Running with the tide

Dorset's Lucy Bolster, pioneer minister on Turlin Moor, writes:

Living near to the sea again has reminded me of a whole lot of language, which I now hear on a daily basis. Springs, neaps, counter currents, slack water, coastal drift... and I’ve learned a new phrase since moving here: “a double dipper tide”.

A double dipper tide is the strange phenomenon, true of Poole harbour, where there is a small dip after the first high tide of the day then a long period of standing water followed by a second high tide and finally a fast outward tide.

The journey towards finding and buying a suitable house for our team members has felt more like a million dipper journey, with an awfully long time of standing water. Last week, Nick and Donna Bold moved in next door (Yes! Next door!) and the tide is shifting once again.

We are all daily thankful for the God-incidence of us as two families, having known each other for over 15 years and both being ready at the same time to move, to be available to get to know a new community and to engage in outward facing communal living.

We’re thankful too for neighbours around us who are welcoming us by joining in with water fights, sharing their lawn mowers, offering space on their driveways for skips and extra cars, helping us to clear the garden and planning summer invitations to get to know each other.

We’re hoping that our communal way of living might model and invite others into ways of being with... God, our community, creation and questions.

We’re expecting that there will be times when it feels like all the water is swooshing away. We will feel emptied, and left only with bare sticky mud.

There will be ebb and flow. The tide will go out... and... it will return.

Following Jesus, we kind of know that there will be both death and new life.

If you are able to, we’d love you to pray with us, as we seek to grow authentic and deep friendships, as we listen and learn together and as we grow a sustaining rhythm of resting, sharing, praying and playing.

If you’d like to understand more of our vision for missional community of the Moor you can have a read here.

As salt water heals, may Your tides of love flood Turlin Moor and beyond.

Amen.

This article originally appeared in April's News from Poole Missional Communities.