I have spent the past couple of days in Beverley, largely admiring the beautiful church buildings there and in Howden. Both Beverley and Howden have minsters as their parish churches, a minster being a church that was built originally in connection with a monastery.
Beverley Minster
Howden Minster
We also visited St Mary’s Church in Beverley:
This church is famous, among other things, for inspiring Lewis Carroll through this rabbit statue (which became the ‘White Rabbit’ in his ‘Alice in Wonderland’ novel):
What I found so interesting about these inspiring buildings, however, is not just the history or the amazing stories that are attached to them (St John of Beverley, for example, clearly had a healing ministry which is told through some marvellous embroidery by modern art students), but how worship has been going on in these places for hundreds of years. The continuity of the gospel is steadfast and reassuring to me. These buildings remind me not only of God’s splendour and magnificence but how Christians throughout the ages have chosen to worship God, no matter what is going on all around them, and how He remains constant and unchanging. We too can choose to worship like that.
‘When days are gold and life is good,
When the plans we make go as they should,
Or when the sky turns dark and heartache falls,
And a lonely painful season calls.
We will worship with all of our hearts,
We will worship all that You are,
Through the best, through the worst,
Jesus we choose, we will worship You.
The only constant here is change,
But You forever stay the same,
No matter what this life holds in store,
The truth remains, You are Lord.
You are high and lifted up, good in all Your ways,
Glorious and worthy of all praise,
You are high and lifted up, to You our voices raise,
You’re worthy of our praise.’ (‘We Will Worship’, Kutless)