Walk Cornwall 2: a roving role
 

It was a new experience for me not to be based in one place with a team each week but to be itinerant, mainly speaking at Hot Potato or Any Questions events. Additionally, this gave me the opportunity to visit more teams (though not all) which was really useful. Given that I had to use the car much more, I made the effort sometimes to do this on foot. For example, in Week One I was able to walk from my base in St Erth along the St Michael’s Way (part of the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage network) to St Ives to see the team there. Reports from around the mission centres were of a good number of people coming to faith, both in meetings and in 1-to-1 work such as visiting. It was also really encouraging to hear of churches who are already planning to continue the work they have begun.


I enjoyed doing some lunchtime Hot Potato themed events in Torpoint, much more on the model that Peter Adams uses. It’s good to see some of the same people for 2-3 days and explore different subjects with them. Bishop Chris joined me for another event in St Columb Major and I could see how valuable people found it to quiz their local bishop. Interestingly – and sadly – I had more problems in debate from Christians who took rather fundamentalist positions on some issues than I did from those coming from outside the Christian faith. The event that will stick in my mind, however, was an open air ‘Any Questions’ in Bodmin. This had been set up on the basis that anyone who asked me a question would be provided with a free pizza. It was clear that people would be coming and going so the only way to engage with them was to go table to table. As I did so, I found that people opened up with deeply personal questions about suffering they had experienced or struggles regarding faith. It was as much pastoral as evangelistic but the most memorable 90 minutes or so of the whole Walk for me, sharing good news with people who were mostly well outside of the church.


 

Bodmin proved an amazing place to encounter people. A shop given to the churches for the week made an excellent drop-in café and attracted many people in real need. The Dr Who themed scarecrow competition in nearby Lanivet provided the most circulated image that I uploaded to the Walk Facebook page – the Cyber man vicar, viewed by over 4000 people in the end! This was the first Walk on which we have used Facebook. It can be a means of telling people the good news that we are sharing! In other words, it’s another way to get the message out, as well as stimulating things like interaction and prayer support. Given its importance to younger people, we ignore the potential of social media at our peril.