Revisiting Dorset

From 1984-1985, I lived in Charmouth and Bridport as part of a British Youth for Christ (YFC) team. Together with Debbie, Jenny and Mark, we were a voluntary youth work team which organized a mission, holiday club, Youth Services, took assemblies/lessons in schools and engaged with those using an Unemployed Workers Centre.

There were some special people involved in this initiative, both locally and centrally for YFC. Rev Bob Lucas and Ray Dobson were two of those involved locally. Bob Lucas was Rector of St Andrew's Charmouth, while Ray Dobson becaame Founding Elder for Bridport Christian Fellowship. Paul and Sally Nash were our YFC mentors and went on to have significant ordained roles in chaplaincy and training. Read more about their experiences and reflections at their blog Marker Posts and Shelters. Mark Ord, who was on the team, became a Baptist minister and is currently ministering at Yardley Wood Baptist Church.

I have just returned from a week's holiday in Dorset and, on the last day, had the joy of meeting up with Ray Dobson at Bridport Christian Fellowship and hearing about the ministry of the Fellowship following its founding soon after our team had been ministering in the area. It was also very special to meet Dave Collins, Leading Elder at the Fellowship, who became a Christian during the year that our team were in the area and later gained valuable experience himself on a different YFC team in another area.

For our holiday, we were based in Litton Cheney, where our holiday cottage had artworks by John Gosbee who lived in the cottage from 1996-2016. Our holiday included visits to Lyme Regis, Abbotsbury Swannery, Charmouth beach, Lulworth Cove, Dorset Museum and Art Gallery, Max Gate, Monkey World, and West Bay, among other locations.

Lyme Regis nestles in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty at the point where the dramatic West Dorset and East Devon coastlines meet – right at the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage site known as the Jurassic Coast. The town is regarded as the 'Pearl of Dorset' and is renowned for its natural beauty, fossils, literary connections and extraordinarily rich heritage, it is also famous for being the birthplace of Mary Anning, one of history’s most important fossil collectors and palaeontologists.

The East beach at Charmouth is a good place to find pyrite ammonite and also belemnite fossils loose amongst the pebbles. Charmouth beach is divided into two by the mouth of the River Char which is often dammed by the beach forming a lagoon suitable for boating or watching the many ducks and swans. In summer the expanses of sand and gently shelving waters make it the ideal family beach. In autumn and winter the effect of storms and the waves on the cliffs create a haven for fossil collectors. Charmouth Fossils have appeared on numerous television programmes, and are displayed in museums throughout the world.

The pebble beach and blue waters of Lulworth Cove make it an extremely popular destination. The Cove and surrounding coastline are part of the world famous Jurassic Coast - a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Low tide reveals wonderful rock pools teeming with sea creatures – great for exploring with children. It is just a short walk to other famous landmarks along the coast such as Stair Hole and Durdle Door. Stair Hole is reputed to be the inspiration for the location of Enid Blyton’s book ‘The Rubadub Mystery’. The coast around Lulworth is also a fantastic place to see blow holes, caves, arches and coves.

With the stunning golden glow of the majestic sandstone cliffs and the shimmering radiance of Golden Cap, West Bay is the Golden Gateway to the Jurassic Coast. West Bay nestles south of Bridport, between Eype with Seatown to the west and Freshwater with Burton Bradstock to the east. Situated at the western end of Chesil Beach / Chesil Bank, the area forms part of the Dorset Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site within Lyme Bay. West Bay is a wonderful location for coast and countryside walks, fossil hunting, fishing / angling trips, scuba diving, paragliding, golfing, river boating and more. The Dorset historic market town of Bridport lies one and a half miles inland from the West Bay coast.

The Dorset Museum and Art Gallery began by collecting natural history and archaeology. Literature, fine art, textiles, costumes, local history, and photography collections grew over time. The Thomas Hardy collection was a major bequest in 1937. 30 sculptures and over 100 prints and drawings by Elisabeth Frink were provided to the Museum in accordance with the wishes of the artist’s late son, Lin Jammet. One of the Museum's Founder's was Revd Henry Moule, a radical reformer who fearlessly campaigned for the poor, and was an early conservationist and environmentalist.

Max Gate, an austere but sophisticated town house a short walk from the town centre of Dorchester, was the home of Dorset's most famous author and poet Thomas Hardy. Hardy, who designed the house in 1885, wanted to show that he was part of the wealthy middle classes of the area, to reflect his position as a successful writer, and to enable him to enter polite society. The house was named after a nearby tollgate keeper called Henry Mack. The tollgate was known locally as ‘Mack’s Gate’, which Hardy then used with a different spelling when he named his house, ‘Max Gate’.

Abbotsbury Swannery is home to a colony of over 600 Mute Swans, located on the dramatic Dorset Coast. The Swannery was established by Benedictine Monks who built a monastery at Abbotsbury during the 1040s. The monks farmed the swans to produce food for their lavish Dorset banquets. St Peter’s monastery was destroyed in 1539, during the dissolution.

Set amongst the woodland of Dorset lays 65 acres of sanctuary for over 250 primates. Monkey World was set up in 1987 by Jim Cronin to provide abused Spanish beach chimps with a permanent, stable home. Today Monkey World works in conjunction with foreign governments from all over the world to stop the illegal smuggling of apes out of Africa and Asia. At the park visitors can see over 250 primates of more than 20 different species. At the Centre refugees of this illegal trade as well as those that have suffered abuse or neglect are rehabilitated into natural living groups.

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Jeremy Enigk - Amazing Worlds.

The faith of Generation Y

On Wednesday evening I was at the book launch for The Faith of Generation Y which draws on the views of over 300 young people who have participated in Christian youth and community outreach projects around England over the last five years and which presents some fascinating and surprising findings for the wider Church to consider. A friend of mine, Sally Nash (Director of the Midlands Centre for Youth Ministry), is one of the authors, along with Sylvia Collins-Mayo (sociologist of religion), Bob Mayo (parish priest in West London) with the Bishop of Coventry, Rt Revd Christopher Cocksworth.

The Faith of Generation Y (those born from around 1982 onwards) provides an empirically grounded account of the nature of young people’s faith – looking into where they put their hope and trust in order to make life meaningful. The book goes on to consider whether Christianity has any relevance to young people, and asks whether the youth and community projects in which they participate foster an interest in the Christian faith.

The findings from the study suggest that for most young people faith is located primarily in family, friends and their selves as individuals – defined as ‘immanent faith’. ‘For the majority, religion and spirituality was irrelevant for day-to-day living; our young people were not looking for answers to ultimate questions and showed little sign of “pick and mix” spirituality,’ says Sylvia Collins-Mayo. ‘On the rare occasions when a religious perspective was required (for example, coping with family illnesses or bereavements) they often ‘made do’ with a very faded, inherited cultural memory of Christianity in the absence of anything else. In this respect they would sometimes pray in their bedrooms. What is salutary for the Church is that generally young people seemed quite content with this situation, happy to get by with what little they knew about the Christian faith.’

Sylvia adds: ‘The Christian youth and community projects were an important source of Christian faith support for the minority of young people who were already actively involved in Church. For the majority, however, the Christian dimension of the projects had little impact on them beyond keeping the plausibility of Christian belief and practices alive.’

Although often unfamiliar with formal religion, Generation Y are keenly aware of ethical issues, as Sylvia comments: ‘Young people today have to grow up quickly and the study showed that they often face a wide range of difficult choices. Consequently they were interested in ethics. The young people drew moral guidance from family as friends, but they also recognised the potential of religion, including Christianity, to provide them with guidelines for living.’

The assumption that teenagers are alienated from their parents and hostile toward religion – a hangover from the 1960s and 70s – is a deep-rooted but flawed stereotype according to the study’s findings. ‘Generation Y have less cultural hang ups about the Church than did their predecessors… The challenge to the Church is to provide them with the opportunities to explore and to learn about a narrative of belief of which they know little.’

What I found most interesting about the research as presented at the launch was that many traditional aspects of Church such as ritual and sacrament connect with Generation Y; something which incidentally also seems apparent from aspects of the alternative worship movement. The argument emerging from the research finding was that the Church needed to be its authentic self in connecting with Generation Y as this generation, through their interest in ethics, are asking 'does it work?' as opposed to 'how does it make me feel?'

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Stacie Orrico - (there's gotta be) More To Life.