St Cuthbert's Locum

Sheila and I spent 15 days in October living in the Manse and holding the fort while Barry and Hazel were on holiday. It made us appreciate how much they do; not just in the things seen, but in the unseen, and how many people have been helped by what they do.

October is a ‘quiet’ time of the year (which is why Barry and Hazel felt they could go away). Never the less our fortnight included:

• Preparing and conducting morning prayers for ten days
• Changing and washing the Bothy bed linen etc on a change of occupant
• Housekeeping for the ‘Faith and Feathers 2’ weekend (such as arranging the Centre each morning and evening; ensuring a plentiful, permanent supply of tea/coffee/ biscuits; preparing lunch for 15 on the Friday; having three leaders staying in the manse over the weekend.
• Housekeeping for another morning conference for 15 people the next weekend.

In the 43 weeks to the end of October 2009, the Centre has been used for 115 half days for courses or conferences. In those 43 weeks the Bothy has been occupied for 214 nights – i.e. 5 days a week. All of this involves housekeeping on top of Barry’s work of preparing and conducting the daily and weekly worship, writing and updating prayer sheets, fact sheets and his excellent Worship Book, and chaplaincy to tourists and retreatants, as well as the administration involved.

Various thing surprised us:

• How quickly Barry’s A4 sheet ‘Prayers for Travellers’ disappeared from the Centre.
• How many people read, and even photographed, his 10 A3 sheet display of ‘The Story of the World’.
• The appreciative comments we heard about the literature and layout of the centre, as well as those written in the Visitors’ Book.
• The number of request appearing on the Prayer Tree.
• The number of appreciative comments about staying in the Bothy from those who had previously done so – or from their relatives or members of their congregations who came to the Centre.
• The number of people who rang or e-mailed for Barry, and Janet would say “Oh yes, Barry is giving them spiritual direction”.

If we had to nominate highlights for the fortnight, they would be the two imaginative Saturday evening services with twenty two + people at each.

We came away quite certain that this unique Holy Island Project is fulfilling a very real and valuable role in the witnessing and strengthening of Christian faith for the thousands of people who come through its doors each year. It is creative, modern ministry for the 21st Century.

Bill Flett

Is Vision 2020 fundamentally misconceived?

It seems to me, writes Rev. Professor Charles Cranfield that `Vision 2020' is fundamentally misconceived. (Vision 2020 planning for growth in the URC : hearing your views) On p.8 we read: `It challenges the whole church at local, synod and denominational level to think about what kind of church we want to be in ten years time'. But this `WE WANT TO BE' surely indicates that this is the wrong question for a Reformed church to be asking. Surely we should be asking what do we seriously believe to be the sort of church that Jesus Christ, the only Head and King of the church, wills us to be.

This seems to me to be the fundamental error of `Vision 2020'. And closely related is what struck me most forcibly when I first read these papers, the fact that there does not seem to be any clear indication in them that those who produced them realize that the church has a gospel to proclaim, good news from God of his love for us sinful human beings revealed in what he has done for us in Jesus Christ his Son, in his bitter death at the hands of human beings and in his resurrection from the dead to be our living Lord.

In view of these two closely related and (I believe) extremely serious deficiencies in `Vision 2020', I can only declare my whole-hearted conscientious objection to this project and plead with the URC to think again, more humbly, more prayerfully and with much greater attention to the witness of Holy Scripture.