Pilgrim Post in Dorset - September 2000

Churches Together in Dorset
Pilgrim Post in Dorset No.33
September 2000

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Contents

PILGRIM POST in Dorset is published by Churches Together in Dorset as a service to the churches and ecumenical groups in Dorset to inform end encourage their pilgrimage together. The views expressed are not necessarily those of Churches Together in Dorset.

High Cost Fuel, Poor Quality Living?	Bournemouth Airport Chaplaincy
The World is Waiting ...	Pathways to Care
New social responsibility adviser for Dorset	Welcomes and Farewells
Christian Aid and the Jubilee	All Together in One Place

High Cost Fuel, Poor Quality Living?

Rev'd Tom Stuckey
Chairman of Churches Together in Dorset

The petrol protest has just been called off, even as I write this. It will no doubt take some weeks before the country returns to normal. But what is ‘normal’? Over the last few days we have seen a government out of touch with public opinion and caught on the hop by a spontaneous outbreak of anger right across the country, over the high cost of fuel. We have seen human nature at its worst and at its best, panic buying and demonstrations of human selfishness on the one hand and good neighbourliness on the other. People in towns have abandoned the car, walked, cycled or used public transport. People in farming communities have not been able to dispose of their products, bring in the harvest or dry the grain. People waiting to go into hospital have had their operations cancelled. We have learnt that normality means a total reliance on fuel oil, which is ever increasing in price. To return to normality means that those who live and work in rural areas will increasingly become marginalized and isolated unless there is a reduction in fuel costs.

As Chair of CTD, I want to make sure that this issue is kept before us. I would like to encourage every church in Dorset to ask:

What can we do to support those in our own community who are suffering from the effects of rural poverty?
How can those of us living in the towns show our solidarity with those living and working in rural communities?.
What policies should be adopted to ease the fuel burden of those living in rural areas? What action are we prepared to take?

As churches we must not forget that in the mission of God the social, the ecclesiastical, and the spiritual dimensions of our work are never separated. ‘What God has joined together let no person put asunder’.

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The World is Waiting...

Val Potter
County Ecumenical Officer for Churches Together in Dorset

While Tom listens to the fuel crisis news, I have strains of the Olympic Games opening ceremony in the background. I see people from almost all the nations of the world coming together, smiling and waving. At the final moment a huge image of a dove of peace is spread across the vast arena. Phrases reach me

bringing all the world together in celebration
make heroes of everyone
the hope of the world

Can we broaden our concept of the oikumene to make this kind of unity and reconciliation under God a reality after the Olympic flame has been extinguished for another 4 years?

In this issue we have amongst others:

the Christian Aid column which talks of the Palestine/Israel visit by 3 Dorset young people
highlights of Pentecost 2000 in Dorset

We now need to reflect on those experiences to see how they unite us for the challenges we face together as we seriously engage with the issues of the world of today.

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New social responsibility adviser for Dorset

Colin Brady introduces himself

I am a Roman Catholic from Ireland where I grew up in a fishing town on the coast of Donegal and went to school in the Midlands. While studying theology in Dublin at the Milltown Institute I participated in a series of exchanges with a Presbyterian congregation near Belfast that confirmed me in the conviction that working together is not an added extra for churches but must be at the very core of any expression of Christianity.

In 1991 I moved to Sheffield to do some postgraduate study, believing at the time that I would be there for no more that one year. Sheffield, however, has a way of capturing people and I have had a very full nine years there. I have continued to have links with the University of Sheffield where I lectured on issues of race in psychiatry, and researched possible links between psychoanalysis and spiritual direction. However a more substantial part of my time in the Sheffield area has been devoted to promoting ecumenical work in the role of County Ecumenical Officer for Churches Together in South Yorkshire. In that position, as well as supporting Local Ecumenical Partnerships, I was involved in developing responses to the closures of coal mines, developing community projects, and working with a team that tried to provide a response to high unemployment in the region.

More recently, following my term at CTSY, I spent a year working on one of the Government’s pilot projects to produce a new way of matching people to jobs and delivering social welfare to those who need that support.

In a way it all seems very far from Dorset and not just geographically. But I hope that some of what I have picked up over the past few years, including some insights into mental health, racism, unemployment, welfare reform, working for peace, and community regeneration, will provide me with the ability to affirm, support, and occasionally challenge, the work that is undertaken by the churches in this county to respond to the needs of all people.

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Christian Aid and the Jubilee

Drop the Debt - Downhearted but not Defeated

After the disgrace of Okinawa the campaign for realistic levels of debt cancellation goes on, stressing the need for speedy implementation of promises made. There are cards to send to the Prime Minister and pressure is already building towards next year’s G7 summit in Genoa in June. Request updates and campaign action from your local office.

Trade for Life - Development and Trade If debt is a handbrake holding back development, trade could be the engine to drive it, but only if systems change to make it work for the poorest. Early in 2001 both Christian Aid and CAFOD will be launching sustained campaigns on trade. Contact your local office to be involved right at the start.

For Love or Money is the title of Christian Aid’s Lent 2001 Course. It’s a practical Lent course for groups who want to relate the Christian faith they celebrate on Sunday to their lives from Monday to Saturday. It contains Bible study, prayer, group activities and stories that look at the world through rich eyes and poor eyes. It can be used with ease by established groups or new ones. £3 a copy or £27 for ten. Contact your local office.

Palestine/Israel 2000 Three young people from Dorset visited Palestine/Israel in August, attending an international youth conference in Bethlehem and visiting Christian Aid partner groups in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. Their insights are deeply moving:-

"Outrageous" and "contrast" are a couple of words that spring to mind
injustice is tangible yet shrouded in the history of struggle
frustration and anger seep easily into everyday conversation- economic and social apartheid reigns, driven by political expediency.

Why not invite Anita, Chris or Ollie to your church or group? They can add personal dimensions to Christian Aid’s Christmas materials "Let Us Go to Bethlehem". Please book through the Wimborne Christian Aid office.

Contacts

CAFOD - Tony Vassallo, The Mount, Taunton TA1 3NR Tel: 01395 568448 e-mail TVassallo@CAFOD.org.uk
Christian Aid - Dorset (not Bournemouth/Poole): Martin Nicholls, 120 Alma Road, Southampton SO14 6UW Tel: 02380 678058. e-mail: MNichol@christian-aid.org Martin lives in Dorset and there’s a local contact number: 01202 886759
Christian Aid - Bournemouth/Poole: Robert Pearce, 2a Deans Court Lane, Wimborne BH21 1EE Tel: 01202 840764 e-mail: RPearce@christian-aid.org

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Bournemouth Airport Chaplaincy

Adrian Thomas - IBEX

A chaplaincy has recently been established at Bournemouth International Airport, (probably still remembered by many as Hurn Airport). The initiative came from the airport management who were looking for two things.

Firstly they wanted a team of chaplains who would visit the airport on a regular basis. Secondly they were seeking a back-up team who could be called upon in the case of an emergency or when there were particular faith community requests. The intention was that, as far as possible, both teams would be both ecumenical and multi-faith.

After several planning meetings a team of seven, of which I am the co-ordinator, began visiting in June of this year. This team represents a broad, though not comprehensive, cross-section of Christian Churches together with the Rabbi of the Reformed Synagogue in Bournemouth. The back-up team also includes the Imam of the local Muslim Community. Both teams are still in the process of development as we try to include all the major Christian Denominations and Faith Communities in the area.

The visiting team is there for everyone who is at the airport. This includes both employees and passengers and their friends and relatives. As we say in our brochure, "If you have personal problems or work-related needs then talking it through may help. Airport chaplaincy gives you time, listens to you, and will offer independent, confidential support".

The key to the effectiveness of the chaplaincy is to build up relationships through regular visiting. At the moment someone will be present every Tuesday and Friday morning together with some other times during the month.

Someone asked me the other day "What is so important about an airport, why not a chaplaincy to the bus station?" (In fact some Industrial Chaplains are involved in public transport and do visit bus stations!). I replied that there is something about the distances people are travelling and the significance both of the experience and of the purposes of air travel that distinguish it from a bus journey. For most of us it is still something special.
Most airports are growing. They are important organisations within a local economy not least in attracting companies to the area. Chaplaincy to airports has been developing over the last few years so that all the major airports and many of the regional airports have them. There is a national network with which we are in contact.

Throughout the process of setting up the chaplaincy the Airport management have been most helpful. They have provided a room for us together with an explanatory brochure, security badges and clerical support.

It is important for us to realise in the churches that when secular organisations are looking for involvement they expect it to be ecumenical and, increasingly, multi-faith. We hope that the way we have been able to respond to the invitation from Bournemouth International Airport will have created a chaplaincy that makes a contribution to the airport community.

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Pathways to Care

The Pathways to Care helpline established by the Bridport churches has achieved national recognition and was cited in the national press as the kind of service the government wishes to see in other rural communities. The recognition comes as ministers prepare a Rural White paper which will underline the role played by churches in rural areas.

The Pathways to Care service in the Bridport area acts as a signpost, responding to telephone calls for assistance or information by linking callers to the most appropriate of well over 120 organisations offering help.

The Bridport scheme is one of several in Dorset, including Communicare in Swanage, Helping Hands in Wareham, Share and Care in the Purbeck area and Good Neighbours in Sherborne.

There are also similar schemes in villages, an example is one in which a rota of volunteers keep a notebook of helping agencies and individuals for a month and the month’s volunteer has his/her telephone number printed in the parish magazine for people to contact if they need help.

For suggestions of how to start such a scheme contact DORCAS (secretary Sara Jacson, 01747 853688) to be put in touch with one of the above schemes.

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Welcomes and Farewells

It has been a summer of comings and goings in the Dorset LEPs. Revd Tim Wilcox has returned to the US after his year in Lytchett Matravers, Wareham and Wool, and Revd Christine Fowler has moved on from the URC church shared with the Anglicans at East Howe. In Wareham Revd Peter Hardman retired as rector at Pentecost and the commitment to the future of the churches together was expressed in a moving service on the Quay.

We welcome Revd Nick Wood as the new Methodist minister in Lytchett Matravers and Wareham, and Revd Paul Wilson, the Anglican rector in the Melbury LEP. We wish them well in their ministry.

The ecumenical teams have been strengthened by the appointment of Revd Tim Clapton as assistant to Nigel LLoyd who is now the Anglican ecumenical officer for the whole Salisbury diocese. Revd Brian Sturtridge has become the Dorset District URC ecumenical officer.

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All Together in One Place

Across the country there were gatherings, services, celebrations and whole days of coming together at the feast of Pentecost. In our area the largest gatherings were at Yeovil football ground, the Baiter in Poole and several venues in Bournemouth. Other events took place at the Rugby Club in Dorchester, Bucky Doo Square in Bridport, the Abbey Grounds in Shaftesbury, the Quay in Wareham, Minster Green in Wimborne and 4 different venues linked by a procession of witness in Gillingham. The striking thing about these events is the imaginative use of public open spaces. Many people were drawn to join in these events when we were clearly seen to be united in our worship of a God who continues to pour out His Holy Spirit today, as at the first Pentecost. What is this saying about the importance of the visible unity of our churches?

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