You step into a large, quiet space, lit with filtered shafts of light from above, and coloured rays from somewhere ahead. Your footsteps echo on hard stone, but shapes draped in soft fabric line the way ahead. As you approach they resolve into chairs. The air is redolent of candle smoke and, perhaps a faint incense. It is strong enough to evoke memories of other times, other places, strong enough to inspire mystery, yet subtle and unintrusive. You feel warm, safe, invited. There is a chair with your name on it.

Welcome. Welcome to something I have wanted to do for some time, but have never been brave enough. I'll explain what it is in a second, but first, a bit of backstory.

I joined NS two and a half years ago partly because the invitation was made by a friend, but also because I was looking for something just like this at the time. I don't mean to say that I was actively searching, so much as that I had been thinking about it a fair bit, exploring an idea in my head and what that idea was, at its core, was a sense of a kind of calling. I felt that there was a need and that I might be able to be part of meeting that need.

The need, as I saw it, was for more people to serve as Christian witnesses and, indeed, 'ministers' in the broadest sense of that term, in online communities, which, as NS attests, are real communities - just as real as any small town, or campus or wherever people might feel called to serve in 'Real Life'. I saw this need in general terms and felt a desire to serve, but had no community in which to perform that service. And then I found NS.

Over the last two and a half years I have kept my witness light: a quote in my signature, which I hope reflects my behaviour and explains some of the reason for it, a blog through Lent, the occasionaly seasonal comment here and there. I didn't come here to shove my faith into people's faces, but merely to live it out before them. That's not going to change. This isn't a shocking reveal of sme kind of Christian entryism. I'm not aiming to be anything different than before. All I do want to do is open this place to all who want to use it and to offer up my service in maintaining it.

So what is this place?

Well, firstly, it's an experiment and I fully accept that that means it might be a complete failure, but here's what I hope it will be:

• A safe place to talk about spirituality;
  
• A place to seek advice and pastoral care;
  
• Somewhere to be ministered to and to minister to each other;
  
• A place for spiritual growth, development and learning.

What it isn't, and this might be tricky in the South Pacific of all places, is a debating chamber. It isn't a place for apologetics or arguments about the validity of certain beliefs. There is a place for that, absolutely, but I don't want it here. Instead, I want a place for all people of all faiths and none to explore spirituality (primarily Christian, 'cos that's what I know, but there'll be room for more than that) and to feel safe doing so. That won't work if this thread becomes combative.

So, where to begin? Perhaps it would be good if people just expressed an interest in the thread that follows and, perhaps, if you feel up to it, explain where you feel you are in your own spiritual journey.

For myself, I find I'm at a bit of a juncture where what I am called to do personally and perhaps institutionally is coming to the forefront of my mind. There are lots of reasons for this and I'll happily go throug them all later, but it's part of what finally nudged me into starting this thread after so long. It's an especially interesting time and I suspect it's no coincidence that it is also a rather dark, difficult and complicated time in my life, as highlighted by my recent trouble with Generalised Anxiety Disorder. I don't know how all of this will turn out, but the journey, fraught though it is, is also exciting! I can feel God moving me into new ways of thinking, new modes of action and preparing me for something different!