Shaped by the past

Our attempts to promote collaboration in planning and financing ministry keep getting tripped up by fossilised fragments of the past.

I fear a little bit for the consultation about to take place with the Cleethorpes parishes because it seems each time it is mentioned someone brings up their bad memories of the former Cleethorpes Team Ministry. It is almost as if this is what controls all future ministry collaboration possibilities.

I fear a great deal for any chances of parishes rallying round the need to change gear in our commitment to interdependent financing of ministry in Grimsby and Cleethorpes. At a Church Council this week the first remarks were still about giving ‘our’ money to ‘them’, so the shift in language a while back from a ‘Quota’ to a ‘Share’ hasn’t made any impact there at all; it is almost as if the term ‘Tribute’ (which ‘Quota’ replaced) determines many people’s perception.

The pictures show the fossilised landscape which determines our own and were taken three miles apart from one walk in the summer.

One is the of fourteenth century Pack Horse Bridge at Utterby (whose church accounts, I noticed, actually still use the term ‘Tribute’); it is next to the point where the present road crosses the stream.

The other is the clearest example I can remember seeing of a lost mediaeval street pattern; it is next to the present village of North Ormsby.