Dear Friends,
The Scargill Community would like to wish you all a blessed Advent and a joy-filled Christmas. We are so grateful for your love and support over this year.
Director’s position
Thank you so much for your prayers this Autumn as we have been going through the process of selecting a new Director. For a variety of reasons, all of which were beyond our control, it has become clear that we needed to pause the Director’s application process and go again. The Council will readvertise in mid-February. Although initially disappointed by this event, we do see God’s hand evident in this. It is not what we expected to happen but it is clear that He pressed ‘pause’.
As we ‘go again’ we will apply what we have learnt, and with that there is an invitation to go on a journey of faith together with God. Thankfulness and prayer will be key. We have been reflecting on 2 Chronicles 20 – there is the wonderful prayer of Jehoshaphat who calls the whole community to join him in prayer. The prayer is thankful, giving testimony to God’s faithfulness, and it is very honest, ending with ‘we do not know what to do but our eyes are upon You.’
As a Community, with the Council, we would love to encourage you to be part of this journey. Using our rhythm of prayer we invite you to join us in your homes on a Tuesday (which is our Community day) and a Saturday (the day we pray for Community and future Community) at our 4:30pm prayers. There is power in praying the same prayer. So, here is a prayer from the Community that we would love you to join in with:
Gracious God, we thank you for Scargill,
a place where lives are shared and transformed,
where Community is celebrated in Jesus’ name.
We thank you for your generous provision over the years,
and we look in faith and hope to what the future holds.
In this time of transition and change,
we choose to keep our eyes on you,
and we believe that you will bring your chosen person to lead the Community.
Stir up within them the call to join the adventure.
Come Holy Spirit,
release us from our anxious thoughts,
hold us in your love and joy,
and help us to be courageous as we journey with you.
In Jesus’ name. Amen
We believe that God is clearly leading us. God loves Scargill, He loves its mission and ministry and He loves the Community!
If you know anybody that you could see in this role, do please encourage them to apply and pray for them.
We also have other important posts – particularly Personnel lead – and you can see information about these on our website.
Thank you so much for journeying with us in this.
Christmas arrangements
This coming week (w/b 15th December) we are closed to guests to have time together as Community, which will include a Quiet Day, a fun day out and Secret Santa! We disperse on 19th December, coming back together on 28th December to prepare for the New Year House Party.
Other stuff
You are very welcome to join us online for our next Sanctuary service on Thursday 1st January 2026 from 4:30pm (same link to catch up later).
Please look at the programme to see what you would like to come to in the new year. For example, in January we currently have in-house spaces on:
Friends’ and Companions’ weekend;
Freewheeling! Mindfulness and Song;
‘Companionship and Crafting’;
Enneagram 2;
Candlemas themed Renew Refresh Restore
Do put in a booking request via our website for these and other events in the new year.
Below is Di’s reflection on us being custodians of the Christmas story. Enjoy!
As many of you will know, Phil and I are retiring to our next adventure in the summer and have been looking at possible houses, dare I say, DOWN SOUTH! When being shown around one of these, the Estate Agent talked warmly about the house being carefully improved and that the owners had been responsible custodians of their property, with her role being to pass their custodianship onto the new owner. I really liked this idea that there was a ‘taking on the mantle’, of being responsible, of continuing the work of the previous owners for those to come after.
And it was interesting to learn that the phrase originates from the biblical story where the prophet Elisha picked up the cloak (mantle) of his predecessor Elijah, symbolically taking over his prophetic role.
Advent reminds us each year that, YES, it did happen. That an angel did come and visit Mary and that Mary said YES and she did give birth to the son of God. This is the mystery of Christmas, that the spirit of God descended and came to dwell in human kind, that through Jesus’s birth God provides a path for us to be reconciled with Him, restoring the broken relationship that began in the Garden of Eden.
This Advent, I have come to realise that we are not only receivers of the promise we are also its custodians – defenders of the faith, guardians, advocates, champions of the story! A story to live and a story to tell. A story that has travelled through time, through the centuries, through thick and thin, through famine and fasting, through men and women of faith.
And we are called to be active custodians of this story, we are the men and women of faith today. So can we be like the shepherds willing to tell and excite all those we meet? In doing so, in carrying God to one another, we will ,as Paula Gooder explains, experience ‘God With’ in the life-giving relations we cultivate.
We are participants in the unfolding mystery, we are custodians sharing our story and so bringing ever closer the fulfilment of the promise that will culminate in a new heaven and a new earth.
How exciting is that!
With love and prayers from Phil, Di and the Scargill Community