Northumbria and IBTS – the dispersed communities

Janice and I enjoyed joining in last Friday night with a Northumbria Community group that meets once a month here in Cambridge, where we are now living. The invitation to the group had come from the couple hosting it, who were part of the Northumbria Community team at IBTS earlier this year. It was good to meet new people, to be led in a meditation based on readings from Henri Nouwen, and to finish with the Cuthbert Compline. The Northumbria Community has a Mother House but also an extensive ‘dispersed membership’, with some of these members able to meet in local groups. I realised during the evening that although IBTS does not use quite the same language about the wider circle of those connected with it, there are those (like us) who are ‘dispersed members’ of the IBTS community. There are many who are not resident at IBTS but who value greatly their relationship with the seminary and who take literally the words that Keith Jones quotes so often from his Scottish Granny, ‘Haste ye back’.