The Church Of The Holy Rood -- Wool, Dorset, U.K.
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The Church Of The Holy Rood -- Wool, Dorset, U.K.
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A Vision for the Church One of Holy Rood Church’s priorities over the last year has been to focus its vision for the future. As we have listened to regular worshippers and the wider community, what has emerged is that God is calling us to be: “a church without walls, moving people towards Christ, where we live, work and play.” This doesn’t mean that our beautiful church building isn’t important. It most certainly is! This month major repairs and maintenance work will be undertaken, particularly on the tower. The building also has limitations because of its location and lack of facilities (e.g. toilet, parking, space for wheelchairs or children’s buggies, etc) and we continue to look for ways to improve this while remaining sensitive to the overall integrity of the building.
But there are other barriers that alienate people and these need to be addressed too: Henri Nouwen, a Dutch priest and writer, talks of “honest receptivity” in which we invite “the stranger into our world on his or her terms, not on ours.” This is part of what we mean by being “a church without walls.”
At the same time Nouwen urges us to present our beliefs and lifestyle clearly, for “it belongs to the core of Christian spirituality to reach out to the other with good news and to speak without embarrassment about what we ‘have heard and … seen with our eyes …. watched and touched with our hands.’ (1 John 1:1).” It is by doing this that we seek to move people towards Christ, where we live, work and play.
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