Bubbles & Breadboards: The Dream of a Highland Cathedral

that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. 4 They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. 5 Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks; foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers; 6 but you shall be called the priests of the Lord; they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God; you shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their glory you shall boast. 7 Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion; instead of dishonour they shall rejoice in their lot; therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion; they shall have everlasting joy. 

(Isaiah 61: 3–7)

Hindsight is a beautiful gift. Søren Kierkegaard wrote that life is lived forwards but understood backwards. In this blog, I'd like to take you back to the days following that meeting with Kenny Bann. 

I lived in Thurso, working with and learning from Kenny Borthwick, taking part in the life and worship of St Peter's and St Andrew's Church. They were rich and formative times. During my years in Thurso, I would go for long walks along the north coast, either at Holborn Head or Dunnet Head. I often thought about Kenny Bann and the light that seemed to stream from his face. As I said in a previous blog, but it is worth repeating here, that night in the village of Loch Carron gloriously haunted me. 

On those walks around the headland, I'd lie down on the long, flat Caithness clifftops, my head protruding over the edge of the cliff like an inquisitive gargoyle, eye level with startled fulmars who flew by effortlessly used the air currents to bank and weave their way back to their young in the nest. The waves of the sea, sounding like cannon fire, pounded the base of the cliffs many metres below me and those birds. Enjoying all these wonders, I'd pray about Jean Darnell's prophecy about the fire of God poured out over the British Isles and that the fire was coming from the north. I'd dream of God and long for him. 

Holborn Head and Dunnet Head each have a lighthouse. During my time in Thurso, Holborn Head Lighthouse came up for sale. Over the years, I have learnt that a physical building can be used as a symbolic coat hanger to help hold the themes of an emerging vision. The space becomes a place for the redeemed imagination to dream: What if the church could be like that meeting with Kenny Bann? What if a collective group of people could shine with their countenances kissed by God, rooted in the grace of the gospel, filled with the life of the Holy Spirit? In prayer, I saw a large table in the middle of this lighthouse, with people eating, drinking and laughing. It was a feast. It felt so homely and filled with awe because the people who spoke to each other at the table knew God like Kenny Bann. And God was presiding over this banquet. 

One day, I was praying in the Spirit and reading Isaiah 61. When I reached the verses quoted above, I saw a lighthouse, a house of light, established in the heart of the highlands. The same table was set, and the light drew locals to it. I saw the ruined homes of a people forcibly evicted off the land during the Highland Clearances. These villages and hamlets were being rebuilt in the light streaming from this house, and subsequent generations returned from different nations to the highlands. I saw all kinds of creative work springing up. Artists, entrepreneurs, inventors and ministers of the gospel all grew like young trees, oaks of righteousness, rooted to the land yet stretching into the heavens. There was a holy integration to all of life. I saw the building of God's House, and it looked like God was building it himself. Then I saw what looked like shafts of light, behaving like a strawberry plant sending out its runner stems, spilling into other darkened glens, and stretching out to islands off the west coast. In these runners of light, new churches were planted from these ancient ruins now rebuilt. Then I heard the name "Highland Cathedral." Just like that meeting with Kenny Bann, what I saw in this vision gripped my imagination and wouldn't let me go for years; this vision led us to Greenwood Retreat on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula. 

Fast forward eight years since my time in Thurso, I'm a minister in the Church of Scotland, invited to an Emerging Church Conference, which, on the whole, was an encouraging event. However, there was one seminar that pressed my buttons in the wrong kind of way. Delegates walked into the workshop and met a wall of bubbles at the door. The bubble machine was at my eye level, and I, being a rather tall chap, was spat upon by a flurry of washing-up detergent right in the face. This, the seminar leader told us, is what the church needs - more fun. Every parish needs a bubble machine and a light show. 

Really? Is that our job? Can you entertain people into the Kingdom of God? The speaker had lost me right at that bubbly threshold. I was far too grumpy to engage, still wiping the detergent off my face. Later that night, as I reviewed the day in prayer, I began to repent for my attitude towards that seminar speaker. After saying sorry to the Lord, I asked him what he would like to give me of himself instead of my judgemental pride. I thought it might be a more peaceful outlook or an increase in the fruit of gentleness. Instead, I was taken aback by the reply. 

"I want to give you Highland Cathedral. You need to realise this is not your dream. It is my dream in you." 

That reply was as clear a word as I had ever heard. It carried with it the faith to ask another question.  

"That's wonderful Lord, is there anything that I can do to become ready to receive your dream and see it come to life?" 

I then saw the most cryptic riddle. In an interior vision, I saw a clock face that was devoid of hands but had Roman numerals along the edge. The clock face also served as a breadboard, and onto the board was placed a watermelon. A knife cut open the watermelon, and the direction of the cut began at 6 o'clock and moved up to 12 o'clock on the clock face breadboard. The picture ended with the watermelon opened up. 

What the dickens did that mean? The Lord was silent and said nothing further about it for years. Meanwhile, I searched the Scriptures. Was there any mention of melons anywhere? Yes, it turns out they were a part of the Israelite's diet when in captivity in Egypt. However, there’s no indication if they were of the watermelon variety or not. Fun fact, a Google search revealed that the watermelon is Oklahoma's state vegetable. Vegetable? I hear you say. I know. I had always thought watermelon to be a fruit. I still do. Another fun fact, if you want, you can follow the white rabbit along an internet corridor into pages where people from Oklahoma debate this very topic. How can something so sweet ever be called a vegetable?

Here is an even more incredible fact. On the living room wall of the house we were looking at buying in late 2013, there was a large clock face with Roman numerals and (get this) no hands. The owner liked the clock design, but the timepiece didn't keep regular time, so he removed the mechanism. There's more. The leader of investor group that had formed to try to help us buy this property came from Oklahoma. However, like Holborn Head Lighthouse, it was not meant to be for us to buy that beautiful house. It, together with the clock with no hands, was another coat hanger on which the vision could grow and mature.

It turns out the clock face breadboard was not counting hours. It was measuring years. The knife moved from 6 o'clock to 12 o'clock. That movement took 6 years. During our chapter of life lived in Canada, God opened us up to his fruitfulness and used all our experiences, good and bad, to ready us to receive the vision. This realisation dawned on me during an elders meeting in the Crownest Pass in Alberta. It was my privilege to work with the leadership team of the Crowsnest Christian Centre Church. One evening, I shared with them that the time had come, we were returning home to Scotland. I tentatively cast the vision that had taken on new life and shape during our time in Southern Alberta. It now had a name, a way of life called The Way of the Beloved. A life lived beholding God, abiding in him, drawing ever nearer to him in both friendship and holy fear. It is a way of discipleship that would contend for the renewal of the church, bringing people to Jesus.  A life lived in love, in the love of God, loving God and neighbour. A life sent in the mission of God, wherever the Father was already at work, in and through Jesus, his beloved Son. I told the elders about the highlands of Scotland, about past revivals and that the land had known the pain of clearance, and how we were going to abide there with God to watch and see what the Great Redeemer might do. At this point, the senior pastor spoke, and I heard my heavenly Father in his affirmation, 

"What a vision! I would give to that," he said. 

Simultaneously, another elder entered the room carrying a tray of freshly cut watermelon. In that instant, the anointing of God came, and I knew what that clock face breadboard was all about. I saw it so clearly. These six years had been about preparing us to receive the vision of Highland Cathedral. There was also another deeper theological meaning too. Graciously, the Lord wants to draw his church away from the mere plans and power of man (signified in the number 6: God created the first man and woman on the 6th day in the creation narrative) and into the apostolic practice and power of his Holy Spirit with us (understood by the number 12 pointing to the 12 apostles/12 thrones in Scripture).

In closing, let me tell you about what happened here at Greenwood two weeks ago. For it has sparked this blog post all about hindsight. A team of volunteers came north from Ashburnham Retreat Centre near Sussex to join our rhythm of prayer and work. The nations were in our midst! A Ugandan, an Australian, a Kiwi, a German, a Swiss, a Kazakhstani and, the humble leader of the group, an Englishman. Their visit was deeply graced and we are beyond grateful for all their help and hard work. It was a sign of things to come. We prayed and worshiped together, waited on the Lord, and spent our afternoons working on the land. We saw someone baptised with the waters from St Columba’s well.

Why was this visit a sign? Recently, Charlotte and I have renamed the cottages here at Greenwood Retreat. We are slowly developing the garage and workshop space beneath one of them. The new name of the existing house is now  Darroch Mor (big oak), and the additional two-bedroom apartment downstairs will be called Darroch Beag (little oak) once it is complete. These Gaelic names are inspired by the verses from Isaiah 61. This house will be a space set apart for people to come and join our rhythm of life, growing in a holy integration of all of life, where our prayer, study, work and life together will all be lifted to the Lord in worship, lived in the joy of his presence. The team from Ashburnham helped to be an embodiment of that life together. 

The vision of Highland Cathedral still captivates me. However, it no longer goes by this name. In ecclesiastical terms, I learnt that a cathedral means “the seat of a bishop.” With this vision, I do not wish to sound like a self-proclaimed bishop. Additionally, another lesson I have learnt is that all genuinely prophetic dreams are so much larger, more vivid and otherworldly compared to anything that could ever come about by human endeavour as a result of them. That is not a cop-out to do nothing and just remain idly daydreaming. No, it’s to recognise that something of heaven can be seen in the dream or vision, and all of life can be spent moving towards the greater glory.

Moreover, the glory of a God dream may (and I hope will) far out live any one man. I am a tiny thread in a far more extensive and glorious tapestry. Freely, I have received from people like Kenny Borthwick and Kenny Bann, and, bless God, many others. All I want to do is pass all that Kingdom treasure on to another generation. Therefore, before she will be a church planting church and a seat for a future bishop, this Highland Cathedral must first simply be a house of prayer and a place of discipleship. She will first be an Abbey-like church, a place where God is sought and known. Humbly, we can attest that we are seeing this spring up here at Greenwood.

Dear reader, we cannot fulfil such a vision on our own. We appreciate the prayers, practical and financial help of the wider church. Please pray for us. If you would like to, please consider sowing into this vision for the renewal of the church, across all streams and denominations, and that God would bring a lasting and sustained revival all across the highlands of Scotland and beyond. Please enquire of the Lord if he is inviting you to partner with us for the sake of the Gospel. May the Lord bless you as you seek his face.

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