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Looking back and forward

Looking back and forward

3 VOORSCHOTEN 4 SEASONAL MISSION 6 MAISONS LAFFITTE 8 LILLE 10 BARCELONA & ANDORRA 13 RETIREMENT CHAPLAINCY 15 DEVOTIONAL

MISSION AND MINISTRY IN ENGLISH FOR EVERYONE

Before ICS I served with Youth for Christ, an organisation founded by the legendary Billy Graham. The early strap line for YFC was ‘Anchored to the rock and moving with the times’. It sounds rather twee now but at the time expressed well who we were.

This ICS News has the theme "Looking back and forward". We have been through a wonderful process of reflection, affirming the many great things that God has done through ICS. This, of course, leads to looking forward with where He is leading us now. Seeking to be anchored to the rock who is Christ and His calling for ICS, relevant to the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century.

Within this, there is a dynamic tension. You want to affirm, support and build up work that has been developed in the past while at the same time seeking to work with new models, places, ideas and opportunities. It takes different skills and approaches, but this is a healthy tension we believe born out of growth and opportunity. In this ICS News, we are happy to tell stories of places that have been established for many years, but also let you see where we are moving to.

2017 was an amazing year for us, with new work either started or planned. I am delighted at the number of places where existing mission partners have sensed a call from God and perceived an opportunity and been able to achieve that with the support of ICS. So, it’s going to be a tension, we are always going to find ourselves torn between supporting what has been established in the past and seek to pioneer new work as we develop into the future.

As I write this there is talk in the media of the Bayeux Tapestry being displayed in the UK for the first time in over 900 years. I am told there is one scene on the tapestry where the king is behind his troops jabbing them in the rear with a spear and it says underneath ‘The king comforteth his troops’. Pray for us, support us, get involved with us I ask as we seek to follow the prompting of the Spirit of God in the service of the mission of God that we may proclaim the love of God that is seen through Christ our Lord.

Intercontinental Church Society Unit 11 Ensign Business Centre, Westwood Way, Westwood Business Park, Coventry, CV4 8JA telephone +44 (0) 24 7646 3940 email enquiries@ics-uk.org web www.ics-uk.org

Registered charity no: 1072584; a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales no: 3630342 Intercontinental Church Society (ICS) is an Anglican mission agency. Founded in 1823, we have worked in most parts of the world, ministering and reaching out to people from many nationalities and backgrounds. From the early days we have planted churches in mainland Europe where our work is still strong but also in and around the Mediterranean, North Africa, the South Atlantic and South America. English language ministry has a strategic part to play, alongside national churches, in outreach as increasing numbers for whom English is a second language, attend English-speaking churches.

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INTERCONTINENTAL CHURCH SOCIETY MAGAZINE | Mar 2018

ruan crew, chapl ain st.james, voor schoten After three years of curacy in west England that were good and beneficial, we were nonetheless delighted when the Lord opened a door for us to return to the Netherlands in 2013. Unsurprising when, as I like to put it, our family is ‘more than half-Dutch’: in addition to Lisette, two of our three children were born in this country, I was granted Dutch citizenship a year ago, and we have lived more than 13 years of our married life here.

Not only that, it is a real privilege to minister in a church context that is so ‘us’. This summer we will reach the five-year mark, and like all first incumbencies it has been a steep learning curve. Thankfully the St. James congregation are both a loving and a forgiving bunch, and have given me plenty of space to explore, learn and grow into the role.

Two words encapsulate much of what I feel our calling is about as a church: worship and mission. I remember that when we arrived, these two words kept coming back to me: how to go deeper in our worship together, and how to reach out wider with the good news of Jesus? Over the years we have tried various things—some straight from the ‘howto-grow-your-own-church’ textbook, others serendipitously improvised as we went along.

Some have borne significant fruit; others

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have been disappointingly ineffective. But as lightbulb inventor Thomas Edison once put it, ‘I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.’

What I have learned is this. Most of our congregation are working-age expats, and in contrast with many parishes back in England, we lack a team of early-retired locals to keep the show on the road. Instead, we are a church that is money-rich but time-poor. As a consequence, our worship and mission have to be realistic as well as ambitious. That means that we focus our time, talents and energy on our one weekly Sunday service rather than additional mid-week events (which do happen but where attendance is often limited). And our understanding of mission has to have a vocational edge, rooted in a sense of where has God called and placed us during the working week, and how we can then live out our faith on that particular frontline.

Finally, I’ve always known this and yet am somehow coming to appreciate it in a new way, God is the boss, not me. Whilst I aim to serve and lead as best I can, He is the One who will build the church. My calling is to be faithful to the process, and to let Him look after the outcome.

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Exciting times at the seasonal mission desk as we progress through the winter season and look to new opportunities in the coming summer.

Energised by the accounts of last summer’s chaplains being in the right place at the right time to help people find Christ’s help and encouragement and, in one particular case, to make that life-transforming step of faith into the Kingdom, I set off in mid-December to spend a few days getting everything set up for the chaplains to serve in Wengen and Zermatt through the winter.

There is much that needs to be done at the start of a season, delivering publicity to the twenty or so hotels in Wengen, the dozen hotels and campsites down in the valley at Lauterbrunnnen and over one hundred hotels in Zermatt. In years past, this publicity would have been sent by post, but since we adopted the policy of hand-delivery, with the opportunities for personal contact this brings, we have seen relationships with many of the hotels strengthen dramatically. While there is a lot of ‘leg-work’ involved (probably around fifteen miles of walking with a lot of ups and downs), the saved postage costs largely fund a special trip in December, and the first chaplains in the summer can normally take on the task themselves as they have a ‘quieter’ start. This December, the early snow and ice made things a little trickier, but the trip was successful, 20 kg of publicity was delivered making the journey home a little lighter, and some good contacts were made or renewed with the staff at the tourist offices and hotels and with leaders from the Ski Club of Great Britain, with whom we have a very positive partnership.

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by Jim Perryman Seasonal Mission Manager

As I write this, we have just heard from our Zermatt chaplain that life is getting back to normal. Huge quantities of snow in two days led to a complete loss of power and the whole Zermatt resort being cut off both by road and rail for an entire day. However, he reports that the lack of skiing opportunities encouraged more people to services on the Sunday and led to some interesting ‘God-chats’ with people around town.

By the time this edition of ICS News hits your doorsteps, the chaplains in Zermatt and Wengen will be more looking forward to Holy Week and Easter rather than back to Christmas.

While there are fewer people at that time in the season, the opportunities to bring the fullness of the Gospel message increase. Please pray for our chaplains that they may be enabled

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to both see and seize these opportunities, that God’s Spirit may bring resurrection life to some of those they meet.

Although our summer programme has been rather depleted over the last few years due to a mixture of reasons both strategic and unexpected, in partnership with Jules Wilson, our Associate Chaplain in Corfu, we are embarking on a new venture on the island for eight weeks from mid-July. An experienced team of seasonal chaplains will cover this period in four ‘shifts’, embarking on a pioneer work to discover what God has prepared for us to do there. I will travel out for a few days at the end of February to work with Jules at investigating the possibilities and opportunities around the Gouvia resort area—I may be there as you read this, so please pray for that trip and for the subsequent planning.

We await with excitement and anticipation to see what God will do through our mission there and will keep looking out for further new opportunities in the coming years.

There is no shortage of mission work to be done, thank you for your faithful support through prayer and giving which enables us to have the resources to act.

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Some of the 20kg of publicity delivered included posters

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INTERCONTINENTAL CHURCH SOCIETY MAGAZINE | Mar 2018

FOUR YEARS ON THE EDGE OF PARIS Chaplain Olaf and Marie Claire

Holy Trinity, Maisons Laffitte, is a rather unique place to be! Any casual visitor from the UK will be surprised at how this extraordinary community seems to project an idyllic image of a traditional English parish church. Once inside, however, one is struck by the ever-increasing diversity of our membership—we now come from all over the globe: America (North and South), all the British Isles, mainland Europe, Scandinavia, Africa, India, China and so on.

When we arrived here from 'sunny Sunderland’, the contrast in social location could not have been greater. Both of us already spoke good French, albeit overlaid with a very thick layer of rust, and though we had lived in Francophone countries before, we were blissfully unaware of the complexities of the 'expat experience'. Fortunately, we have lived and learned…

Among the many, many positive experiences are:

+ Getting to know so many interesting people.

+ Serving some of the social and spiritual needs of the anglophone communities, on the NW side of Paris. + Living at the crossroads, where cultures and languages meet. + Finding a great welcome from our ecumenical friends, both Catholic and Protestant.

+ Discovering the 'on/off' nature of chaplaincy work–it is either intensely busy or really quiet.

+ Being surrounded by a community, where people care passionately about each other, and treasure certain core values, often left unspoken.

+Rejoicing that the Gospel is highly relevant everywhere, even where people are (or seem to be) well-established and successful.

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+ Gradually seeing the 'new dynamic' we brought in becoming a blessing (obviously not for everyone, or always!).

+ Reaching out to people who found traditional church, or inherited dogmata, one step too far beyond their comfort zone.

There are still many 'big questions' to wrestle with in this place, for example:

+ How do we cater better to the bilingual aspect of our community, which sometimes makes our bilingual young people move to other communities, while remaining conscious of the fact that our main selling point is that we worship in English? + How do we balance the liturgical and the charismatic, in an era when the large majority of growing churches focus so much more on self-expression than on recital of texts, creeds, prayers? (We have done a good job of making room for Evangelical and Catholic, at least so far and through the grace of God.)

+ How do we find the areas where we can nurture a tradition of peaceful resistance to the dominating powers of this world, at this crucial time? Holy Trinity is rightfully proud of the members who resisted evil during WWII–where do we need to become Jesus-driven, God-centered and unyielding?

Ephesians 6:10-20

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Bishop Robert meeting with confirmation candidates

Holy Trinity Maisons Lafitte Holiday Club

Holy Trinity Maisons Lafitte Holiday Club

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‘ T O G O D B E T H E G L O R Y, G R E A T T H I N G S H E H A S D O N E ’ ‘ T O G O D B E T H E G L O R Y, G R E A T T H I N G S H E H A S D O N E ’ ‘ T O G O D B E T H E G L O R Y, G R E A T T H I N G S H E H A S D O N E ’

CHRIST CHURCH LILLE

‘TO GOD BE THE GLORY, GREAT THINGS HE HAS DONE’

The beginning of a new year often causes us to reflect on the past twelve months and then to wonder what God has in store for us over the next year. Looking back, I can see God’s hand in what we have thought about, prayed over and done together as a worshipping community.

We gathered together in January 2017 to look at the results of our third and final questionnaire.

Happily, people felt we had continued to improve, and during our day away together we found some key points to focus on in 2017: Music in Worship Services; Resistance to Change; Quality Inconsistency in Preaching; Communication; Coordination/Teamwork. We have worked on these and continue to do so into 2018, always room for improvement!

Focussing on key issues allows us to not be too distracted by the many tasks and demands that are a natural part of parish life wherever we find ourselves. We are not a large core of people to carry out ministry in its many forms, so it is important not to get overstretched but instead to be strengthened and continue to move forward with God as our guide. Three are studying a New Testament module with St. John’s Nottingham, tutored by another member of the team.

Another has been on a day course in London on Communications.

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‘ T O G O D B E T H E G L O R Y, G R E A T T H I N G S H E H A S D O N E ’ ‘ T O G O D B E T H E G L O R Y, G R E A T T H I N G S H E H A S D O N E ’ ‘ T O G O D B E T H E G L O R Y, G R E A T T H I N G S H E H A S D O N E ’

At Church Council, we are looking at our finances in 2018 to build up a six-month-running-costs reserve and see when we can afford to fund a part-time person to work with our 18-30 year old people. Ministry is always both maintenance and mission and we are trying to respond to the way we feel God is calling us to be here in Lille.

In 2018, we are working with the Eglise Protestante Unie (EPU) in Lille on projects to bring the Reuilly Agreement that calls for a closer relationship between the Anglican Churches of Britain and Ireland and the Eglise Réformée to the forefront in both churches. We both have 18-30 year old people and after I met with their pastor, we decided that at Christ Church in February we will start a monthly drop-in to offer welcome and hospitality (aka food and free wi-fi!); at the EPU they will have a quarterly bring and share meal with Biblical reflections. We are also planning a joint meeting of our church councils, it will be very interesting to hear what they talk about in their meetings!

We would like your prayers to accompany us over the next twelve months as we continue to move forward with our plans, hopes and dreams, confident that if we listen, God will answer and provide us with all that we need, we just need to meet him halfway.

Debbie Flach Chaplain Christ Church Lille and Area Dean Northern France

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INTERCONTINENTAL CHURCH SOCIETY MAGAZINE | Mar 2018

B ARCELONA & AND ORR A From sunny Mediterranean beaches to Pyrenean mountains, a new united chaplaincy comes into existence. January 2017 saw the joining of St.George’s, Andorra to St. George’s, Barcelona as a fresh arrangement to continue during my time as Chaplain here.

A distance of around 200 Km separates our two worship centres.

Andorra alps

Andorra is a sovereign landlocked microstate in Southwestern Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by France in the north, and the Spanish autonomous community of Catalonia in the south.Andorra is the sixth-smallest nation in Europe, having an area of 468 km2. Andorra is the 16th-smallest country in the world by land and 11th-smallest country by population.Its capital Andorra la Vella is the highest capital city in Europe, at an elevation of 1,023 metres above sea level.The official language is Catalan, although Spanish, Portuguese, and French are also commonly spoken.

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Barcelona beach

Barcelona mourns

s t. ge orge ’s , b arcelona

s t. ge orge ’s , and orr a

...is an international city church of over thirty nationalities with many younger people and families;

...is a fellowship of mainly retired British expatriates who have made their home in this mountain principality.

...is a busy community with many weekly activities;

...meets twice a month and only once with a chaplain.

...is served principally by me, John Chapman, as chaplain.

...is served principally by my wife, Deborah, also ordained.

what d o s t. ge orge ’s , b arcelo na and s t. ge orge ’s , and orr a have in c ommo n?

We have our common Anglican identity of course, but this signals something deep about our view of hospitality to Christians of all backgrounds. We have two congregations where we feel loved, where there is a deepening desire to put Christ first and a growing confidence in the Gospel. We give thanks for an excellent Church Council, a sense of joy and a deepening hunger for God.

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2017 was a year of some instability here in Catalunya. We saw a terrorist attack in August and a move for independence in October. Both have led to people all over the world praying for us and I think we have been truly blessed as a church through these prayers.

Everything is peaceful and, for most of the time, there is no sense of anything being amiss. I have sat in our local plazas and apart from more flags hanging from buildings it is like any other warmish day. Opinions are polarised and there is considerable uncertainty around with a level of anxiety among many. As a chaplain, I have rarely had as many pastoral conversations.

Scripture exhorts us in Jeremiah 29:7 to: ‘seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare’ (NRSV).

So, we pray for the well-being of the place where God has put us and we join in the glorious words of our Lord's Prayer: ‘Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven’.

We are well into our fourth year here in Barcelona and our prayer is that during 2018 we all may become more and more what God would have us be.

Revd John Chapman Chaplain of St. George’s Barcelona and Andorra

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was the question that was turning over in our minds as we approached retirement in 1999, when turning on the TV Daphne and I found ourselves watching three older clergy being interviewed as to what they were doing in retirement.

Their answer was along the lines of ministering to British holidaymakers on the Spanish Costas. Here perhaps was the answer to our question...

By Michael and Daphne Savage We registered our interest with Trevor Letchford, then Seasonal Ministry Manager at ICS, and in the autumn of that same year we were asked to fill a vacancy on the winter rota of Thomson’s Young-at-Heart programme in Benalmadena on the Costa del Sol. Our role was to introduce ourselves at Welcome Meetings as new guests arrived, to visit the local clinic to make contact with holidaymakers who had fallen sick, not least to provide support for spouses left high and dry (who sometimes had to move hotels if the hospitalisation exceeded the booked holiday), and of course to lead Sunday worship, more formal services in the mornings, and less formal Songs of Praise early in the evenings. With encouragement of the guests by the Thomson rep, we had large numbers at

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these evening services, with on one occasion a testimony from a couple who had met at Songs of Praise the previous year and now returned for a second holiday to give thanks.

Our second chaplaincy, in Tenerife, was quite different, a more cosmopolitan resort, with an established Anglican Church nearby, meant there were far fewer guests for our services.

This was initially disappointing, until we realised that like churches at home no two places are the same, and a number of factors will affect attendances.

Over the years ICS sent us to a number of different resorts, including Benidorm (our accommodation there was several floors above Tommy’s Night Club, where the beat of

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the music went on most of the night), Cyprus (with its reminder of St. Paul winning his first convert on the island at Paphos), Sousse (in Tunisia, fortunately several years before the massacre on the beach there), and Mallorca. On Remembrance Sunday in Mallorca there was a very fierce storm which kept people indoors and so we had an exceptionally large congregation, who sang with great gusto when the accompanying tape failed.

In and among these Young-at-Heart chaplaincies, ICS involved us in Swiss summer ministry on three occasions, a fortnight each at Zermatt and Wengen, and one brief weekend at Interlaken with the chance to meet up with an old college friend, Jim Duxbury, who was at Wengen at the same time.

Sometime about 2006, Thomson ran down their Young-at-Heart Holidays, and so the chaplains were no longer needed. One exception was when they got a new cruise ship, Thomson Spirit, and we were part of their experimental programme.

However, that was the end of our Young-at-Heart involvement, and perhaps the end altogether.

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Then, however, we heard from ICS that Bob Short, chaplain of the English Church in Ibiza, had been seeking reinforcements, and Daphne and I, along with three other couples, were recruited to assist with the summer ministry. There we shared in the work from 2007-2013, meeting guests returning year after year, developing deeper relationships and being able to share spiritual opportunities as we met and talked with folk, walking on the prom, swimming in the sea, etc. One abiding memory is of a lady, sitting, sadly, on her own, in a bar, on her birthday, with no one to share with – it just so happened that Daphne had a birthday card in her handbag! This lady had complained of a stiff shoulder, so we offered to pray with her. We met her later that same morning, all smiles, and free of her shoulder pain, totally transformed! Praise the Lord!

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DEVOTIONAL

LOO K ING BACK When I was pastoring in the Australia bush, our church shared each year in the remembrance service at the Australian Truck Drivers’ Memorial. www.tarcuttamemorial.com One of the great supporters of the event was the late Australian country singer Slim Dusty.

The proceedings would sometimes include these words from one of his best known songs: ‘Looking forward, looking back I’ve come a long way down the track Got a long way left to go Making songs, from what I know.’

Looking forward and looking back is central to the Christian life. In Philippians 3:13-14 the Apostle Paul puts it this way: ‘Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.’

At first glance, Paul’s words about forgetting what is behind might suggest some kind of amnesia. However, he’s made it clear earlier in the chapter that he’s quite aware of his origins. What has changed is how he looks back. In light of the death and resurrection of Jesus the very things he once valued so

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highly he now regards as no account, while those things he once despised are now his prized treasures.

The cross and the resurrection also change how Paul looks forward. Rather than an opportunity to gain power or prestige the future is now the time to become more like Jesus. Paul longs to know the death and resurrection of Jesus, not as abstract truths but as lived realities that overflow to the blessing of others. This is the song he wants others to know.

God willing, in May 2019 the Bush Church Aid Society will be celebrating 100 years of reaching Australia for Christ. We will look back, giving thanks for those who’ve shared the journey with us, including our brothers and sisters at ICS. We will look forward, putting our hope in God for the way ahead. God willing, we will also sing the song of Jesus anew in our land down under.

Please pray for us as we pray for you!

Mark Short National Director Bush Church Aid Society

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KEEP CONNECTED You can interact with ICS on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter for up-to-date news, what is happening, pictures, comments and needs for prayer.

Like our page on Facebook for updates on your timeline. www.facebook.com/intercontinentalchurchsociety Connect with us on Instagram icsmission Follow us on Twitter @interchsoc

PRAYER MEETINGS If you would like to start up an ICS prayer meeting in your region, get in touch with Jeannette at ajspaanderman@ics-uk.org and we will help organise this for you.

Cheltenham Wednesday 14 March at 10.30 am Contact Audrey Martin-Doyle 01242 510 352 Exeter Contact John Philpott 01395 225 044 Edinburgh Wednesday 4 April from 10.45 am 10 Kirkhill Terrace, Edinburgh EH16 5DQ Contact Chris Martin 0131 668 4071 revchris.martin45@gmail.com Keighley 42 Hollins Lane, Keighley, BD20 6LT Contact Michael Savage 01535 606 790 Norfolk The Vicarage, 37 Church Road, Tilney St Lawrence, Kings Lynn PE34 4QQ Contact Martin Dale 01945 880 259

North Birmingham 12 Trinity Close, Shenstone, WS14 0NU Contact Tim Cox at timcox45@yahoo.com Northern Ireland 74 Demesne Road, Seaforde, Ballynahinch, BT24 8NS Contact John Dinnen 028 44 811 148 South East The Rectory, Cock Lane, Hamstreet, Kent TN26 2HU Contact Rod Whateley 01233 732 274 Warwick Monday 16 April at 7.30 pm 11 Verden Avenue, Chase Meadow, Warwick CV34 6RX Contact Anna Hopkins 07745 223 580 The Wirral 11 Stanford Ave, Wallesey CH45 5AP Contact Peter Jordan 0151 639 7860

Data about individuals and organisations ICS is in contact with may be held in manual or electronic databases for the purposes of pursuing its activities. ICS does not pass mailing lists to unconnected third parties.

MISSION AND MINISTRY IN ENGLISH FOR EVERYONE

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Cambridge Impington Church Hall, Impington CB24 9ZU Wednesday 16 May at 7 pm Contact Dennis Sadler 01223 232 194