This week our current Chair of Trustees Erica Dunmow tells of how she first heard of UTU.<\/p>\n
My first contact with UTU was through David Moore. \u00a0I attended and worshipped at Bow Road Mission, East End, London from 1981-1991 where David was minister. David\u2019s creative style influenced by UTU\u2019s approach, significantly shaped my own worship leading. At Bow we developed interactive Bible Study and occasionally used real letters to the church as our epistle readings. I remember an encouraging pastoral letter from a member who had retired to Jamaica; and the one from the Miners\u2019 Wives Support Group, Markham Main pit, thanking us for a food delivery and updating us on how they were faring.<\/p>\n
We hosted several UTU study year weekends, so the students could experience another urban setting. Sometimes I put some of the students up in the small flat I rented \u2013eight people sleeping on floors in two rooms! A manse party was a key element, featuring both reggae and rum. One year a friend had already booked to stay the weekend, so I took her along to the party. She had mixed feelings about who she was going to meet, and was relieved to find the students relatively ordinary \u2013 and not, as she later admitted, all Che Guevara clones wearing black berets!<\/p>\n
UTU was one reason I was drawn to Sheffield in the early \u201890s. I attended the Saturday informal, lunchtime communions at Abbeyfield Road, and was glad to find friends – people with a similarly adventurous and grounded faith. UTU is a companion organisation which gives me comfort that I am not alone in my understanding of Jesus\u2019 kingdom. I resisted John Vincent\u2019s attempts to recruit me as a Trustee for many years, but it\u2019s been a privilege to serve in that capacity recently and help discern UTU\u2019s next prophetic task.<\/p>\n
Erica Dunmow<\/p>\n
2019<\/p>\n\n\n