With a varied assortment of small boats anchored in the middle of the inner harbour, these rowing boats are a familiar part of the regular toing and froing between sea and shore at Porthleven .It is also true that their unassuming appearance belies their vital role as intermediary craft. The journey out to sea begins and ends in one of these small boats, with someone putting in the effort on the oars.

From the Acts of the Apostles to your local community today, down the centuries the story of the Christian faith has been built upon the vital contributions of millions of intermediaries who have enabled others to step out in faith for themselves. It is no small matter to stand with your feet on familiar dry ground and then to summon up the will to dare to make the journey out onto the sea of faith for yourself. No matter how friendly the folk on the boat called church, moored in the centre of harbour, may seem to be from a distance, you still have to get from where you are to where they are, without getting your feet wet. As an interested observer the onus seems to be on you to take the initiative of finding a way of getting out to them, and that may be one barrier too many that holds you back.

But what if someone sensed your interest and was willing and ready to listen to your thoughts and offer appropriate encouragement, born out of their own experience of standing in a similar spot to you? What if they then smiled at you and offered to ferry you out to the boat themselves? In these circumstances I guess you’d be very much more likely to take that first step.

This metaphor is critically instructive today as we lament the diminishing numbers of people who seem keen to venture out on the sea of faith. We need to go back to first principles and literally consider the steps that are needed to get from the dry land of contemporary culture into the purposeful and powered craft that is authentic Christianity, as we voyage out onto the ocean of God’s presence into a spirit-led future. For the human spirit is restless, we seek new vista’s, we yearn to explore beyond the quotidian realm of the familiar and long to venture out into fresh possibilities. The sea draws our gaze and entices our hearts. Its vastness challenges and consoles. Its tides bring comforting rhythm and awesome power. It is other and yet it is our evolutionary birthplace. The similarity to the divine is obvious.

Christians who find joy and inspiration voyaging together on the ocean of God’s loving reality have a responsibility to consider those whose feet are firmly on dry land, but whose gaze is out to sea. No longer can we be complacent and assume that anyone will somehow find their way out to the boat. Our agency and intervention matter more than ever. In this day and age it really is up to us to be the vital intermediaries who lovingly, and with all the patient care and sensitivity we can muster, provide a simple and straightforward way of getting afloat.