It’s been 17 years since I last lived in the UK.
My wife and I have been serving as mission partners in Southern Africa, first in Lesotho and then in Namibia. Cathy and I left the UK in January 2005 with an eight-month-old son. We arrived back at the end of 2021 with three teenage children. I was in my 30s when we left – I’m now in my 50s. I left local church ministry here for theological education in Africa. When we set off, Tony Blair was the Prime Minister, our mobile phone (we only had one) looked like a small black brick and dial-up internet connection was all the rage. It was a pre-Brexit, pre-Covid-19 world. The UK has changed a lot whilst we’ve been away and so have we.
Of course, over the years we’ve been back to visit for a few months here and there. And I’ve watched what’s been happening from a distance. But it’s a different thing to be living here again. After being away for so long living in a different culture with different challenges, we see and feel things here as outsiders. So, here are three first impressions about local church ministry in the UK in 2022 after 17 years away.
