“The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.” Audrey Hepburn

It's been a tough old week on number of fronts. I shan't bore you with details - we all have our personal issues to work through.


The lovely Audrey Hepburn said: “The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.”  Reminds me that without good friends and loving relationships - life becomes just a struggle. Yesterday I met up with friends from Bristol days and immediately felt a bit better. Another friend has just phoned and again I feel more hopeful. Sheryl is very grateful that others supplement the love, understanding and care she pours into my life. Thank God for the hugs, smiles, listening ears and an understanding spirit. These friends ask me 'what can we do?' I could give them a wish list but for me it is enough to know that people are there and care enough to take time out of really busy schedules to spend a couple of hours every now and then to listen to and sit with 'poor old me'.


I also want to thank God for Facebook, Skype and all the other means by which people can receive love, encouragement, prayer and share it with others. An enhancement to community for some but for others I am sure the closest they may get to it.

The pictures used on this blog were taken in and around Turville - Dibley - to many people. Quotes come to mind like: "Wouldn't it be lovely if some kittens were born with pink fur and you didn't actually have to paint them yourself?" 'Things have to change. Look at traffic lights.'


Yes - it was a show about the church - but to be honest its continuing popularity rests in it being about diverse, (and then some), people in community taking precedence over the institution. More often than not the Vicar is the one who goes out on a limb to underline the fact that community matters more than tradition and building.

Why do I write all this? Simply because I believe that the institutional church will cease to have any real meaning for people, (whether members or non-members), unless it enables and releases its leaders and 'members' to focus on building and enbaling 'community' without having to spend more and more time keeping various 'shows on the road'. The stories I hear from leaders who struggle with this and feel more and more disillusioned are getting more frequent. Like other leaders I know the personal struggle here in Hounslow is not that there aren't people who want to focus on building a sustainable Christ Centred Mission Community, but there are those - both within and 'on high' who seem to feel that other 'things' are more important.

It is a real spiritual battle and often personally demanding. It is the battle for the soul of a national church that declares its aspiration to be a church for the non-member and has as its strap line 'a Christian presence in every community'.

Presence is such a delicious word!