Without any shame whatsoever I am taking the opportunity to advertise a brilliant book, North to Alaska by Trevor Lund. Over the years I have loved reading about people who have set out to do the impossible. Just over twenty years ago, Trevor set out from Ushuaia at the southernmost tip of Argentina with all his worldly belongings on his pushbike with one aim in mind, to Cycle the entire journey to the northern coast of Alaska, some sixteen thousand miles away! The book is excellent and well worth a read, I can recommend it to you and God bless him, Trevor has now recorded the entire book on audio book, which means that those of us who spend significant time in our cars travelling around can even read it while on the move and it is somehow special hearing Trevor reading his own words. The reason why this book is so special, is that Trevor was part of a wonderful group of young people I had the privilege of spending time with during the late seventies/early eighties, at Calverley Methodist Church in West Yorkshire, so I feel very proud of what he has achieved.
Just over a year ago I spent a day with the Leadership Team of the Ipswich Methodist Circuit, we were at that point in life when we were trying to figure out how the twenty-two Churches in our part of Suffolk might chart the way forward following all that we had just experienced during the pandemic. I used the story from Exodus 14 where Moses and the Israelites arrived at the Red Sea, ahead of them was the wide expanse of water, and behind them, the Egyptian army closing in. I tried to liken that experience to the situation the Church was in a year ago when we were facing some seemingly impossible challenges. One of my wise colleagues asked the question during the following conversation “where are we wanting to go? To the promised land? Or back to Egypt?” that comment has driven me on through the last year, and as we start out on another new year at the beginning of September, it is the prevailing thought in my mind, do we want to move on to new and exciting experiences, or do we simply want to go back to way Church used to be, how life used to be.
When I look back to our youth group back in the late seventies, I truly believed that we were doing pioneering work and I hope that our young people still remember those days. We live in a world today, forty years on, where religion seems to be out of vogue and instead of Churches being alive and relevant, and growing, we are seeing an increasing number of Churches closing each year. Does that mean that Christianity, or religion has had its day? Maybe, if I am being honest. The core ethic of Christianity is kindness, and the great enemy is greed (in my opinion) and what I find amazing in Trevor’s story is the kindness and generosity he finds, particularly in some of the poorer areas he travels through. Equally some of those who might look as though they have plenty to share, appear to be quite stingy.
I honour people like Trevor, like our Olympians, and particularly Paralympians, who against all the odds set their sights high, aim for the impossible, keep focussed, use their initiative, keep coming back after failure, working through the pain barrier, all the time, aiming for their ultimate goal. It is highly unlikely that most of us will row the Atlantic, Cycle the length of the Americas, swim the channel, complete a marathon, win gold at the Olympics, but the truth is that if we don’t set off from Argentina, we will never experience arriving in Alaska! September is the beginning of a new school year, and a new year in the Church, it feels to be the month when the world wakes up from its summer break. Let us aim for the highest and the best and see where we are in a years’ time.
Aim for the impossible and let’s see what we might experience.