I was up in Luss with our student minister today to experience another congregation who is growing a story (and also was able to say hello to some guys who were from Clydebank working up there today who remember me from being school chaplain. Impressed? I was). The story of Luss began a whole lot earlier than our own story. Theirs started around 1500 years ago with St Kessog and this year they've been particularly engaged in creating ways for that story to live today and inform today. They also have the Rossdhu Book or Hours which was written 1469 for Elizabeth Dunbar of Rossdhu House on Loch Lomond in Scotland but now owned by New Zealand and on loan from them. It's unique. Go and see it.
I was talking to Dane, the minister there, who reminded me of something George McLeod (Founder of Iona Community) said that the more you tell a story the more likely it is to come true. In other words we grow into stories of faith rather than out of them and congregations who are living their story grow in faith.
It is just a reminder, yet again, of how church is about being something. It's the step beyond just existing and moves into living, beyond just keeping the church roof water tight but taking everything as an opportunity for a new chapter to break through. I am utterly convinced this is where the life is and it is what people in the community see as being a church: connecting faith and values with culture and reality and enjoying the new relationships and surprises that brings.
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