This year, the Methodist Church, St John the Baptist Church and Holy Trinity Church ran a joint Lent Course over six Tuesday afternoons in Lent, which attracted around a dozen people.  In a truly ecumenical venture, sessions were led by Rev Vicci Davison and Kathy Rickman from the Methodist Church and by Mark Stockdale from Holy Trinity Church, and the venue alternated between Methodist Church, St John the Baptist Church. 

 But enough about the arrangements.  What was the course about and what did we learn from it?  The course was entitled ‘Living Lent 2020: Creating a climate of change’, which was produced for 2023 but little has changed since then, in terms of our environment.  The six sessions covered creation, freedom, justice, reconciliation, prophetic vision and Holy Week.  We started each week with an icebreaker then looked at a passage from the Bible which we discussed then sought to answer themed questions.   It was challenging at times as we sought to consider global issues around climate change and also what we as individuals and church communities could do.  Should we always try to “buy local” to reduce our carbon footprint, but then what about supporting farmer in less developed parts of the world?  There were no easy answers, but it did get us talking and thinking, and trying to commit to live our lives at least a bit differently.  And of course, on top of that, we got to make new friends and learn from each other.

 Mark Stockdale