But which one to close? It is, I suppose, a good sign that
no household rushed to volunteer! As it happens, the White Stone team had been showing signs
of considerable strain for some time. We've had some truly wonderful times over
the years, with a cast of amazing people sharing the journey – but it hadn't
always been easy (see posts like this, this, and this!) and the core team had grown
tired and some had suffered a degree of burn-out. It had become difficult to
generate fresh energy and forward momentum.
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| Our story on a scroll; our calling on a carving. |
So we’re ‘quitting while we're still ahead’ or something
like that. We’ve been very supported by our local friends – that’s helped
enormously in a tough time. Needless to say, it’s a time of grieving and loss for
us. But it’s also the right move, I believe. One of my dearest friends (and
fellow White Stone pioneer) coined an apt neologism to describe the sensation: ‘grelief’
– an odd combination of grief and relief. This just about sums it up.
A number of us are going to move to one of our other community
houses in the area. My wife, children and I, however, are going to live in our
own place for a while and take stock. We'll still be linked to the community – part
of a common purse, and maybe even with one or two others living with us – but
we're looking forward to having some more time and space. People are referring
to it as our 'sabbatical' which sounds rather nice (in reality I'll still be
working for the church and three children mean that life is never exactly
quiet!)
It's a big change for us, this sabbatical from load-bearing
leadership. We need time and space to be restored and find fresh vision and
direction. Please pray for us.
The house on Leamington Road probably won't be sold, but
used somehow. It may even house a newly formed community team. That
would be rather wonderful – the house has been a place for God and we’d love it
to continue to be. We’ll see.
In my bleaker moments I can feel only loss, pain,
bewilderment, anger: ‘Our holy and beautiful house and all our pleasant places have
become ruins’ (Isaiah 64:11). Yet at other times, I remember that death is
God’s way into eternal life. ‘It is in dying that we’re born to eternal life.’
After all, we follow Jesus, crucified and raised.
I don’t know about you, but my natural mentality doesn’t
easily grasp the paradox of life from death (even if it is all over the New
Testament I claim to live by). In the latter half of his ministry, Jesus repeatedly
told his disciples he had to die. And repeatedly ‘they did not
understand what he was saying, and were afraid to ask him’ (Mark 9:32). After
he was raised they were as slow to understand: ‘Was it not necessary that the
Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ (Luke 24:26).
It was necessary. ‘Truly, truly, I say to
you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone;
but if it dies, it bears much fruit’ (John 12:24).
From Jesus’ death, freely chosen, came life
for the world. I pray that from our small ‘death’, freely embraced, new opportunities
may spring; new dreams, new joys – new life.
