Shetland connections

A one and a half hour flight out of Glasgow found me landing on the southern most tip of the Shetland mainland. It's the area served by the Dunrossness Baptist Church. A good 30 minute drive and you are in the area served by the Lerwick Baptist Church, keep going north for a further 30 minutes and you are at the area served by Brae Baptist Church and there is still a longer drive to reach the top of the main island. Head west out of Lerwick and you find yourself crossing a couple of bridges onto Burra Isle where the 4th Baptist Church is situated. The geography was staggering, I had little knowledge of these islands, of how big and indeed how remote they are. Sitting in the home of Ian and Morag who minister in Dunrossness, looking out onto a wild Atlantic Ocean, it is staggering to think that the next piece of land due west is Greenland!

It was a great visit, made special by the people I met and the opportunity to lay the foundation stone of the new Lerwick Baptist Church. But it was also a time of great learning and inspiration.

I witnessed an interdependency on the island seldom seen on the mainland. The ministers fraternal was relational, deeply relational. These 4 ministers really knew one another, cared for one another and supported one another. They shared a passion to reach out to the islanders and encouraged and enabled one another to serve.

During the vacancy in Brae the other 3 churches sent a visiting preacher each month covering 3 out of the 4 Sundays. Members of the congregation were familiar with the other church's members and as a result of Andrew's "Better together tour" they are talking of having annual joint deacons' meetings.

These structures are in essence the dry bones of what I actually felt. There was something life-giving, a supportive, encouraging, trusting, upbuilding and deeply caring attitude towards each other expreseed minister to minister, congregation to congregation. Competiveness, insecurity and suspicion appeared absent.

These, our most northern congregations who face the most demanding of climates, demonstrate for us a relational climate that we would do well to imitate.