Posted Monday 28 May 2007
I was invited as Convenor of the Diocesan Spirituality Group to join the party to our link Diocese of Gothenburg from 4 to 7 May, 2007, writes Edith Thorp.
Eight of us travelled together. The purpose of the visit was to be part of the Celebration of their 70th Anniversary of the Diocesan Conference and Youth Centre. Set in isolation along a wooded inlet it had accommodation for 220 people. Opened as a Christian Youth Hostel, it has developed over the years into an hotel like complex that is used for conferences as well as its programme for 6,000 young people each year.
Each young person goes for two separate weeks and a weekend as part of their preparation for Confirmation! The Bishop of Gothenburg’s vision is to develop the centre to include the facility for running retreats. The reason why we were there was to share our experience of retreats. However, the opportunity for in-depth sharing and conversation was rather overtaken by the wider celebration and little time was available.
We arrived in the early evening with hardly enough time before dinner to tell our experience of retreats. The next morning there was a celebration of the Eucharist at which Bishop Idris presided. The service was all very familiar and the Diocese had been influenced in the 1980s by the work of David Watson at St Michael le Belfry, York, so that some of the hymns we knew, although in Swedish.
After a break for coffee and refreshments, we returned for speeches in Swedish! We had an able translator and the focus was on the history of the Centre. After a break Bishop Carl Axel gave his vision of the development of the Centre. I understand that some of what he said was influenced by what he had heard from our group.
After a celebratory lunch our individual hosts took us to their homes for two nights. Shelley Marsh and I travelled south of Gothenburg to a small town on the coast and were made most welcome in the home of the Diocesan Publicity Officer and his wife, a Deacon in the Diocese. Church on Sunday morning was different! Family service led by the youth worker making a cake; happy clappy songs and a very relaxed atmosphere!
We returned to the Diocesan Centre in down town Gothenburg on Monday morning where we were met and taken on a sight seeing trip round the city. A city built because of trade; has a shipbuilding history, even a derelict crane as monument to that; on a river where large ships come right into its centre; where trams run and people live cheek by jowl with business.
The highlight was to discover how at home I felt in the regular worship of the Church - nothing much was different!
Category: Action Group for Spirituality
