THERE is a pathway to hospitality that is full of noise and unexpected delight. I was being escorted by members of a BMS Action team in Kolkata. We turned away from the busy main road with its maze of queuing vehicles. Quickly we were in an even deeper maze of small lanes with tiny shops, crushes of people who seemed to have no sense of direction.

We were making for a school in a local slum. I was soon lost. My companions were my path. They knew the way ahead and all I could do was follow. Suddenly we turned into a tiny courtyard and were surrounded by children.

Bright eyes, some curious, others bold and a few fearful scanned the new 'dada' who arrived. As at other times I was stuck with nothing to say but smile and enjoy any game they wanted to play.

I believe there is no extant video footage of my dance in the sun that morning!

However what should have been recorded was my face as we walked into the classroom. The rows were orderly, by age with the oldest at the back, and they would all receive the same lesson with some supplementary comment depending on their age.

I was welcomed in the time-honoured greeting of 'Good morning Mr Rackley' and then out came the text-book; a battered Philips'Atlas and the lesson for the day began.

I watched in humble silence as children who had lived all their lives in little more than a couple square miles peered with fascination at the shape of countries more than a day's flight away.

The path to their place of welcome and learning left me disconcerted and wondering what place I could have in their world. I was about to find out.

As we left the compound a little girl stopped me. I did not understand what she was asking. 'She wants to show you her home,' I was told. 'You should go; her mother will be pleased that she has asked you.'

So accompanied by the BMS volunteers for whom this was a common event I plunged into the crowd again and this time was taken off the main path into an even narrower pathway. Suddenly we stopped outside a curtained door. Except it was not a doorway for as a woman pulled it back I realised it was a room. We had arrived.

The daughter and mother beckoned me across the threshold and stood with smiles as I surveyed the scene. It was a room of rooms. This was their bedroom, kitchen, day room and play room. It was open to my gaze. It was itself. They asked nothing of me but I look and for a moment belong.

Was I changed by this, one of many encounters with gross poverty? I cannot say I was - but the accumulative effect was stripping away my preconceived ideas and reassembling my priorities.

The walk back along the path was more important than the walk there earlier in the morning.

There is a path along a valley that is older than any dwelling built there now. It predates its tarmac surface. It has been traced by shepherds, trades folk, monks and preachers at different times for hundreds of years.

Now it is pretty, and well-shod hikers come to admire the Priory ruins and then climb up the side of the valley to find Offa's Dyke. Its winding way climbs steadily to Gospel Pass where hang-gliders now leap with fearless faith into the embrace of updrafts that make them soar high above the ridge.

I and the dog found our way up the valley and then into the many paths that criss-cross the high ground. One path had created many others.

These ancient paths put me in my place. I was not the first, nor would I be the last to use them. For a time they give a track to follow. I place my feet where others have trod.

I walk the path but am responsible for the way I use it. I am no ancient Celt or Welsh revival-seeking preacher. I do not have their certainties or their needs. I live in my time and what I do and believe means I walk the path differently.

There is a pathway to each church, however short. It is the path away from our church that is most important. It is not what happens in the church which makes us lively, but the path we follow when we walk away from the gathering of God's people. The path away indicates what our faith and God's mission means to us. It is not those who walk the path to church, but the type of people who come out of church which will reveal the nature of Christ and his Gospel.