This afternoon some of the Aoradh crowd met up with Peter and Dorothy Neilson for a chat.

Peter and Dorothy are the parents of one of the Aoradh crew- Pauline B, and apart from just the pleasure of sharing a long cup of tea, it was great to talk of church- what is, what has been and what might be to come.

Peter is particularly well qualified to talk of these things as he was the convener of the Church of Scotland’s ‘Church without walls’ report. At present, he divides his time between Church consultancy work, running retreats with Dorothy, and no doubt a hundred other things.

Today we discussed the story of Aoradh and Peter was able to talk of how our development fits into a wider experience of faith inside/outside church in Scotland. Some of this we knew about, but a lot we did not. Scotland is a small place (in terms of numbers of people,) but as we have discussed before, we are not well networked.

For instance, he talked about his involvement with Coracle in Edinburgh, who are doing some interesting things.

Peter also used a phrase that made me smile- suggesting that Church in the past had tended to be Pneumatic- it sucked you in, then sucked you dry.

He was of the opinion that the development of small communities who live out faith through small ritual and celebration may well be part of the future of church.

And in so doing, we might let go some of the need to suck- and remember also to breathe out…