The Revd Sue Hughes shares how The Yurt Missional Community grew out of a traditional and rural market town parish, St Mary’s & St Peter’s in Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire.
Listening, Loving, Building Community
Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, my husband made a cross from an ash tree, and put it outside our home beside the road. During Covid, when every church was closed, we offered a place for people to write prayers on a tag, hang them on the tree and know that God would somehow see them, and that there would be someone praying on their behalf.
It has been so beautiful and humbling. Walkers, cyclists or even people driving past, stopped and wrote something on a tag and hung it on the tree cross. These were their deepest heart cries to God, and we had the privilege of praying for them.
When the pandemic had passed, and following several unusual and fruitful conversations with walkers, or people that had just turned up at church, we decided to offer an “Alpha” course in a yurt. It was a small group of 13 to 15 people, and we meet weekly for six weeks, needing to finish for the summer holidays.
With the help of the Holy Spirit, we were able to listen, love and build community in a short time, and this group of “pilgrims” were more than keen to continue meeting. One of the members lovingly named us “the yurties” which has stuck with us, and everyone at the “mother” church.
Emerging Church
We have continued to meet weekly and have explored the spiritual disciplines to enable us to grow as disciples to Jesus. We are a neurodiverse group, and our worship always reflects us as a community. Each group member is encouraged and supported to lead the weekly worship and offer hospitality.
The invitation is to lead this special time together, from our own authentic place of worship with God. Worship may look like drawing pictures together, lying on the floor in silence, making things with paper and glue, listening to music, singing, listening to the rain fall on the canvas. We are blessed through the richness of our individuality in worship, as we are made in the image of a loving creator God.
We have developed a communal practice of prayer, formed out of a week of prayer and hospitality which led to a permanent prayer rhythm - early morning before people headed off to work. This has shaped and fuelled who we are and birthed a new missional community.
We have “yurt sailors” who lead sessions and have pastoral oversight. Our job description being: “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather, teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” *
There has been an equal journey with St Mary’s & St Peter’s PCC of the established parish church - to introduce the idea of mission looking like developing new worshipping communities and looking to a landscape of a “mixed ecology.” This has involved report writing and updates to the PCC regularly on each step and involving them in being advocates to the congregations.
Do it again
The Yurt Community has recently received PCC approval for the start of a new missional community called “Maker & Fixer” which has come from prayer, relationship building and discernment amongst a repair barn community and a Ukrainian community.
Maker & Fixer Community will “Create belonging, confidence, and community collaboration at the Culverton Barns using sustainability and ‘maker & fixer’ skills to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom” and will start in Spring 2024!
Our Story is that we have a God who can repair, restore, and make all things new!
"Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
Isaiah 43:19
*Antoine de Saint-Exupéry