At the end of July, my family and I travel to Alderney for a few weeks annual leave in the Channel Islands. As the year started decamping to Alderney wasn’t part of our thinking, but the opportunity to cover part of their interregnum was too good to miss. It will be the first time my children, Izzy and Henry have flown anywhere and to land in Alderney, we have to fly via Guernsey.

Thomas Merton in “Thoughts in Solitude” wrote ‘my Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.’ Such ambiguity would be quite unsettling if you were driving a car and couldn’t see the road ahead of you, or boarded an aeroplane and had no clue where it would land. However travelling has always embraced a degree of adventure and travelling usually helps shape us and our world view.

Our Gospel passages from Matthew recently have told of the almost nomadic nature of Jesus’ ministry, ‘the Jesus went about all the cities and villages.’ (Matthew 9.35). Well I hope Jesus knew about Airbnb and Uber as he travelled. But seriously, Jesus travelled, like many of you might this summer and in each place, he visited and he engaged with local people and their needs.

At the time of writing this, I couldn’t quite lay my hands on the tourism statistics for our diocese which takes in the Peaks and Dales and National Forest amongst other tourist areas. We have churches in almost all the locations that those travelling to our diocese this summer will visit, that’s a wonderful opportunity to express God’s welcome to tourists.

I have recently returned from a holiday to Spain where in one city (which shall be nameless) we visited the prominent catholic church just off the main public square. It was a hot day, and on entry I was still wearing a hat. From seemingly nowhere, a verger appeared and with an intent stare and some impressive finger wagging and hand motions, I was commanded to remove my hat. Another lady in the church was talking on her mobile phone, when again out of nowhere the same verger appeared with a stare and finger wag and hand gesture that the phone call should cease.

Now vergers in our diocese are quite removed from the staring, finger wagging and hand gesturing of the Spanish verger I encountered. But my experience got me thinking about what experience of welcome tourists would receive across our diocese this summer.

If you’ve read this article this far and you’re a part of a church in an area frequented by tourists, give that question some thought. Of course the nature of tourists is itinerant – they come and go – but the opportunity to leave an impression that speaks something of God’s welcome is vast.

The Ven. Matthew Trick
Archdeacon of Derby City and South Derbyshire