someone gets married the whole community are invited. So at such moments the small church will be packed.

In many ways the situation on St Agnes mirrors that of the church throughout the UK, with a small, mostly elderly congregation. There was a faithfulness and a focus on ‘doing things in a small way’ that I felt was powerful. There was no need for the big and brash but simply faithfully continuing. I was also challenged by the way that having a ‘job’ in the church, in different ways over the years had been the thing that had, in a sense, kept Tonya within the church family and connected to faith. I was also reminded of the importance of the sense of belonging and community that we create for our children and how those positive childhood experiences can be critical in our faith journey later in life.

Next summer I will be back and worshipping in this simple and lovely church and I am grateful to Tonya for her faithful commitment.

Life in the slow lane…

A Sunday morning and no service to lead, and so I decided to go to the Quakers meeting, something I have never done before. This time of sabbatical is such a time for slowing and reflecting that a meeting of silence felt the right place to be. It is always a bit nerve wracking going to a church you have never been to be before and a style of service you are unfamiliar with (a good reminder, always, of what it must feel like for people entering a church, of any sort, for the first time). I was greeted as I arrived by my spiritual director!! I had no idea she was a Quaker, what a delight! And then followed straight afterwards by another warm hug from my previous supervisor… I truly was surrounded by ‘friends’.

The meeting is an hour of silence. If anyone is moved by the spirit to speak then they do, briefly and only once. If no one is ‘moved’ then there is an hour of silence. Three people spoke with reflections that resonated and informed the silence. I had wondered if it would feel a long time, but it didn’t. There was something so restful, and also powerful, to sit in silent prayer with a community of people (something I have always loved in the periods of silence in Taize). Yes, my mind wandered to what I was doing the rest of the day, had I got all the washing on the line etc, but it also felt a time when I began to lay down the heaviness I had been feeling since returning from St Agnes. I realised I had been internally carrying the CWW community, but at the same time feeling impotent because I was ‘on sabbatical’. During the silence I simply prayed for the community, for specific people and the community in general and simply laid it in God’s hands (after all, whether I am on sabbatical on not, it is all in God’s hands!)

Having ‘slowed down’ it is now time to finish my reflections on ‘The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry’ with the last discipline that John Comer examines, that of ‘slowing’. This is not a spiritual discipline you will find in any standard book on spirituality, but he suggests that in our age of ‘hyperliving’ we need to learn to slow down and to wait.

As I said at the beginning of my reflections on this book, I am by nature a ‘fast’ person, not someone who is necessarily very good at waiting, this is a discipline that I know I struggle to cultivate! What is key to the focus on physical slowing is understanding the way that we are connected, embodied people, therefore he suggests that: “slow down your body, slow down your life”.

John Comer proposes a whole manner of ways that we can begin to do this in our day-to-day lives, at the heart is the idea of trying to practically slow down; to choose to wait in order to help us slow down the whole tempo of our lives. So, choose the slowest check out at the supermarket, keep to the speed limit and maybe even choose to go in the slow lane, walk slowly rather than dashing, turn up early for appointments (I am SO bad at always arriving a bit late because of ‘hurrying’). There are a whole host of other suggestions that he makes, probably the most challenging is around the use of mobile phones and the suggestion that we turn off our email, apps, notifications and slow our lives down by digitally slowing down (I think of Keith in our church community who only has an old Nokia phone that is simply a phone and nothing else!). But in my household, it would simply be about being more like Tom, who takes life at a slow pace and cannot be rushed. Valuing the slow and not the fast for once.

I was interested in the section on fasting, something which is no longer a common spiritual discipline in the church. Dave and I have recently started fasting a couple of times a week… not a total fast but a severely limited diet on two days a week. Now, it has had nothing to do with a spiritual discipline and everything to do with weight loss. But I was interested by the idea that through ‘waiting’ for food, eating more intentionally, we might also have begun to ‘slow down’ in other ways.

In a sense the whole heart of this book is about how we slow down our lives so that we can live more fully and more intentionally with God.

“And if we can slow down both – the pace at which we think and the pace at which we move our bodies through the world – maybe we can slow down our souls to a pace at which they can “taste and see that the Lord is good”. And that life in his world is good too.”

I have found this a very interesting, and at times challenging book. I recognise entirely the way that speed dominates all our lives and the need to stop, pause, be present, but there were also elements in the book that felt to me to disregard the complex and challenging nature of many people’s lives.

In the epilogue he shared a ‘mantra’ that he uses to help him focus and slow down. It’s great and worth sharing and one I would happily adopt as I try in these sabbatical months to ‘ruthlessly eliminate hurry’!

Slow down.
Breathe
Come back to the moment.
Receive the good as gift.
Accept the hard as a pathway to peace.
Abide.

Washing

We are home and the huge pile of washing, that spreads across the scullery full of the grass and sand from St Agnes, is a reminder of the island we have left. The rain was torrential when the boat arrived in Penzance, the luggage dumped for collection in rivers of rain and so the house now has camping chairs and beds opened out in random places drying. 

Oddly, I have found coming home unsettling and have a nagging headache looming in the background. Dave is straight back to work, the boys returning to their own routines and I am yet to have a pattern for my sabbatical time at home. I am only here briefly with my ‘European trip’ only just over a week away. I miss the simplicity of life in our tent, the sound of the sea, the rhythm of the days. At home, without the shape of my life around work I feel a bit unmoored… there is, of course, the washing to be done.

I finished reading ‘The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry’ and need to put some reflections down before the thoughts disappear. I reflected on the first two ‘rules’, silence and solitude, and Sabbath. They all, of course, interweave and the alliteration is meant, I am sure to help them to be more memorable. The final two are simplicity and slowing.

John Comer’s reflections on simplicity resonated with my own personal journey of faith. He begins by spending a significant amount of time outlining why Jesus is calling us to a way of simplicity, exploring the way that Jesus speaks about money in the bible, about the way that wealth is presented as something that hinders our life of faith. He suggests that Jesus’ vision of wealth is in stark contrast to the American (and Western) consumerist dream. That having more and more, the accumulation of stuff and wealth, is the goal in life. Comer suggests that:

“We now get our meaning from what we consume” (The R E of H)

John Comer’s attack on consumerism is stinging and, in many ways painful to read. I recognise the relentless appeal of shopping, of having more stuff. I see it in myself, and even more so in the culture all around me. The way we have been manipulated to constantly ‘desire’ more, the built in obselecence . of so much that we buy, the throw away culture, the way that, particularly young people, have been formed by a culture that says you are what you have.

When I was 18 I went on a church exchange to the Church of South India, that formative experience has shaped the way that I have tried (and frequently failed) to live my life in relation to money. It made me realise that we are the rich that Jesus speaks of, that I have wealth beyond measure and that Jesus call to follow him is also a call to simplicity. We need, though, to be clear that this is not an idolisation of poverty, along with a focus on simplicity must be a passion for justice and a recognition that there is real poverty in our world and in our community. There are people in our church and community who will be facing daily struggles with the increasing cost of living BUT those struggles will be compounded by the cultural pressure to believe that we are what we have. I have food, clothes, shelter and much, much more and so this is a real challenge to me that to slow down my life, to discover the real riches and to follow the way of Jesus there needs to be a simplicity to life.

John Comer suggest that the connection between materialism, hurry and unhappiness is a real one:

“One of the reasons that happiness is dropping in the West even as the Dow is rising is because materialism has sped up our society to a frenetic, untenable pace”. (The R E of H) 

But as I read this section I reflected on how difficult this all is to talk about? How do we talk about what we spend our money on? Whether we are living materialistic or simple lives without heading into full on judgment of each other? I come from a background of comfort, I know there is a safety net and therefore it is easier for me to sit lightly in relation to money and savings because there has always been food, shelter, clothes and so much more. 

Something that struck me in this section is that John Comer pointed out that Jesus didn’t ‘command’ us not to serve God and money, he simply said that we can’t, it’s simply not possible. So if we are serving one we simply won’t be able to follow Jesus:

“For Jesus it’s a non-option. You cannot serve God and the system. You simply can’t live the freedom way of Jesus and get sucked into the overconsumption that is normal in our society. The two are mutually exclusive. You have to pick” (The R E of H)

This is the point when I just want to curl up and say, well I have failed then. I try to live a simple life… but only up to a point. I like my meals out, trips to the theatre and cinema, I am part of the culture of consumption in so many ways….how can I be a true follower of Jesus? I remember so clearly feeling exactly like this when I returned from India over 40 years ago and read the story of Jesus and the rich young man (Matthew 19). Jesus when asked by the rich man what he must do to receive eternal life first points to following the commandments (loving God and loving neighbour) and then Jesus replies that he must give up all his riches to the poor. The rich man goes away very sad because he has much wealth. It is a deeply challenging story but the exchange between Jesus and the disciples that follows has always been a place of comfort for me pointing, I believe, to God’s grace and mercy in our lives that makes what feels impossible to be possible. In response to the disciples shocked question “Who then can be saved?” Jesus replies:

“This is impossible for human beings, but for God everything is possible.” Matthew 19:26

I need to head back to the pile of washing before reflecting on the final section of the book.

“What if the only material things we need to live rich and satisfying lives are food to eat, clothing on our backs, and a place to live? If you doubt your ability to live that simply and thrive, you’re not alone.” (The R E of H)

The storm hit the island hard once we left and I was sent a photo of the empty camping field without tents plus of some of the campers sleeping in the church. Such moments undoubtedly remind you of the basics that we need, of shelter, warmth and food. 

Homeward Bound

There is a buzz on the campsite as word of the storm begins to spread: “Sam has ordered a full evacuation of the campsite!”, “The Island Hall is open tonight if anyone wants to sleep there.”, “Do you think our tent will hold?” We, though, are some of the lucky ones who were due to leave today anyway and our tent is packed up and we are going to be off before the winds and the rain hit. It’s never easy to leave this beautiful island, but some times are easier than others and I will be grateful tonight to be on my way home.

After silence and solitude John Comer focuses on the idea of ‘Sabbath’. This was something I reflected on quite a lot earlier in the year after reading Nicola Slee’s book “Sabbath: the hidden heartbeat of our lives”, which I would highly recommend. The importance of having a rhythm in our lives that involves time of rest and reflection on a regular basis is at the heart of the idea of sabbath. 

John Comer is quick to suggest that a Sabbath day is NOT the same as ‘day off’ when we stop our paid work but spend the day getting all the other jobs done and can end up as busy and frazzled as on other days. It is a much more intentional time of rest and worship. He is particularly challenging of the way that consumerism has encroached on the whole idea of Sabbath and suggests that by having a regular Sabbath we are actually involved in a form of resistance to the prevailing culture of consumerism of our day. Not shopping (whether online or in the shop) is an important part of Sabbath and, rather than being some legalistic backward looking rule is in fact a stand against our consumer culture. There are very few things that can’t wait until tomorrow to buy. I have never really reflected on my shopping habits, I am so much a product of my age that I shop any day at any time so this notion of pausing in terms of our consumerism, making a conscious ‘stop’ by having a Sabbath from buying challenged me.

He also suggests that carving out a regular space (ideally weekly) to stop helps us slow down the rest of our time, it is like a regulator on our lives:

“All week long we work, we play, we cook, we clean, we exercise, we answer text messages, we inhabit the modern world, but finally we hit a limit. On Sabbath, we slow down; more than that we come to a full stop.” (The R E of H)

I love what he says about Sabbath but I also found myself wondering how on earth it is possible for many, many people? I am in the privileged position of having a sabbatical, which is like an extended Sabbath, but that is an incredibly rare gift from the church. How do people who are struggling to juggling children, work and a million other things carve out Sabbath time? And yet I also think it is crucial that we find ways to do that, even if in small ways. John Comer is particularly critical (as he is throughout the book) of the impact of the digital world and the importance of taking a ‘Sabbath’ from our phones, something I almost never do. 

As Clergy we are sometimes the worst and the culture of ‘busyness’, only one day off is normal (in fact expected). How can it be possible to have a ‘Sabbath’ day with only one day off a week? There are jobs to be done that are not ‘work’ and so unless you have two days off a week, one for ‘Sabbath’ and one to catch up on everything else it isn’t going to work! Now I think Clergy (in fact everyone) should have two days off a week, and I generally take two days off and we should be modelling the idea of Sabbath rather than suggesting we ‘have to be’ available at all times and therefore can’t turn our phones off, can’t have a Sabbath day.

I am not sure I will manage the sort of Sabbath John Comer describes, his involves a family Sabbath where they all stop together (it feels a rather idealistic picture, but maybe his family really do happily manage Sabbath together!!) But for many of us that is not something that is possible. I have three adult children able to make their own choices (and Sabbath would not be one of them). I have a husband who may or may not want to have the sort of Sabbath suggested here. But I do take away from this new ideas for a better rhythm to my life which may involve a regular digital pause and a more spacious time for rest and reflection. To finish this is how John Comer invites us to ‘Sabbath’:

“To begin, just set aside a day. Clear your schedule. TURN OFF YOUR PHONE. Say a prayer to invite the Holy Spirit to pastor you into his presence. And then? Rest and worship. In whatever way is life giving for your soul.” (The R E of H)

The key phrase here, it think, is the last one ‘in whatever way is life giving for your soul.” We are all different, for one person it will be life giving to spend time with friends, for other it will be lying on the sofa with a good book, for another a walk in nature. All of that can be both rest and and worship.