As schools break up for summer many Third Spacers take a holiday. For a small group like ours this can make us feel rather vulnerable, especially on a Sunday morning in the bandstand.

The last meeting before folks take off for their summer break we bring something to share with each other for our Sunday morning worship.

I was working in my garden a place where I feel at peace and close to God (like meeting outdoors in the park on Sunday mornings – there is loads to see that inspires).  I was dead heading flowers (my poppies had taken a battering from the heavy rain and looked rather bedraggled). I set about them with the secateurs and started to think about what I could share with the group the following morning.

• As I looked at the scruffy old wrinkled lower leaves on the plants I thought of our group. Sorry folks! We are a small group and we are all getting older. (We range from teenagers to 60+)

• As I looked at the flower heads I thought of our group. What we share is wonderful, colourful, fresh and exciting. We started meeting together on a Sunday morning outdoors in the centre of the town in September 2009, but I had to ask myself – are we just a group of good friends having an amazing time?

seeds of hope

• As I cut off the seed heads I was reminded of how our group started. We very much took encouragement from the theme at Greenbelt 2009 which was The Long Now.  What we are doing now is the seed of what is to come.  I pulled open a seed head and saw hundreds and hundreds of tiny seeds.

• I was reminded that what we are doing is a new way of doing church, a fresh way to rekindle interest in Jesus, an experiment in reaching out, and a way of placing prayer and blessing into the centre of our town.

Instead of feeling concern about the number of people who would be meeting together over the summer I was encouraged to believe that what we are doing, what we experience and what we have is the way forward for Christianity.

I shared my thoughts with the group and passed around an open seed head. The seeds are in place for the future – in the fullness of time they will germinate and flourish.