Pilgrimage Day 9: London

Today was kind of bittersweet. We left Salisbury which has been a "home away from home" kind of place for many of us and headed to London where we are staying at the Royal Foundation of St. Katharine. Primarily, this place functions as a retreat center.

The first thing we did when we got to London, though, was go to the Methodist Central Hall. It seems to be the heart of Methodism for London. It is a massive building built in the 19th century directly across the street from Westminster Abbey. It seems to be half church, half conference hall. It was in the Methodist Central Hall that hosted the first United Nations Conference.

 

I had the opportunity to share a message with the Pilgrimage Group as the young adults on the trip were asked to do a worship service. I shared the message from John 21:20-24 where Jesus is telling Peter to worry about the ministry that he is called to and not someone else's. I applied that to how we are called to follow Christ and not try to replicate another person's ministry because we all have our own unique gifts and talents.

After we left Methodist Central Hall and got into our rooms, it was free evening. That was spent finding Abbey Road and walking across it like the Beatles, adding to the grafiti wall in front of Abbey Road, walking all around London and using the Underground and taking pictures of Stoney (Micah's bear from Stonehenge) everywhere.

It was a good day, and right now I am wondering if I really should have agreed to running at 6am tomorrow morning... But it'll be good. Looking forward to it!

 

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Pilgrimage Day 8: Bristol

Today was spent in Bristol - back in John Wesley's day, it was the second largest city in England, coming in at 40,000 people (today, it is the fifth largest by population at 420,556 according to the 2001 census). It is also known as the "Cradle of Methodism" because it is in Bristol that the first Methodist Chapel, built in 1739 and later enlarged to handle more people in 1748. Now, there were Methodist Chapels later erected in Wesley's day - the other two being in London and then up north in Newcastle, but it was the Bristol one that John Wesley spent the most time at (a total of 6 years, which is actually a lot of time considering that John Wesley never seemed to get off his horse).

Being in the New Room (as it is referred to) was a neat experience. It was here that Methodist preachers were taught how to preach as well as Wesleyan theology. The architecture of this meeting space was very Quaker (because a Quaker designed it...) with a gallery along the second story and it had a double pulpit - the one below for the liturgist / scripture reading and the top one for the sermon. Above the actual meeting space was living quarters for preachers, one of these rooms being reserved for John Wesley himself. From this living quarter space there are two windows - one looking towards the back of the meeting space and the other looking down towards the pulpit. It is well believed that when John was in Bristol, he would sit in the common area of the living space upstairs and critique the sermon being presented. No doubt, if I had seen John Wesley from that window above, sitting or standing there and listening to me preach, I would get very nervous...

After being in the New Room, we went out to the city's edge to where a plaque is, taking notice that it was immediately around there that Wesley first preached "in the open air." Imagining that it was then a brickyard compared to today, where it was the edge of a parking lot for new office buildings was an interesting stretch of the imagination. We were also able to visit Charles Wesley's home. He settled down with a Welsh woman in Bristol, and the house that we visited (which the family only stayed at for about 6 years) was centered around this tall and skinny staircase... There were 5 stories to this house with the kitchen and storage area at the bottom in the basement, the main receiving room on the entrance floor, the main bedroom with another room on the second, the third floor was a couple more rooms - bedrooms no doubt - and the top floor was Charles' study where he very well penned many of his thousands of hymns.

The last bit of our Wesley tour in Bristol ended between St. James Cathedral and St. Mark's Church, which are across a courtyard from one another. England finally decided to be its rainy self today, so our guide was telling us about John Wesley's confrontation with the bishop who was telling Wesley to leave Bristol, and Wesley telling the bishop that he was not going to leave because he believed that, "The world is my parish" and that the only way he was going to leave Bristol is if God told him that he was needed elsewhere instead. Near the end of his life, John was invited to preach at St. Mark's, the Lord Mayor's church, where his sermon was calling out the leadership of Bristol. John Wesley seemed to be an equal opportunity critiquer, and that no one was safe from being held accountable by John.

When it comes to Johnn Wesley's open air preaching (which George Whitefield encouraged him to do), it began to show Wesley really flexing himself. Up until now, John was convinced that the only proper way to preach was to do so inside of a church. Those few individuals who were preaching outside on a market square or in the fields were completely inappropriate. Eventually, however, after seeing the need for the citizens in Bristol to know Jesus, John recognized what he had to do. So, according to his journal, he "submitted myself to be more vile" and went out to the city's edge (so as not to technically step on the Bristol diocese' authority) and began to preach the word, where as many as 3 to 4 thousand showed up to hear him according to Wesley's figures.

We were not able to really explore Bristol much. A large group of us actually found a tea and coffee shop and hunkered down there. It was a good opportunity to talk with the district superintendent of the the East district in my conference. It has been a lot of fun getting to know Dave Byrum better on this trip. In the short amount of time we spent in Bristol, though, I had seen more homeless people than my entire stay in England so far. Granted, this likely means that I was not in the right place in London to see many who were in need, but I still felt myself disconcerted. As we were walking out to Charles Wesleys' family's graveside I gave the remains of my sack lunch to one man. It wasn't much and I found myself wishing there was more than a piece of fruit and some candy in it. About an hour later we passed 3 or 4 more in a different area of the city and half of the group I was with immediately began to do the same for them. It was certainly one of those moments where I recognized just how fortunate I was. Not only do I have enough and then some but I'm travelling the world for the sake of learning more.

We came back to Sarum College in Salisbury for a late dinner. Compline was earlier tonight to give us time to pack. This is our last night in Salisbury. In the morning we board the coach with all our things and head to London for the next two nights until the end of our pilgrimage. Salisbury's been a nice home base for us - and you can't really beat being right across the courtyard from Salisbury Cathedral! Thank you, Salisbury, for all that you've done for us here.

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Day 7: Church then Bath!

Today has been a good Sabbath day. It started super early for me, though! By the time I had finished my blog post last night and talked over Facebook Messenger with Eva, I wasn't going to bed until 12:45am, then got up at 6:30am to go running. I sent some messages to Sarah Knapp-Ellis after I got back (thanks again for covering the pulpit for me this morning!).

We went to worship at Salisbury Methodist Church this morning. It is a very inviting church with wonderful congregants. The sermon had to do with needing to find time to recharge - in a way, withdrawing for some times in order to re-engage with those in need. The pastor's interpretation was that when Jesus sent out the 12 disciples to do healings and casting out of demons, Jesus "went on holiday" for that short time to recharge. Then, when the crowds recognized "them," the text is saying that the crowds recognized the disciples as having done awesome things. So now, not only does the crowd want a piece of Jesus, but they want a piece of the disciples, too! In the midst of their enthusiasm (when they wanted to keep on telling Jesus about all of the good things that they were doing), Jesus suggested that they take a break and head to the other side of the lake. Even though the text does not mention this, the indication is clear: Jesus is trying to ensure that burnout does not happen for the disciples. Even though it seems counter to logic, often times the best time to take a break is when things are going exceedingly well. Waiting until times get rough (in this instance, waiting for when ministry gets near impossible) is too late to be able to recharge one's batteries because that's when you need the energy most! It's about setting a rhythm in life of engaging, recharging then engaging again.

After the service, it seemed like the entire congregation stuck around for tea and coffee. They had what looked like a gift stand, second hand books and movies, even baked goods for sale in their fellowship hall. It's always good to see community in a church that doesn't want to leave.

We headed back to Sarum for a quick lunch, then we hopped on the coach for Bath! Like Stonehenge, the past two times I have been to England I was unable to visit Bath. While at bath I visited Jane Austen's home where she grew up. I did not, however, feel the inclination to pay money for the tour - so instead myself and two others in my group went down to the park just down the street and rested there for a bit. There was a group of people playing patank (the spelling I'm sure is wrong there...). It's like bocce ball but with smaller balls evidently. Once the two in our group who went through the tour were finished, we headed on to the main event (for me, at least, considering I'm not a huge fan of Jane Austen): The Roman Bath!

It was rather interesting for me to learn that the Roman Bath wasn't excavated until around John Wesley's time in the 18th century. One would think that such a big deal of Roman architecture would have been studied and preserved since it was built - but such is not the case. Then, when one realizes this, it becomes even more humorous that those that wanted to use this place as a tourist attraction commissioned Roman looking statues to be put up to try and make people believe that these were original statues of some of Rome's famous Caesars. Kind of cool, kind of funny. It's neat that (with some preservation, mind you) this structure's main pools are still working. The geo-thermal pool is still working, feeding the main pool where those who visited would bathe and soak in the warm water. It was also interesting of note that the room housing the geo-thermal pool that fed everything was the room devoted to worshipping the Goddess Sulis Minerva (I know I have the Minerva part right at least). For me, the biggest surprise was that this was a place of worshipping at least one Roman god - I had always assumed from hearing about it that it was just a gymnasium / bathing area / day spa deal going on. At the end of the self-guided walk through tour we had an opportunity to drink some of the water that came out of the spring. While some others thought it was the worst water in the world, it actually reminded me of straight-up well water that hadn't had the high mineral content filtered out (kind of like the showers at camp, I guess...).

I forgot to mention that before even going to Jane Austen's house, 6 of us visited the oldest tea house in Bath (c. 1482), Sally Lunn's, which is the home of the "world famous Sally Lunn Bun." Now, I'm not sure how world famous these buns are, but I can tell you that they are delicious! I had cinnamon butter on mine and it was awesome!

Bath wasn't what I had expected. I don't know how much sense this makes, but Bath seemed much more European than the rest of England. Now, I recognize that the UK is part of Europe, but there seemed to be a much heavier influence of Italy and France than I had expected. It's lovely, it's just that the architecture and gardening reminded me a good deal of the few days I had spent in Paris and pictures of Italy. It didn't seem as British in that regard... I'm sure I'm making little sense with that statement but that's how I feel. Regardless, awesome stop!

If you notice in my pictures that will be posted, I took the bear I got at Stonehenge yesterday and brought him along for the trip, snapping photos of him doing things like drinking and eating at the tea house, purchasing a ticket for the Roman Baths, getting his picture taken with the Jane Austen statue, etc... I thought that it would be fun to take these pictures then make a photo book for Micah. Maybe one day it will be a fun way to talk to him about my trip and possibly get him excited to go visit England someday in the future - giving me an opportunity to share my enthusiasm and love for this country. Besides, it's cute!

It's almost unbelievable to think that we are 7 days into the start of the pilgrimage and have only 3 more full days to go. This has been an awesome and inspiring experience and I am eager to see what these final days will have in store for us all!

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Day 6: Stonehenge!

This morning for Eucharist we switched things up by going to Salisbury Cathedral for the service. For a service where the normal attendance is maybe a dozen, us ~40 pilgrims showed up! It was nice to be able to share in the Eucharist in an Anglican church again. It's been good to be able to partake of the sacrament as often as we have. Truthfully, I am considering making communion a weekly occurance as a separate service back home in Indiana for any of those who would like to participate in this spiritually forming practice.

With consideration to how lecture heavy yesterday was, Steve Manskar and Paul Chilcote (the leaders of this pilgrimage) decided to shorten this morning's lecture and allow for a question and answer session with Paul. Granted, I didn't mind the lectures - I actually have been getting a lot out of them! The Q and A was an awesome hour, though, as we were all able to share questions and begin to address the possibility for praticality in a ministry context. Hopefully, another session like that will be made available before the pilgrimage is over.

After lunch we had free time for the rest of the day, and we packed it! I went with a group out to Stonehenge - first time seeing it! When you stop and think about the fact that this monument was completed around 2300 BC and it's still standing, the rock originating from at least 19 miles away, it's very impressive! At the same time, though, we don't know who built it. Evidently, scholarship within the past 100 years or so have disproven that the Druids built it. So not only do we not know who made it, but we don't know why or even how these massive rocks were transported - it's a lot of speculation.

One of the guys in my group, Chris Abel, brought up an interesting point: people gather from all over the world to be impressed by these massive rocks in their formation that have been standing there for 4000+ years, but we don't know anything about the reasoning or the people behind them. We have these Scriptures, these stories, some of them pre-dating Stonehenge's construction, and we know about the why and the people in them. Taking that one step farther, whoever built this monument built something physical that, even though it's lasted a very long time, has still dilapidated over time and has required maintenance to put some of the stones back in place and even patched up a bit. God's Word has built a spiritual foundation on which our souls can stand stronger than any rock or monument... how awe-inspiring is that?

We go back on the bus for Salisbury and ate dinner at a nice pub that we hadn't tried out yet. It had an outside eating area by the river that runs through Salisbury. After that, we found another pub that had really nice couches to sit and chat for awhile. Realizing that essentially everything closes (except for the clubs and pubs) during the evenings, we realized that we did have one other option: the movies! Now, I did kick myself a little bit, but it was a fun time with 3 other pilgrims. It wound up being rather a good move, though. The movie was fun - Ant-Man (I was going to see it eventually anyway), but the theatre that we were in was a converted live-performance theatre. The seating didn't start for quite a distance from the screen because that's an actual stage floor. There was some tapestries and the original beams in the ceiling. So we went to the movies and wound up watching a modern-day movie in old theatre: kinda' neat, actually!

After the movie ended we hurried ourselves back to the Cathedral's close because we didn't want to be locked out of our rooms at Sarum College (which is inside the close). (A close is a gated area, and our close's gates are locked around 11pm). Luckily, the gate hadn't been locked yet. The Cathedral is beautifully lit at night, so we went over there, took some pictures and were hoping to play in the art installation lighting that is in the main entrance archway to the Cathedral. Unfortunately, they had locked that area off from being able to enter into it while we had been out so we couldn't take nice pictures actually inside the lights. When I can, though, I will be sure to post what I'm talking about. If you're Facebook friends with me, you be able to see them within 24 hours!

It's been a fun day getting to know some of the others better on this trip and making new friends. I'm planning on keeping in contact with a number of the people on this pilgrimage! I know that sounds like something a camper would say before heading home, but it's true. This is a short-term community with the goal of growing spiritually as we learn about how we might help our congregations at home grow as well - and that is fantastic!

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Pilgrimage Day 5: Salisbury!

Today was an odd day. It has not been unusual to have a lecture, however today was three. They were all very good, there is a lot to chew on and digest as I go back over the notes and powerpoints in the future. Primarily, they had to do with the role that Wesleyan theology has to do with shaping the church and why we should be using this theology.

Even though they were all very good lectures, it was a lot to ingest. Much prayer and discernment will be needed to take it all in.

Before going to compline, I went and spent time with some fellow pilgrims that I didn't know before this trip. Then we returned for evening prayers, and immediately following that, I went out with John and Jim (another fellow pilgrim) primarily for a change of scenery. We were able to discuss a lot of theology and just get to know each other better overall.

Today really wasn't a picutre day, however a highlight was the Evensong service which took place before dinner at Salisbury Cathedral. Three shires were represented by a combined boys choir at this festival performance, a part of the 800th anniversary celebration of the Magna Carta. Within the first 3 minutes of the service, almost immediately after the choirs began singing, tears were going down my face. There was just something about the sound the choir was making reverberating off of the stone walls in this massive place... it was moving.

Today was a good day. A lot to think on / pray on. Overall, I find myself fortunate to be in the midst of this opportunity of a lifetime.

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Pilgrimage Day 4: Epworth

Usually whenever I hear "Epworth," it's always in the context of Epworth Forest, one of the 7 campsites for the Indiana Conference Outdoor Ministry - the place where I felt my call to ministry... Where many other pastors and Bishop Coyner felt their calls to ministry. Today, I visited Epworth, where John and Charles Wesley grew up.

Epworth was an isolated place for the most part. It was hard to get to due to heavy flooding. All the towns in that area of the country are up on hills, and when all of the rains came they were all on their own islands. In a very real way, Epworth was in a similar situation to the hollers in the mountains of Kentucky (as far as isolation is concerned). The people were generally not well educated, poverty was certainly not uncommon and a lot of crime (theft particularly) was hard to combat because the king was unable to send in his soldiers to help enforce the law. This isolation was such an issue that one of the Kings actually hired a Swiss architect to come in and design a drainage system for the whole area so that Epworth and the other towns like it would be accessible. This drainage system is still in effect today.

Politically speaking, the citizens of Epworth were not pro-King. Then here comes Samuel Wesley in 1696 to be the Pastor at St. Andrew's Parish Church - who was well educated and very much pro-King being a Torie. Samuel didn't make very many friends in Epworth it seems... On at least 2 separate occasions the towns people set fire to the rectory (parsonage) as a way to send the message, "Get out of town!" The second burning of the refectory that happened, John Wesley had not gotten out of the house with the rest of the family. As the townspeople and Wesley family looked up, they saw 5 year old John at the window on the second story. There is a painting that depicts the townspeople building a human ladder, grabbing John Wesley out of the fire just before the thatched roof caved in. Susanna Wesley would hence refer to John as her "Brand plucked from the fire," an image that John would later use in his sermons to describe God's grace in our lives saving us from destruction.

Susanna Wesley had a major impact on John's life, really showing him how women can be great pastors and spiritual mentors. Likely because of her influence in his life he was a strong supporter of women in ministry. Unfortunately, that did not stick around in the Methodist movement following his death; within 10 years of his death, the movement had restricted women from preaching or being in positions of leadership (an unfortunately unbiblical reading of the Scriptures driven primarily by patriarchal structures of society).

It seems like a decent sized enough off a home until you at stop and realize that Samuel and Susanna Wesley had 10 children... In one of the rooms, we saw a life sized was statute of John Wesley which was made by Madame Tussaud.

The home that stands today is in the process of being renovated back to what it originally looked like. Until the 1950s, the home was still being used as a rectory for St. Andrew's Parish Church, so one can see the various updates to the building - particularly the fireplaces having been updated.

Following the rectory we headed down to Wesley Memorial Methodist Church in Epworth where the ladies of the church served us a wonderful lunch. We were able to see the communion table where Samuel Wesley served communion on (St. Andrews had given it to the Methodist Church some time ago). After that we headed to St. Andrew's Parish Church - the beautiful church is at least 900 years old - and on that site, the place of worship For closer to 1200 years! This is where Samuel Wesley is buried.

After looking around Epworth a little while (a small town about half the size of Sullivan, IN, where I am serving; a city of only 4,200) we got back on the coach to head back to Sarum College. At the time of writing this, we have been on this coach for about 6 hours. A lot of beautiful country side and conversations with my fellow pilgrims have helped time to go by, however. We even went ahead and did our evening prayer service on the coach which was a change of pace.

It's been a good day - a bit more relaxed than some of the previous days. It's been especially good considering that it's helped to flesh out the Wesley brothers' background and possibly helped to explain why they stood for what they stood for.

 

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Pilgrimage Day 3: Off to Swanwick, Derbyshire!

This morning started off with a run through drizzle. Wasn't bad - just the whole time I was hoping it wouldn't start actually raining because my phone is not so much water proof... Now we move onto the pilgrimage portion!

 

Morning Eucharist followed by breakfast, then we loaded up on the coach where we spent close to half our day on as we headed north to Swanwick in Derbyshire. On the way we stopped at Francis Asbury's cottage - just a small place with 4 rooms. We had the fortune of having a very knowledgeable and humorous man telling us all about the history of Francis Asbury, though. Also, I saw my bishop's business card in a bowl on the table of the front room that he had left, maybe last year when he did his own Wesleyan Pilgrimage.

 

We got back in the coach and headed the rest of the way to Swanwick at the Hayes Conference Center. While here, we had Dr. Phil Meadows share with us an awful lot, particularly on bands and the importance of small groups, even in contemporary Christianity. Also, he shared a whole lot about the importance of putting faith into action - something that he referred to as Mission Spirituality. There was very little that he shared with us that was new to me, however it was presented in such a way that it started to shed some new light on the potential and importance of this subject matter. Effectively, the illustration that I've used of God's love overflowing within us, like too much water overflowing a cup, can't help but to spill out and influence others. Out of the outflowing of God's love for us, we are so motivated to go out and share that love with those around us through all sorts of missions. It's out of a heart for the love of God - a zeal for God - that the pulse of a church can remain steady and the life of that church can grow. Needless to say, there's some ideas that I'm toying with in my head to take back to Sullivan with me - some ideas that hopefully will help to foster and grow the Discipleship at Sullivan First UMC.

 

After compline (evening prayer), we stepped outside and noticed that the conference center had hired musicians to help entertain the guests - there is an orchestra camp for youth and another conference happening here as well (this is a huge conference center...). I spent some time listening to the music with my fellow pilgrims. After the music was over, I spent some time with some of my fellow travelers, getting to know them better and having some laughs.

 

Now, I'm back in my room, wishing that I could connect my iPad to the wifi network to upload this blog post, so that is why this post is a day late getting to you - I had to wait until I had wifi, and since we are headed to Epworth tomorrow which is even further north east from Sarum, it's going to be quite a while before I'll be able to post this unfortunately. Thank you for your patience!

 

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