In These Times Dear voyager In these times of church development old institutions shrink, their chains to civic powers increasingly broken, and the cry of bewildered people in and outside the western church is heard by the pathos of God. We are called into the wilderness. There we meet our Triune God afresh. The Holy Spirit reorientates us from wandering in wastelands to journeying with the Holy Trinity in the wilderness. Waymarks is how I explore life as a Celtic Christian poet in a time of reformation of Christ’s church in our everyday worlds. It gives witness to the work of the Holy Trinity within and beyond us as proclaimed in the Holy Scriptures and the Nicene Creed. The Church was never born to be a mere institution, another religious and social organisation of western society. It is beyond this. It is always to be remembered that Jesus Christ is head of the Church, a Church that began with Pentecost. From its origins as Jewish Christianity the church has developed in a multiplicity of ways. Each way struggles for uniformity and stability of its institutional ways causing renewals, disruptions and schisms. The Church was never founded as an earthly religious institution. Organisations rise and fall but Christ the Living Word, and the Church – the sacred living household of God – remain. Saint Paul reminds us: And so, you are no longer strangers and foreigners! Instead, you are fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ himself is the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy sanctuary in the Lord. In him, you too are built up into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. Ephesians 2:19-22 EOB In this season the household of God remains strong, yet many Christian organisations struggle to relate to the followers and seekers of this age. But we are to remain encouraged in our journey forwards. For it is the Holy Trinity that leads His growing household, a treasured relatedness between heaven and earth bound together by the gracious power of the Holy Spirit moving in us. Grace and peace be yours, C.
