Foreword

from CRE News - January 2022

Youth feature

To freeze, a pilgrim

Easter Saturday 1973. Six frozen, bedraggled teenagers, sleeping rough (because that was cool) on a 60-mile, four-day pilgrimage from Croydon to Canterbury Cathedral, spot a sweet-looking rural church. Still wreaking from last night’s discreet bonfire, made in a clearing just off the Pilgrim’s Way, they ask for shelter for the night. A kindly soul, plump and friendly, like one of those farmers’ wives in a Famous Five novel, smiles and shows them to an outhouse, before rustling up soup and crusty bread.

The six of us have never forgotten that welcome. Without last-minute help from two churches en route (St Luke’s, Maidstone also gave us a church hall floor to sleep on) we would never have made it to the cathedral in time for the Easter Monday youth service led by Archbishop Michael Ramsey.

That’s why we’re delighted to make a big splash of the Grow the Rural Church Project with its allied Devon Pilgrim initiative (see p. 26). Finding creative uses for existing and sometimes burdensome buildings is high on the agenda of all churches, of every denomination. CRE has an enviable 35-year track record of assisting local fellowships in the maintenance of their plant but we get really excited to see the imaginative use of those same assets for the purposes of mission.

If you can join us at Westpoint (Feb 23-24) make sure you ransack the show to find every new idea to fulfil your mission as well as better maintain and improve the heating and seating. If you cannot join us in Exeter, there are now dozens of helpful, practical seminars stored online in perpetuity (see p. 20). And then, of course, at the back of this guide, is the most up-to-date list of active organisations currently available – with your ministry and mission at their heart.

Finally: an admission. The six of us route-marched the last 27 miles in five hours and reached the Easter Monday service just in time. But even Michael Ramsey’s entertaining, fluttering eyebrows couldn’t keep me awake. I did a Eutychus and nodded off during his sermon. *

Steve Goddard, MD, CRE

* For tips on more dynamic preaching contact LWPT (p. 46)

Foreword My Church Needs One of Those Youth feature Page 1 Pages 4-17 Page 19

Seminars

Pages 20-24 Beating the path to a rural revival Page 26 How to develop your digital ministry Page 29 Products and Services Directory Pages 30-48

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