Easter together

March's 'Breakfast on the Beach' on Palm Sunday was technically and practically smooth.The loop; showing crowds of people engaged in various activities from football to protest rallies was asking what do you care enough about to celebrate or protest? We had more new people through the doors some with only very vague church connections, conversations flowed naturally, often starting from the theme and moving on. My own conversations getting deep quite quickly, reminding me of other new town and new development experiences that where there is a relaxed attitude and a willingness to listen people can open up quite quickly. I suspect we will see more of some of these new folk, and perhaps others with them.

Easter provided a great mix of activities coordinated and designed to deepen relationships across the Churches in Wootton, engage with the community and celebrate the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
From Breakfast on the Beach on Palm Sunday, a simple shared Maunday Thursday meal (we encouraged them to sit with people they didn't know and talk about how they had seen God at work in their lives churches and communities during the meal) and let that lead naturally into 'Table Talk' from Wild Goose's 'Jesus and Peter' books and on into a simple communion. We also hosted an Easter Egg hunt designed to attract the unchurched families and a Good Friday Meditation for the faithful, alongside a shared joint Easter morning all age Service. Everything we separately and jointly did was advertised together.

April's 'Breakfast on the Beach' is only 2 weeks away and will be the last on which I can report for my placement report and reflection though the experiment will keep going at least until the end of 2008, whether it will continue in its present form or frequency, whether it becomes a congregation in itself or remains simply a hospitality outpost where people can meet share and ask questions. Whether it will feed people into the existing churches that support it or become something none of us yet expect are questions that will resolve in time. Certainly the possibility that it might become a congregation is not an alien concept to those whose vision brought it into existence. It would be good to think that those who come will ultimately decide its future not those who gave it birth. Relationships and faith journeys should be, to me at least, the determining factors but finance and resourcing will probably have something to say. Whatever happens those of us involved have learned a lot and are still learning. May God continue to nurture us and use us as we travel.