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The church God is calling us to be

Back in the summer Karen and I escaped the relentless heat of Essex and sought refuge in the cooling breezes and frequent showers of the Hebridean islands of Coll, Tiree, and Barra. Beautiful sandy beaches, almost always devoid of people – you’d hate it! We loved it…

I had long wanted to visit the airport on Barra so, despite arriving and leaving by the CalMac ferry in Castlebay, we drove to the north of the island to experience this most unusual of British airports. The airport buildings, such as they are, are situated on a narrow isthmus of land with the wildness of the Atlantic to the west beyond the dunes, and the wide expanse of tidal sand to the east. And it is this tidal sand that makes Barra Airport unique, as the only airport in the world operating scheduled flights taking off and landing on a tidal beach! Flight times to Glasgow need to coincide with low tide, and even then it is fascinating to watch the planes splashing through standing water.

We joined dozens of tourists gathered to watch the two planes of the day land and take off, with the airport safety vehicle ensuring hikers didn’t accidentally wander on to the runway, and the cameras competing with the twin engined aircraft to see who could make the most noise. We massively outnumbered the passengers arriving and departing, and it almost felt is if the primary purpose of those travelling was to provide entertainment for the gathered spectators. But in reality this is an essential connection for business as well as tourism, and plays its part in allowing this remote community to flourish and thrive.

Barra Airport will never compete with Heathrow for size or with Stansted for frequency of flights. The slightly tired coffee vending machine will never compete with the airside shopping experiences of Gatwick, and it would be utterly foolish to try to land an Airbus A380 – even at low tide! But it is wonderfully adapted to the opportunities of its context and the needs of its community. Barra Airport is arguably exactly the airport it needs to be, for its island and its community locals and tourists alike!

Could we say the same for our churches? Instead of asking why my church isn’t like that big and shiny church over there, could we focus on adapting to the opportunities of our unique situations and the needs of our particular communities? How do we recognise God’s call to be the church God is calling us to be in this unique time and this particular place? 

Our mission? To be the church God is calling us to be. Amen?

The thought this week was written by John Goddard, EBA Trustee and Minister of Saffron Walden Baptist Church