In Herefordshire there is a story that when St Peter was travelling to Rome, his route took him through what is now South West England.  He stayed in one of the local villages, now called Peterchurch, and its people were so kind that he left in their well an immortal trout as a parting gift.  Whether the story is true or not, Peterchurch is certainly a very old settlement with an ancient church dedicated to this famous visitor (and with a large plaster fish high on the south wall).   From the road, however, what you see is strikingly modern, a tall fibreglass spire which gleams like a thin shard of ice.  Like so many of our churches, this St Peter’s blends the old and new together, here the adventurous courage of the Apostles with the ingenuity of modern design, even as the practices of welcome, of generosity, and of sharing the Gospel remain as a constant.

The fascinating stories of different churches help us, perhaps, to reflect on our own, for every church is formed and shaped over generations, dating back somehow to ancient times.   As Christians today we enter into these multiple, polyphonic stories, not to reorder or remake them but to share, in our own special ways, in the constant themes of love and service, of true relationship with God and each other.  We know that everywhere our story reaches back to the Apostles and to Jesus Christ, even as we look forward and upward, to the Kingdom that will come.