Dear Friends

“Once upon a time” is a familiar phrase at this time of the year, the season of pantomimes and fairy tales.  In the Christmas season we heard again through the children’s nativities and readings the stories of long, long ago.  We love a good story, especially with a happy ending.

Dan Allender in his book ‘To be Told’ explores how our lives are stories unfolding, stories that connect us with others, and stories that are in turn part of a bigger story that God is authoring.  Allender encourages us to give time to reflect on our story - I want to say ‘deeply live in our story’ rather than surf through it at the frantic pace modern life can have.  I have been intrigued by this concept and the significance of our own sacred stories as we engage with them and share out of them.  Our coaching gives an opportunity for individuals to tell their stories, as does Spiritual Direction.

In October a group of us gathered and took time to hear something of one another’s stories.  We observed something significant and profound take place as stories were told and received, listened to and accepted without judgement.

In such a place of acceptance there was a freedom to explore the undercurrents of our lives and discover God in unexpected places bringing light and healing, and strangely it seemed that while the facts of our history or our reality didn’t change, our perspective and our awareness of God in the midst did change.  Where God encounters us, there is the power to transform.  “Stories don’t give answers but they do offer perspective.  They provide a window through which we can look for patterns of life,” says Dan Allender.

I am reminded of the story of the woman at the well in John 4.  Jesus came alongside and listened to her questions and arguments but then shockingly revealed her story – in all its shame and fear.  Yet it was in that very place of being received in her greatest shame, that she found herself able to run back into the village and declare with utter freedom that Jesus had told her everything about her life and she was still ok!  I think there is a glimpse here of the freedom and celebration that God would have for all of us as we experience how His life in us brings transformation.  One writer put it this way, from her experience in Spiritual Direction:  “I discovered … how much I needed to tell my own sacred tale in spiritual direction in order to fully receive the grace discovered and to respond more deeply to its implications for life and ministry.”

I wonder how much time we give to our own stories - not simply racing through the pages as I invariably do with the book club choice each month!  The invitation is to truly live our story, taking time along the way to pause, to reflect and to be with what it contains; to consider the central characters, the themes, the plot, the unfolding, and give space for God to find us in those  places in our lives that remain hidden or in the shadows.  We are privileged to walk alongside individuals as they invite us into their own stories and there discover the God who is greater, the God who is with them, the God who transforms.  Perhaps this year you may want to give a little more time to reflect on your own story and invite one or two to walk with you and there encounter  more deeply the Author of your story!

“Every life is a story with a unique meaning about a person who bears a unique name, and which shares a common structure with every other story.  We all journey through countless moments of shalom, shattering and searching that bring us to a sweet season of rest and celebration.  We don’t just have stories, we are a story.”

May we enter into a deeper rest and celebration through this year as God encounters us in the midst of our story and connects us with the bigger story that He Himself is writing.

Our New Office

We have really enjoyed continuing to settle into our new working environment, and it has served us really well over these last 6 months or so. During our year of fallow, one of things we were able to do was develop a rhythm of prayer each morning that was really beneficial to us.  The provision of this office space has enabled us to stay faithful to that, as life has become busier again, with different events and activities.  So we are very grateful for that - and of course, it’s no small privilege and delight to watch the changing of the seasons in such a beautiful setting.  (You might like to take a peek at the new garden website to see more of where we are! www.latchetts.co.uk)

The Old and the New

The basic staples of our ministry continue with one on one coaching still a highlight of what we give our time to.  It remains an extraordinary privilege to walk alongside individuals in their walks of faith as they seek to follow after God.

2/20 Conference

Once again it was a joy to teach this conference in September and celebrate with those who came the deeply transformational power of the gospel in our lives.  Here are comments from 2 of our participants:

“The 2/20 conference helped me to understand what it means to walk by the flesh and how to deal with it.  It was very enlightening and I am learning what it means to let HIM do it!  I love the Father even more and am learning to trust him more.”

“Besides meeting some new wonderful people, and spending time with "old" friends, this conference reminded me again of the love of the Father. That He is the one IN ME working ALL things together for my good, He is my keeper. That there is this constant exchange going on, new life for old, His shiny, abundant LIFE for my old, rusty way of doing things, and then living it out moment by moment.  It is worth doing this 2/20 conference again and again.”

Journeying Days

We wrote about these in our last newsletter, and it’s great to now look back on all 4 days of the series, and know that they provided a much appreciated regular space in busy lives, which enabled these individuals to continue to connect with God and journey deeper with Him.  In the words of one person: “Thanks for facilitating something very special and valuable. There is a  freedom and enjoyment created in relation to the Lord that I haven't experienced in another context.”

New Gatherings

We wrote in our last newsletter that we were looking at running another Encounter in the autumn of this year.  As we continued to talk and pray and listen to how God seemed to be leading us, something different began to emerge.

We have been drawn very much this year to the question of what helps us to go deeper with God in the journey we each have with Him.  How do we continue to co-operate with God in the story He wants to tell through who we are?  We decided therefore to set aside 2 lots of 2 weeks and invite 2 different groups of people to join us to explore God’s presence in their lives in deeper ways.

Almost all of those who joined us had remarkable stories to tell of how God had made it possible for them to take time out in order be with us. In recognition of the preciousness of that kind of commitment we set about to create as much breathing space as we could—in the midst of all that we had to share.  In particular we built in spaces for silence and contemplative prayer.  It has been said that by and large “We are a circumference people with little access to the centre”.  We live on the outer edge of our lives, busy engaging with all that is there—people, work, ministry. It’s not difficult to find that somehow we have been seeking to draw life from these externals, rather than our Source.

The wonder of the gospel is that in Christ, at the core of our deepest self, we  are in union with very God, who is Life himself.  Contemplative practices open us up to this reality in new ways.  As we learn to still ourselves in God’s presence, and cease our own chatter, we give God space to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.  It was deeply moving to see how God met with each one of us, in ways that we could not have engineered, through these special days together.