January Newsletter

Hi Everyone,

I hope you had a peaceful Christmas with family and friends and are now looking forward to a new year. Maybe for you 2025 is a year of challenge or maybe a year of celebration. Or just another year older and another year wiser. Whatever it holds may God be with you on your next phase of the journey of life.

We have just celebrated the birth of Jesus a few days ago with packed carol services and crib services. It's a lovely season of the year for Christians and non Christians alike but sometimes I think folk would prefer to keep Jesus there, in the manger, all the time. A saviour who provides no threats and no challenges can be accommodated.

But babies grow up and become adults and in Jesus's adult life challenges become the norm. Not just to the people of Judea all those years ago including and maybe especially his closest friends. But he continues to challenge us as well even today.

The church itself is under challenge right now with all the media attention focusing on abuse by a minority of clergy and the ineffectiveness of senior church leaders to take timely and appropriate action. That is a challenge for all local churches in 2025 to cope with and yet effectively operate in an atmosphere of suspicion. Be patient with us. Local churches and church leaders are as much shocked and angered by the abuse reports as the public at large.

Jesus faced serious challenges of his own with government officials and senior religious leaders so in many ways things have not changed in 2000 odd years. But like him he came through in the end because he had a "rock solid" faith in God the Father. That surely must be the starting point for all of us as well.

So as we face a new year with all its anxieties and uncertainties let's put our hands in the hand of God and venture bravely into the unknown. It will be for us brighter than a strong light and safer than a known path.

I hope you all have a prosperous and stress-free New Year and remember Jesus is for life and not just for Christmas.

God Bless

Rev'd. Don