I am so thrilled to hear that agreement has been reached about the future of Scargill. I am sure many people throughout the world have been praying for its survival as a community. It would be a darker world without the light, joy, peace, hope and closeness to God which is offered to all. I look forward to hearing how we can help -financially and practically - in its re-birth.

Praise the Lord indeed, I have just received the great news that Scargill House is to be saved. We have had a family connection with Scargill House right from the beginning, with my mum, Pat Weighell, being a summer helper in the early years and then after getting married going as a family with my brother and I and having many happy holidays. After I left school I started going to Scargill on my own at the Easter house parties and for an October walking week and this was at the same time that Keith Knight started as warden at Scargill. He saw the passion and love I had for walking in the Yorkshire Dales and Scargill and he asked me if I would be interested in leading walking holiday at Scargill. With some initial intrepidation I said yes and started leading holidays in 1996. Over the last 12.5 years I have had the pleasure and the privilege of leading many groups of people around the Dales and sharing God's wonderful creation and the wonderful hospitality that Scargill had to offer. I know that our family would like to help with a financial donation to the support of the Scargill movement and I would also like to give my support in the future for leading further walking holidays and environmental stewardship. I look forward to hearing some more good news about Scargill in 2009.

We have a very wonderful response after weeks of waiting and praying - what a Christmas gift!!

Thanks be to God who works immeasurably beyond our understanding and who amazes us with His generous gifts. We know that His next gifts will be the right people who will bring their skills and expertise to the New Scargill.... what an appropriate title.... SCARGILL MOVEMENT TRUST. (Years ago one of the speakers gave the thought that if we are not moving forwards, we are actually moving backwards - we never stay still. Also, what better word than 'Trust'? it is in the Lord we have trusted in the last few months....and so will continue for many months to come.)

Thank you, Thank you to the Steering Group for the careful and prayerful work they have done over the last three months. This is to be an exciting time as we enter the 50th year of Scargill's story.

Really good news about Scargill, this is a fantastic achievement and the having Chris Edmondson on board is a great real bonus especially with his experience and leadership. I think there is a lot that can be learnt from Lee Abbey especially the long history of involving young people on summer camps and in more recent times the outdoor centre. The local Christian community should be as much a part of the welcoming/ministering community as the staff resident on the site itself.

In the past Scargill seemed separate from the local community and this needs to change in the future so that there can be a mutually beneficial relationship; Scargill supporting the local community and the local community supporting Scargill.

The need for Christian community

I reflected deeply on this when I was at Burrswood (2000-2006). Even though that was considered by some to be hardly a community, with about 30 residential on site and many more living in the area, it felt like a community, and many of us were keen to promote that identity.

This is because the gospel can be preached with words; but that is not enough.

It must be seen in outworking, warts and all - in a place where Christians work, laugh, weep and pray together, where friction may rub off our rough edges but always within the context of a loving and respectful discovery of one another's giftings and anointings, and a promotion not of ourselves but one another - and where criticism not in this spirit is gently but definitely corrected. A place where leadership serves, where the prime consideration is seeking the will of God and then praying it into being, where commercial considerations are wisely subordinated to the will of God as revealed and agreed and faith is activated, where growth is possible because the usual hierarchical worldly ways are turned around so that the widow, with her mite, is honoured, the Mary, with her perfume, remembered, the Nicodemus, with his hunger, satisfied, and the Peter, in his shame, restored. But also a place where diligence, high standards, good stewardship and excellence of adminstration are expected and esteemed - all thngs done as unto the Lord Jesus. A faith perspective does not preclude wise stewardship and diligence, after all; it just says money is not the final arbiter; God's word is.

A place where many can come and find the reality of God's love and ways outworked, and be refreshed.

Should not all our churches be like this? Yes they should; but the nature of society, it's mobility, it's fragmentation, it's rush and hurry, mean the corporate manifestation of Christ is weaker. Scargills (note the plural!) allow a distillation, a concentration, a strengthening of that sense of the presence of Christ, or the numinous of God as a dear friend wold put it.

I am excited. I like the Objects and Vision very much and I shall be following progress with great interest.

A brother in Christ, with love
Michael