On the road
I wrote up a recent road trip on my personal blog: Today I find myself back on the road again, heading South with the sun setting to my right after a tremendous week of visiting current and future team leaders around the country. Some things are best done in person, but the week had also consisted of numerous zoom, phone calls and emails as our work accelerates this autumn.
My final meeting has been with the Diocesan Parish Renewal Lead of Blackburn Diocese (what a great job title), Steve Haskett, which is a meeting of minds and a huge encouragement, and his experiences will be a great help for our SOMA team training.. Before that a day spent with the wonderful staff and key leaders team of BD7 churches, the Anglican churches in the BD7 postcode of Bradford. We study Scripture together, train, and plan an international mission in Bradford for May 2024. God is good and there is much encouragement from connecting there. John Bavington, the vicar, is joining our SOMA National Leadership Team and it is a joy to see how he brings an Abba gift to ministry.
Speaking of ‘Abba’ ministry I had a wonderful evening and breakfast with the Pennystan men in Romiley, Stockport on the way up, home to one of our META youth stars, and his three brothers, and his wonderful Dad, Richard, a longstanding friend of mine and clearly an exceptional father, who I have known since we were in the #earlydadsclub on twitter when he was annoyed that I got to the twitterhandle @RevdRich first. We dream of future mission trips, where the diaspora of curates and others Rich has influenced are refreshed and revived through serving on a mission.
Earlier in the week I met with Claire Clarke for a hugely encouraging time to look at a three diocesan mission in July (in a country I won’t name here), and spent an enjoyable afternoon reconnecting with Paul and Becky Harcourt as they prepare for South Sudan next month. Zooms included a planning session for a follow up visit to Down and Dromore in October and a pre-meeting for Bradford and phone calls included team members for South Sudan and Uganda missions, as well as regular check ins with Henry Blair.
All in all it’s just got to the point where I really need a strong team to help us bring together all these opportunities, build up our prayer base and grow our organisation, and so I am hugely grateful to those standing in the gaps, volunteering and using their God-given gifts to grow His kingdom in this SOMA part of the world, while praying God will provide more resource so we can get more done, in his pace and his way.
These Islands need a move of God’s Spirit. The world-wide church and SOMA family is such an encouragement that we will ‘see it again’. Olive branches of hope from around the world, and waves of his blessing refreshing the hearts of the saints.
It’s going to be wonderful to see these adventures of faith become a reality.
The team at BD7 churches
