Dear friends, Karen and I enjoy going to Church when we are away on holiday, mainly because we seldom have the opportunity to sit together in worship, and I believe that it is good for me to be able to receive and be fed instead of always being the one who is attempting to preach.…
Dear friends, A lot has happened since I wrote my letter last week. One of my pet hates as a minister is training, when I am told that I have to participate in compulsory training, I become irritated and never take part with joy, rather with utter reluctance. In May of this year several of…
Dear Friends, The words “living in unprecedented times” have been quoted over and over again during the last two years and following one of the most challenging weeks that I can remember, I believe that the last fortnight definitely qualifies. I will normally write my letter to you first thing on a Wednesday morning, when…
Dear Friends, One of my mantra’s that I have found to be true over the years is something I learned a long time ago, surround yourself with good people and you will experience the very best that life has to offer. I believe that was true of the wonderful welcome service we offered to God…
Dear Friends, I always look forward to September with a mix of emotions, on the one hand, it is one of the busiest months of the year for me, with a string of meetings, several of them quite heavyweight. I also find it quite depressing as the evenings start to draw in. On the other…
Dear friends, I have questioned for a long time the value of Church notices and newsletters and have heard people say over and over again “nobody ever reads them” and I have wondered what the point was in writing them if that were the case. In the beginning, when I first started preaching, you were…
Dear friends, It’s good to be back among you following our fortnight’s break in Cornwall and Devon. We last spent a holiday in the West Country in 2013 just before moving to Ipswich and it is twenty-six years since we spent a holiday in the Bude area and I had forgotten just how beautiful this…
Dear Friends, The current trend in a lot of Circuits around the Connexion, indeed in a lot of Churches of all denominations is one of pessimism, with aging congregations, depleting numbers, and financially starved Churches, meaning that across the land Churches are fighting hard, simply to keep going, knowing that the writing is on the…
As I was preparing worship last week, I came across the hymn whose first line is ‘Moses, I know you’re the man,’ the Lord said. …
Dear friends, The Rev Timothy Dudley-Smith is one of our most prolific twentieth century hymn writers with around four hundred hymns to his name. I was looking at one of his hymns, number 684 in Singing the Faith which begins “Here on the threshold of a new beginning” and in it he reawakens the Spirit…