AT Ripon Cathedral’s harvest festival this year, we had a visit from BBC’s Look North. To our mind, the most interesting aspect of the day was the farmers’ market which was in the Cathedral after the service, and that is why we had issued a press release about it.

We had invited small, rural businesses and small producers of food to the cathedral so that we could celebrate food, farming and small enterprises in the Yorkshire Dales. It was a success: we had happy stallholders, happy visitors, and something a little unusual and newsworthy at the back of the cathedral. We assumed this was why the reporter was interested. However, the TV report didn’t focus on the farmers’ market, but talked instead about the people who were going to receive the congregation’s harvest gifts.

The news report told the story of food being donated to the Ripon Food Bank, and our support for people who have been victims of human trafficking. As well as food, the cathedral congregation donated clothing and toiletries, as people who are liberated from human trafficking often have only the clothes they stand in to their name. Our aim was to offer dignity and show our respect to people who are made in God’s image, but whose humanity had been treated with complete disrespect.

So which was the best story? Well, both are good news and a common theme runs through both: providing what’s needed. As Christians we had gathered to thank God who provides everything which sustains life. We had also invited representatives of the rural economy so that we could thank those who produce fine food and keep Yorkshire’s villages thriving. But we had also gathered to give something back: to help sustain others, just as God sustains us. And however we reflect God’s love, when we do, that is good news.

Nick Morgan