I learnt recently that there is a government body called the Office for Place. The Office for Place has a mission to “create beautiful, successful and enduring places that foster a sense of community, local pride and belonging” and to “make it easier for all neighbourhood communities, wherever they might be, to require what they find beautiful and refuse what they find ugly.” This is not language we normally associate with government departments with its emphasis on beauty as guiding principle. Through good design codes and community engagement we can make the places in which we live more durable, lovely and human.
It was an added delight then to learn that the Office for Place is based not in London but in Stoke-on-Trent. The word “Stoke” is from an Old English word meaning 'place' or, more specifically, 'holy place'. So, Stoke-on-Trent is 'the holy place by the river', established, we believe, where Stoke Minster now stands.
Place is very important to Christians. We believe that we meet with God not in a disembodied way but in the detail of the physical world around us. In the beginning, God makes a garden and “it is good” and beautiful. Jacob wakes up from a dream at Bethel and says, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” And of course, Jesus is the Word made flesh. His glory is made known in places – the kind of places in which you and I live.
And as we encounter God in places, so we meet one another in places - in homes, streets, shops, churches and green spaces. Christians will commit themselves to the places where we live because this is where human community is formed and sustained. We will join with all those who want their places to be beautiful and flourishing. Our church buildings are often such signs of beauty, 'sermons in stone', and our work as churches in local communities speaks of the sacred task of 'place-making'.
Famously, Eugene Peterson in his paraphrase of John chapter one tells of how “the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood.” We worship a God is both everywhere and here, a neighbourhood God, full of grace and truth.
+Matthew
Bishop of Stafford