Dear Friends, By the end of this month we will be again reminding ourselves of the events of the first Easter. Good Friday is 31st March and Easter Day is 1st April. For many this weekend will be just another chance to indulge themselves, with no thought of God. It is rather appropriate that Easter…
Dear Friends, Last month I entitled my letter ‘Looking Forward’, in order to help us focus on the hopes ahead and not on the concerns and possible failures of the past. This month I want us to ‘Look Up’. On Sunday 14th January I began the message looking at the significant number of difficulties experienced…
Dear Friends, According to Roman mythology the month of January is named after a god who had two faces, one looking forward and one looking backward. I think probably in our contemporary culture that sort of reflection takes place between Christmas and New Year, when people are attempting to wind up the old year and…
Dear Friends, This is the last edition of the Gazette for 2017. How was the year for you? Was it what you expected? In January did you respond to the leaflet “10 Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year” ? I don’t do that sort of thing as a general practice, but…
Dear Friends, As the world frightened itself in the darkness of Halloween, the Church of Jesus Christ has marked the 500th Anniversary of the ‘start’ of The Reformation. On 31st October 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door of Wittenberg. This sparked a discussion which was to lead many across Europe…
Dear Friends, As I write we are concluding our week of prayer. It has been a special week, when there has been a real liberty as well as burden in prayer. We are about to begin a new phase in our ministry, and our church anniversary in October will mark the completion of another year.…
Dear Friends, September marks the beginning of the school year and we often use it to re-launch the different ministries of our church. As we have done in previous years we have also arranged a week of prayer (2-9 September). While preparing for that I read this sentence by Vaughan Roberts describing the Christian life,…
Dear Friends, We are again at the time of year when for many of us there will be the opportunity of holidays, because the children are off school. For others there will be the annual visit to Aberystwyth. Thinking of Aber I am reminded of Psalm 122 which begins, I was glad when they said…
Dear Friends, I want to begin this letter by expressing my thanks for all the cards, emails, text messages, calls and flowers received when I was unwell recently. I also am grateful to all who stood in for me over what should have been a full weekend for me. I got up Saturday morning and…
Dear Friends, My last letter ended with this encouragement: “We are to continue to tell an unbelieving world and church that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners and that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved” – and that forms a fitting introduction to this letter. May…