So the date of my ordination draws ever closer and I have heading into the pastorate where I will serve. As I drove through the lanes of Suffolk the other day to cross the border into Cambridgeshire, the county in which two of my four churches reside, the reality of what is before me hits. This landscape of farmland and twisting lanes dotted with villages, is a changing landscape. Not just because it is harvest time, but because of what is happening with the populations. There are those who live in these villages who are born and bred, yet there are also others who have moved into villages. It is the same story across the country. But what does it mean to move into a community, to join a community?
Society does seem to have changed in recent time. Belonging to something, being a member of something, doesn't seem to mean the same as it once did. In towns and cities, this I think has become something that the church has slowly begun to wake up to, but what about in these idyllic, somewhat sleepy, corners of rural Britain?
These are questions which I think will be in the background of many conversations I will have in coming months. These are questions I will theologically reflect on as I start on this ministry as I myself move into communities, communities where I potentially only be in for a certain period of time. They are questions I will most probably refleict on and wrestle with throughout my ministry. These are questions I will need to help others explore.
So as the harvest is gathered in and the surrounding landscape changes, for four churches and myself things are changing in our landscapes too. Whether together we come up with any answers to these questions is to be seen, but together I'm sure we will wrestle with them as we seek to be God's people in the communities we live and work and the communities we belong to.
