shaking hands with the Archbishop of Canterbury

It has been a busy week and Friday seems to have arrived without me realising it! There has not been much time to sit back and watch the world go by or in my case this week, build a snowman! (Yes... have re-embraced student-dom and did used one of my short reading breaks to play in the snow and build a small, but very happy snowman!)

Anyway, down to some more serious stuff. This week I got out of Cambridge for a few hours and headed to London and to Westminster Abbey. This was not for a sight-seeing visit (though we did pop our heads into the National Gallery), but to attend a service which I think should have been of great significance for the church within England.

For those of you who may not know much about church history - in 1662 Parliament revised the Act of Uniformity, which led to a great ejectment of clergy (2000 ministers) from the church of England. These became the non-conformists from whom my denomination has its roots.

Therefore, to commemorate this 350 years on, members of the URC and Church of England gathered together for an act of worship. But this was a commemoration service that was about woe and how badly are founding fathers were treated; it was about looking forward and starting to build a relationship between the two denominations. We may have different outlooks on theology, doctrine and churchmenship, but we do all believe in one God and our purpose should be to honour Him.

This is also the 40th year since the URC came into existance from the coming together of the Congregational churches of England and Wales and Presbyterian churches of England. The vision in 1972 was that this would be start of the end of division within the church. It might have not quite worked out like that, but for 800 of us to turn up at the Abbey must show that as a denomination we believe in the denominations coming together in some way, even if it is just to recognise that we are different.

And whether you are a URC ordinand who still has much to learn about her own denomination's traditions or the Archbishop of Canterbury who is leading a denomination steeped in tradition... we can shake hands and say that was good!