Eastbourne - Day two on the Big Agenda for Change Tour
The morning of day two has seen the beautiful spring Canterbury sunshine give way to a rather autumnal mist and drizzle but the team is not dispirited, still buzzing from the previous evening’s great success. One thing that none of us had even thought about (remarkably) before last night was the huge symbolic significance of opening the tour in such a key city in the UK history of Christianity as Canterbury. Not only that but Joel’s book and talk uses the metaphor of building cathedrals as part of the long-term thinking that An Agenda for Change is going to require. It is amazing that not one of us (maybe Joel excepted) had made this connection, but on the night it suddenly struck us as being really of God (especially as Canterbury had been quite a late booking). A couple of us decided to pay Canterbury’s amazing cathedral a quick visit in the morning and were suitably overawed by the detail, love and sheer hard work that had gone into creating such architectural worship.
From Canterbury we head out onto the highway for our next gig. The tour van makes a rather ominous noise above 50mph, but luckily for us the road to Eastbourne rarely allows us to get above 50mph! The sedentary pace gives us time to take in the beautiful Kent countryside and learn about our Head of Communications peculiar tastes in food.
We arrive in one piece to Kings Church Eastbourne and their amazingly well equipped building. We are given a warm welcome by Chris and are joined by a new rep from our membership team. We’re glad to see him, although his presence does add to our confusion as there are now three Ians in the team!
Joel meets with local leaders and does a quick interview and then, after some delicious sandwiches made by the lovely Jean we are all set to go (thanks PJ).
Numbers are a little lower than expected, but then it’s a beautiful evening in a coastal town, it’s St George’s day and Man U are playing Barcelona. But it’s not quantity but quality that matters and the audience is engaging and Joel’s presentation well received. People seem really up for the challenge and there is a great sense that evangelical can be a synonym again for good news in our country. A number of people buy the book after Joel gives it a good plug and quite a few even want him to sign it!
As the good folk of Eastbourne head back to their homes, the slightly tired team do a fairly frantic pack up and are blessed to see that one of the lost Sharpies from yesterday has miraculously found its way back to the fold! We counted 37 in and we counted 38 out…
As the Clash once said, London’s Calling, and we head off once more, tired but satisfied that with two down, things are good and getting better every time.
