We pray that your new year has started well and this comes with much love and prayers from the Community.

We have just finished a closed period, with our own retreat, fun and training together, which was very enriching.

Although we have had a couple of Community leaving at the end of their contract, we are glad to say that we have some new Community joining, as well as some people on sabbatical. Please continue to pray for new Community to join us.

We open our doors today to the first of our two Friends’ and Companions’ weekends. Next weekend’s event is open for folk to join us online, and if you wanted to join us online you would be very welcome – check it out on our website here.

We have resumed our online Wednesday Evening Prayer services, back to Wednesdays from next week 18th January (4:30pm start), and we also have an online Quiet Day on Thursday 26^th January. You can find these via our website.

Shaun Lambert has written an article for the Baptist Times reflecting on the year that has passed: 2022 – A Year of Symbolic Loss and Fatalism…- see it here.

Here is Di’s reflection – Enjoy!

Diane writes:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” (Revelation 4:8).

Last week in mornings prayers Dave mentioned God’s holiness and, although we may sing about it, holiness is not often forefront in our conversations, well mine anyway!

This reminded me that for quite a while now I have been using these opening lines of The Lord’s Prayer:
Our Father in heaven,
May your name be kept holy

I also recalled that, recently driving to Grassington I was so struck by the beauty of the sun rising that I stopped and took this photo. To be honest I’m not sure why it had such an impact on me, the world was cold and still, it was early, I was alone. But it was a wow factor, an awe and wonder moment when I felt very close to God and that God felt immense. This greatness being along the lines of God perceiving all things (Omniscient), being present everywhere (Omnipresent) and possessing infinite power (Omnipotent). I had to look these up! Here was God’s holiness. 

Of course we love the idea that God is with us, here amongst His people but we also need to remember that God is beyond our everyday experience, he is beyond our ordinary – back to Omniscient, Omnipresent and Omnipotent.  God’s holiness means that he is sinless, He is absolutely and purely good. Only God is perfectly holy. God is love. “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).   This should fill us with reverence and awe, I do hope so!           

So should the fact that God’s also requires His people to be holy. We are called to be like him. We too have been set apart. Jesus’ call to follow him is much more than an invitation to simply pray with him or to him. It is a call to follow him with our whole lives, meaning we have to lose the lives we think we want to have and find new life within him.                                                                                                                                                        
Our being made holy by God takes place in love. Every day we can re- experience God’s love for us, and we can express our love for Him in return. Every day we can participate in, contribute to, the holiness of God. Which I believe is summed up and hopefully lived out, in the greatest command Jesus gave us – ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other greater commandment.’ Mark 12:30-31

Perhaps it was through the Holy Spirit that I recognised God’s holiness that morning, perhaps it was the Holy Spirit that drew me to the line ‘May your name be kept holy’. Perhaps it is the Holy Spirit encouraging me to encourage us all to keep God’s name holy. There is a greatness to God beyond my comprehension with the implication that somehow we are called to keep His name holy.

As the sun has risen on a new year – it is January 1st 2023. What a wonderful way to start the year recognising God holiness, His greatness and His love.  His love for you and for me and for all those we walk alongside.

With love and prayers from

Phil, Di and the Scargill Community

Thank you for your continued support and the love shown to us. In this mailing we have news of our latest magazine and programme release, and a reflection from Di about ‘sacred walking’. 

We are glad to announce the publication of our new Programme combined with Momentum (covering new events from January to August 2023). We do hope that you find much to encourage you to continue to journey with us and to plan to book a visit to stay here, amongst the wide variety of events on offer both in-house and online. Please complete your booking forms via the website if at all possible.

We are all aware of the financial instability and struggles that many people are facing, please be aware of our bursary fund. You can access our bursary fund application form on each of our programme event booking web pages.

We mentioned in our last MailChimp that Hilary, our Kitchen Team lead who has done a wonderful job, is needing to step aside for family commitments, in the New Year. If you know of anyone who would be interested in joining Community with a particular gifting and passion to join the Kitchen Team please look on our website for the job description, or contact di@scargillmovement.org

Here is Di’s latest reflection. Enjoy!

Diane writes:
In a recent application I read the words ‘……spending time and learning about each other was so sacred, walking on the holy grounds of other people’s experiences.’
 
Wow, this line jumped out at me and I underscored it twice! It speaks of spending time and learning about each other as being sacred because it involves ‘walking on the holy grounds of other people’s experience’. Quite a profound statement that made me acknowledge what a huge privilege it is to be able to walk alongside another.
 
Holy Ground, hmmm, I wonder what they meant by that! I wonder what ‘Holy Ground’ means for you?

Betsy Jean writing for A Rocha says  ‘When Moses was out in the desert looking after the flocks of his father-in-law, he saw the burning bush, he stopped, and turned aside to look and then to listen. Very quickly he found himself on holy ground. What made it holy, of course, was the presence of God, manifested in flaming shrubbery.’
 
She goes on to say, ‘What if, God, being everywhere (as Christian doctrine teaches us), makes every place holy? What if, every bush dances with the flames of God’s presence, but our eyes are just not calibrated to see it?’
 
Well, that’s a thought. If that is the case, and I certainly believe it is, we can also say – What if every bush, every street, every kitchen table, every time we spend with others, every conversation dances with the flames of God’s presence but our senses are just not calibrated to see it? What if indeed! Perhaps walking alongside one-another should not be taken so lightly.
 
The two travellers in our painting by Janet Brooks Gerloff (1947- 2008), are walking along the Emmaus Road completely unaware of Jesus’ presence. He was just another traveller who spent time with them, walking alongside, gently explaining the scriptures, accepting their hospitality, until they were able to recognise who he was and begin to comprehend the full significance of the journey they had just walked.
 
Like Moses, we need to be prepared to stop and turn aside, to look and to listen to where God is calling and like Jesus with his two companions we need to be willing to walk alongside, to tread gently on holy ground, with as Jacob said this morning, ‘Your (God’s) spirit in our steps and your (God’s) joy in our hearts.
 
To conclude, in our kitchen we have the most beautiful calligraphy of several blessings by John O’Donohue. One which I am constantly drawn to includes the words
 
‘Endeavour to remain aware
Of the quiet world
That lives behind each face.’
 
And another:
 
‘Be fair in your expectations
Compassionate in your criticism.
May you have the grace of encouragement,
To awaken the gift in the other’s heart,
Building in them the confidence 
To follow the call of the gift.’
 
Perhaps this is how we walk on the sacred, holy ground of other people’s experiences.  Perhaps this is the call we are being asked to follow!

With love and prayers from

Phil, Di and the Scargill Community