PCN Britain's 20th Anniversary Events

Tuesday 3rd October 2023

Adrian Alker, founder member of PCN Britain and former Chair, invites you to celebrate our 20th Anniversary.

PCN Britain's 20th Anniversary Events

To friends across the PCN network

Throughout our lives we remember those happy times when we celebrated birthdays and anniversaries, they counterbalance the sad and difficult occasions when we mourn the loss of friends or family. At my stage of life the celebrations can vary from a grandson’s fifth birthday to a friend’s golden wedding.

This year marks twenty years since PCN as an organisation began. From the outset, PCN was about bringing people together, in groups and conferences, to share their thoughts, experiences and hopes, to learn and listen, to exchange views about the Christian faith. I fondly remember the enthusiasm as people gathered in churches like my own former church of St Marks Broomhill in Sheffield to hear speakers like Marcus Borg and Jack Spong. You will have your own special memories of such gatherings in different parts of the country as well as any local group you belong to.

After sixteen years of PCN’s life came the terrible time of Covid when all gatherings ceased and, thankfully, we discovered Zoom! And whilst the joys of being able to speak to friends and family on Facebook, What’s App, Zoom etc was of great relief, nevertheless we missed that human contact, sharing of meals, face to face encounter. Gradually life got back to some kind of normality but perhaps we forgot how it felt to be part of a conference gathering again.

Well after such a long break PCN now invites us all to come together, this time to celebrate 20 years of work, to look back with a great deal of thankfulness, and to look forward to how PCN is to continue its work into the next twenty years.

Yes we will need to book a train (lets hope they are running!) or share a car journey. Yes we will need to give up a Saturday. But if we were invited to someone’s anniversary, would we decline the invitation? I hope we can all, yes all, travel to York or to Reading to share in celebrating all that PCN has meant and does mean to us today.

I know, as Chair of PCN for 7 years and as a trustee for almost all of those twenty years, how much PCN has meant to so many people like myself on their journey. Through PCN, people have met others with the same questions about Christianity. Through PCN there have been the opportunities to hear and meet renowned speakers and writers. Through PCN we have joined a family of people across these islands for whom those Eight Points make so much sense to head and to heart.

Please join me in Reading or York in November and lets enjoy being together for this anniversary!

Adrian Alker

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