Friends

It was my last chairing of a Church Council at High Street this evening and I am very aware that we are finally moving towards “normal” – whatever that may look like in the Thames Valley Circuit. I will go back to having three churches (plus some oversight of Colnbrook and Poyle), two ministers with whom I have enjoyed much laughter will be sitting down and a whole new team will be starting on the 1st of September. It’s exciting, and although it is tempting to quote Isaiah whenever anything new happens, 43:19 seems particularly apt as we move towards the new Connexional year: “See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

At this time when we are seeing a return to normality, even if it is not normality as we would like it to be in some ways (rising costs and failing resources are not what we were looking forward to!) still there is hope that God is doing a new thing, and he may even be doing it here in our churches, where our numbers are going down and yet so much that is good is coming up.

In Isaiah 43, God is promising to rescue Israel from the Babylonian exile, reminding them that he has previously rescued them from slavery in Egypt, and looking forward to the time when he will indeed do a new thing with the birth of Jesus. God gave water in the desert when the Israelites fled from Egypt, he will give water now and Jesus will offer streams of living water – the Holy Spirit to resource and strengthen his people in the future.

What can we look to in our lives and the life of our church that speaks of what God has done in our past, what he is doing now and what we believe he can and will do in the future? We have the hope that what is happening right now will indeed give us streams of living water, because we can see his Spirit at work in our lives, in the lives of our friends and family and in the history of the Church throughout the ages.

God is doing a new thing, and new things require change, and all change can be frightening. But he has sent the comforter, he has promised to lead us by still waters and through green pastures and our help does indeed come from him. May you have a blessed summer as we look forward to all that he will do for us and with us in the coming year.

God bless,

Vicci