Why Canopy?
Our new online national gathering for Scottish Baptist churches is taking place on 23-25 October.
People have been asking, Where does the name Canopy come from?
At its simplest, a canopy
creates a welcoming space where people can meet together.
But there is more to it than that. As we planned this event we were moved by some words from Isaiah 4.5:
Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over everything the glory will be a canopy.
Our hope is that as we assemble together, we too will experience the glory of the Lord as a canopy above us all, wherever we are.
And there is even more. Our Council in March was asking how we can picture the way we relate as a ‘union’ of churches. The image of a forest came to us with real prophetic force. The individual tr
ees stand separately but beneath the surface they are deeply interlinked. Trees are connected at root level by a vast network of mycelium that enables them to transfer resources of water and minerals. Individual trees rise up in the forest but grow into one another again as they form a canopy. As churches we are rooted together in Christ, connecting and to supporting one another, often in ways that are out of sight to most people. We grow as individual churches but then the Canopy is a place where we again connect with one another in a very visible way.
Each of these ideas resonates with our hope for what this new event will be.
