Grinton Forest Church

One of the joys of being the rural officer for the Diocese of Ripon and Leeds is that I get to attend a variety of expressions of Christian worship in rural areas. One of my recent visits was to the first meeting of a Forest Church in Grinton in Swaledale in the Yorkshire Dales. 

The Forest Church is an ecumenical initiative meeting in Grinton Church yard and is facilitated by Sarah Allison, a member of St Andrew’s church and Kevin Pellatt a member of the local Methodist Church. Kevin and Sarah are both Forest Schools leaders.  Forest Schools are an inspirational educational process that offers all learners opportunities to achieve and develop confidence and self-esteem through hands on learning experiences in a woodland or natural environment with trees. Forest Schools have their roots in Scandinavia where many children will attend pre-schools throughout the year spending most of the week in the outdoors enjoying making fires, whittling wood and other outdoor activities.

Kevin saw the potential of the forest schools experience to connect with a wide audience of young and older people, who love crafts and the outdoor lifestyle to worship together in the great outdoors.

The Grinton Forest church therefore draws on the tradition of Forest Schools within the context of a Christian tradition of worship.

Other forest churches are more on the edge drawing on traditions where sacred places and practices are outside and seek to connect with people who sense the spiritually in the natural environment and drawing them in to a relationship with the risen Christ. see www.mysticchrist.co.uk   

The afternoon started with a safety briefing on the dangers of the local river and the moat around the church before we engaged in an exercise introducing ourselves. Standing in a circle according to the compass point of the direction from which we had come. We shared something about ourselves and the journey to this point in time prompted by an item such as a leaf, feather, stone or piece of stick we had found on the ground.

After this much fun was had collecting wood and making fires to heat water in Kelly Kettles and in making and enjoying a hot drink.

One of the children then read the story of Saul’s Damascus road conversions, where he was struck blind (Acts Chapter 9). We then worked in teams to lay out a blind trail using a rope and led one another along the trail just as Saul’s friends led him to Damascus, where he was healed though the ministry of Ananias one of the Christians living in Damascus, who Saul had been seeking to persecute.

The afternoon finished with some short reflections and a prayer before we cleared up and headed home, inspired by worship in the outdoors, which felt so right as it had connected both with something deep within and beyond ourselves.

So a big thank you to Kevin, Sarah and the team for making this all possible and to everyone who attended and who engaged with such enthusiasm. Also a big thank you and praise to God for the beauty of his creation and for holding the rain back till we were on our way home.

For details of the next Grinton Forest Church check www.swaledalearkengarthdaleparish.org.uk  and www.nydalesmeth.org.uk/welcome.htm where dates will be advertised when sorted!

You may also like my posts  How Listening to bird song has helped my prayer life and also Woodland as a Metaphor for Church Decline Growth and Life