Mission, self-care, and the abundance of summer

This will be the last reflection before we have a short break for the summer, restarting in September. Personally, I find it a great joy to write these reflections. I truly hope you find them helpful, or at the very least, cause you to take a pause and ponder for a short while. 

I’m writing this from a café a short drive away from my usual coastal, salty-air habitat. I’m in Leith, quite a trendy area in the city of Edinburgh full of incredible places to eat and drink and spend all your monthly paycheque. I’m sitting not far from the sea but it’s a vastly different threshold and coastline. This is a busy port with huge ships everywhere. And the streets are no less bustling. Tourists are staring down at Google maps on their phones, bumbling about like slow-moving speed bumps to the hurried work force who are travelling on fast forward whilst grabbing a quick smashed avo’ on sourdough before the next meeting. 

My own pace is slow. I order a coffee - small batch dark roast of course - from the hipster baristas, whilst gypsy jazz notes fill the air from the speakers. I’m only 40 minutes’ drive away from the sleepy coastal town of Dunbar that I call home, yet it feels like a world away. Summer for me is a time to slow down, ease my foot off the accelerator for a while; take in the joys of warmer, longer days, BBQ’s, no school for the kids, and some travel and adventure thrown in for good measure. But for today I’m thrust into the one of Europe’s coolest cities in the middle of tourist season, and its not even really got going yet.

In recent weeks, I’ve heard different approaches to summer from churches connected into the RM Network. For some, this is the time to ramp up missional activity. There is high-energy in the air, rural spaces are busy with tourists and so it’s an opportune time to get out there, double our efforts. During my years in Cornwall there were always the Beach Missions etc, and now up in Scotland it’s festival time with youth camps seeming to be running every week!! Then I spoke to another community who stop meeting for the summer weeks altogether. I must admit, our own small church community has often thought to do the same. When you’re small and folks are busy with holidays etc, it makes sense.

Whatever we decide to do, we can rest well in the knowledge that God’s got us, He is for us, upholding us, always with us. There’s an ebb and flow to our lives and our walk with God. It’s easy to forget that fact and continue on our merry little way, business as usual, same speed, same activities, same rhythms all through the year.

But God put us in a world that has seasons, seasons that follow natural cycles. Summer is the abundant part of that cycle. Nature is in fullness everywhere you turn, trees are full and green, and wildflowers cover the fields, mountains and meadows; and the water is warm (Hallelujah!!), so we swim more, enjoying the salty water and waves that finish their ocean-wide journeys on our shorelines.

How is God inviting you to experience summer’s abundance? To share in this season with nature? Are you headlong into mission, or retreating from the frontlines? Or maybe a balance of both?

My encouragement to you all, as always, is to be prayerful and intentional. Just this morning I read the story of Jesus learning that his cousin had been beheaded. Tough news. He tries to withdraw, to retreat away in the healing presence of his Father, and yet the crowds follow him, making that impossible. But he has compassion on them, he stays with them, teaching them and miraculously feeding them. And then after that, he returns to where he was originally going, up a mountain to be alone and to pray. His intentionality is staggeringly beautiful, knowing what his heart needs…..simply to be with God.

No matter how summer unfolds for you, may you become awake to what your own heart needs, and move with God’s invitation towards it. The American Quaker, writer and activist Parker Palmer said this:

"Self-care is never a selfish act - it is only good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others."

What does self-care look like for you this summer? How are you stewarding the gift you have been given, the gift of life itself?

May your cup be overfilled with Christ’s abundant, refreshing nature and presence this summer; may you follow him out into the fields of harvest and up onto the holy mountain of solitude; may you recline with him, hearing his heartbeat as you feast and laugh; and may you know the restoration that comes from dwelling securely in the arms of God.

And also, may your BBQ’s burn brightly, may your sausages be cooked on the inside as well as charcoaled on the outside; may your free-range children run wild in the fields, streams, beaches and forests with muddy faces and grass-stained knees; and may your holiday excursions bring life and joy, with the distinct absence of sunburned skin and long passport queues!!!

Don’t forget the after-sun.

Grace and peace, see you in September!

Jon Timms

Joint CEO, Rural Ministries