Message from Glenis Ruston, Minister for children, young people and families
18.3.2020
Dear church family,
If you are following the Live Lent readings you will have read some verses from Jeremiah this morning:
But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green and they go right on producing fruit. Je. 17 v 7,8
We are living in strange times but we do face an unknown future trusting in a known God.
The trustees will be meeting this evening to make sure that the plans the working group made last week are adopted or amended. We will be doing our best to make sure that the church family is supported practically as well as spiritually and emotionally and that we are able to reach beyond ourselves to others.
As someone said at the weekend, the building will be shut but the church will be open.
After this evening’s meeting we will send out an up-date and over the next weeks we will be in touch by email on a regular basis. We know that not everyone has email and so we will also put in place phone contacts (we could even discover the lost art of letter-writing: stock up on stamps now).
All meetings this week have been cancelled and we will let you know about Sunday.
In the meantime I’d encourage you to use as many methods of communication as you can. If you have a smart phone make sure that you are on WhatsApp. If you have a computer you can use Skype or FaceTime or other systems to talk face to face.
I do encourage us to pray for our families, church and community but also for those for who are still recovering from flooding, the homeless, those in refugee camps and war zones and who live in countries where the health services are so much more limited. Foodbank have some urgent needs at the moment both for volunteers, to replace those who will need to self-isolate, and for UHT/long-life milk and fruit juice – maybe you could organise a collection from your neighbours in some way.
We will get through this and later in the year we will have a service of celebration for all that God will have done with and through us.
See you on the other side.
With all my love,
Glenis
Remember to love like Jesus but wash your hands like Pontius Pilate!