Thursday 1 May 2014

A May Day Breakfast

As the rain drizzled down this morning I made my way to Trinity Baptist Church in Chesham for the bi-monthly breakfast meeting of Bucks Baptist Ministers at 8am.  Today nine of us gathered around tables that encircled a solitary ‘pillar’ in one of Trinity’s rooms – it struck me that as it was May 1st this was our equivalent of dancing around a May Pole!

When I started going to these sorts of meetings they were inevitably called ‘Fraternals’ – nowadays with the growing, and welcome, presence of women ministers amongst us (today there was four) they are more commonly referred to as ‘Ministers’ Meetings’. 

We have always seemed to have had them.  I remember reading accounts of Seventeenth century Northamptonshire Baptist Ministers meeting up at Whitsun for this sort of gathering – interestingly at Inns, these being the days before Non-conformists embraced the Temperance Movement of the 19th century.

I think it was at my first such meeting in Portsmouth – I was then merely a ‘Pre-Collegiate’ ordinand – biting into a tomato and being horrified that some of its juice and a pip or two spurted across the room in true ballistic fashion and landed on the most senior minister in the room – a man who when he spoke, at least I thought, sounded like God – a tricky moment!

Today we were in calmer waters.  We ate cereals and toast together, Colin our host then read a prayer by Martin Luther King before leading us into a discussion about Nuclear Disarmament, we subsequently shared news of our churches – from the installation of new boilers, looking for new pastorates and attending Spring Harvest, before finally praying together and saying our goodbyes.

Such occasions always seem beneficial to me – just being together brings about that mutually supportive atmosphere which can bring encouragement for the journey.  I think here in Bucks we have been very fortunate to have Colin Pye as the minister who organises these gatherings and acts very much as a positive catalyst among us – he’ll be much missed as he moves on later this Spring.

Today such experiences are called ’networking’ – I prefer to think of them in that old fashion term of ‘fellowship’ – and I’m grateful for them.


With best wishes,

Ian

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