Minister’s Message – November 28, 2021

I’d like to read you an extract from “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis.

“Now they were steadily racing on again. Edmund noticed that the snow which splashed against them as they rushed through it was much wetter than it had been the night before. And the sledge was not running nearly as well as it had been running up till now. At first he thought this was because the reindeer were tired, but soon he saw that that couldn’t be the real reason. The sledge jerked, and skidded and kept on jolting as if it had struck against stones. There also seemed to be a curious noise all round them, but the noise of their driving and jolting prevented Edmund from hearing what it was, until suddenly the sledge stuck so fast that it wouldn’t go on at all. When that happened there was a moment’s silence. And in that silence Edmund could at last listen to the other noise properly. A strange, sweet, rustling, chattering noise – and yet not so strange, for he’d heard it before. It was the noise of running water. All round them though out of sight, there were streams, chattering, murmuring, bubbling, splashing and even (in the distance) roaring; much nearer there was a drip-drip-drip from the branches of all the trees. And his heart gave a great leap when he realised that the frost was over”.

Minister’s Message – November 14, 2021

“Looking back or looking forward?” (Isaiah 65:17-25).

We’re all familiar with the scenario. There’s been a hospital failure in which patients have died or a social services fiasco which allowed a child to be horrifically abused; there’s been a computer glitch which left people unable to access their bank accounts or a public event which has got out of control and left folk killed or injured; the Press have mistakenly incriminated an innocent person or the national football team has yet again been knocked out at an early stage of an important competition – after any of these incidents, in due time and following a long investigation, a slightly flustered and defensive spokesperson appears on the television news and assures us that “Lessons have been learned; nothing like this will ever happen again”.

Minister’s Message – November 7, 2021

“Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell”. Those words are poor poetry; but they sum up the ethos of the man who founded the missionary society for which Moira and I worked back in the 1980s: single-minded to the point of obstinacy and utterly devoted to the task, deeply flawed and controversial yet clearly inspiring.

Minister’s Message – October 31, 2021

Most Christians know quite a lot of stories from the Old Testament, but I suspect that few of us have a good overview of its history. And the Old Testament spans a remarkably long time, from Abraham who may have lived as far back as 2200BC, through Moses who came to the fore in around 1500BC and was followed by the Judges. Israel reached its zenith in the reigns of David and Soloon at around the 1000BC mark or a little later. After that its history was a sad one of defeat and decline over several centuries, with the loss of the northern half of its territory to Assyria in 721BC and the destruction of Jerusalem itself in 586BC. It had taken 400 years for the nation to sink from high point to disaster.