Dear Friends
We hope and pray that this latest newsletter finds you well. Thank you so much for your continued love and support. It means a great deal to us, and we are very much looking forward at some stage to welcome you again through our doors.
The Community is in good spirits. We have just had a couple of days retreat which has strengthened our life together. The Community continues to reduce in size as we will be saying goodbye to Carolin and Annette over the next two weeks.
Please do get in touch with us at: prayer@scargillmovement.org if we can pray for you during these strange times. We continue to have our rhythm of prayer and within this we have a time for intercession.
We have just had our first Scargill Forum, which was a very rich experience. Someone wrote afterwards: ‘Thank you for all the thoughts, the wisdom, the laughter, the prayer, the gathering us together into community again.’
We are planning our second Scargill Forum for Thursday 9th July (8-9:30pm), as we continue to learn together about God and ourselves through these disorientating times. If you would like to be involved in this Zoom event, please send an e-mail requesting to be involved to hello@scargillmovement.org so we can send you a link.
It is still not too late to join one of our Quiet Days through Zoom on Friday 26th or Saturday 27th June. The theme will be: ’Waymarks for the journey’. Each will begin at 10am and finish around 5pm. Within the day there will be a couple of reflections, an opportunity for a Zoom discussion and tea and cake together at the end with some worship. Again, if you would like to be part of either of the days please e-mail: hello@scargillmovement.org
These events are free but if anyone would like to donate then please visit our website here which shows how you can do that.
If you wish to listen to our morning prayers and the Sunday morning sermon they are to be found here on our website
Here is another reflection for us from Diane Stone:
A while back I had a dream that woke me. Influenced I think by the fact that our daughter, staying with us, (for now!) has strongly encouraged us to de-clutter, and throw away three items a day! In my dream I am in a post war railway station, quite dark and dingy. I have lost my suitcase and my best coat, not sure about the coat! But I am extremely anxious, asking people to help. No one can find either the bag or the coat and eventually I have to travel on leaving both behind. Thinking about this I was reminded that Jesus sent his disciples telling them not to take a money bag or a travelling bag or sandals.
So was I being asked to travel light when we so often, if not all the time, carry things that are not necessary, things that only weigh us down, slow us down, keep us from being and doing what God intends for us.
Just before the dream Hilary led a lovely morning prayer during which she talked about how our sin/mistakes block our relationship with God and demonstrated God’s total forgiveness by emptying a household rubbish bin onto a sheet then, gathering it all up before throwing the sheet away, out of sight. I know I need to accept the abundant GRACE given by God and travel on renewed in hope and faith. But as she was throwing the rubbish away I saw several items which would or could be recycled. Surely, I thought, some of my sins/mistakes could be recycled? I’m always saying we learn by our mistakes and although in my head I know that God forgives, I do not forget so perhaps I could channel my sins/mistakes into memories, into cue cards, preventing the same mistake again. Well why not?
‘…we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.’ Romans 8:28
As we journey, we often desire to meet with God! But we often fail to give time to God! We are full of excuses – too busy, too tired, too many burdens! Philippians 4 tells us to ‘be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.’
Here at Scargill, we are perhaps travelling alone, travelling light, unable to welcome guests has created a void, a void that is, I hope, encouraging us to seek a deeper relationship with God and each other. Perhaps now is the time for all of us to set aside time – no excuses, not even for me!! Now is sacred – now is where God is to be encountered, not tomorrow, not next week but here in the middle of this pandemic God wishes to be met.
To finish, a poem by Robert Frost. It is an ambiguous poem that allows us to think about choices in life, whether to go with the mainstream or go it alone. If life is a journey, this poem highlights those times in life when a decision has to be made.
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Please be assured of our love and prayers