RIVER baptisms are set to turn into an everyday a part of Moorland Church, an all-weather, Celtic-style outdoor church held monthly within the Camelside benefice of 5 parishes and 7 churches on Bodmin Moor, in Cornwall.
The weather becomes a part of the worship itself, says the Rector, the Revd Robin Thwaites, who began Moorland Church two years ago at three locations on this rural area. One is Delphy Bridge, where many individuals in the neighborhood learned to swim, and where the primary of the baptisms took place on 21 July.
Canon law requires that baptisms be done “throughout the church” on a Sunday, with the best congregation numbers; so Mr Thwaites sought permission from the Bishop and Archdeacon to baptise within the Moorland Church context. “Both were very completely happy, which was wonderful,” he said last week.
“So I put some feelers out and immediately had people coming back to me and saying they’d love to try this. I had five baptised this time, and I feel I actually have double figures for next time.” Three were children, including Mr Thwaites’s own daughter. “I gave them the choice of full submersion or a sprinkling of the water, they usually all desired to be dunked,” he said. “It was a very joyful occasion.”
Expressions of religion within the seven churches of the benefice range from high-liturgical to low-liturgical “and every thing in between. It’s the enjoyment of being a rector in a multi-parish benefice,” he said. “There’s beauty and value in all of them. People find the church that matches with them, and, nonetheless small the congregation, there’s something for everybody. Moorland Church doesn’t replace any of them — it just spreads it even wider for people haven’t found a fit yet.”
Mr Thwaites was brought up in West Sussex, “all the time with the ocean in front of me and the South Downs behind me”. He served his curacy within the benefice, and was so at home in rural ministry that, when his training incumbent retired, he applied for the job. “There’s such a robust sense of community here,” he said.
“Understanding the worth of creation is a giant a part of the people, and Moorland Church is just a very nice expression of that. We spend a number of time in silence, just feeling the wind on our faces, and that becomes a part of the worship itself, being thankful for what’s around us. It’s a beautiful thing.”
