Looking to the Year Ahead
More Deeply Rooted in God and Building Stronger Community

A message from Rev. Chris Rankine

As Advent Sunday begins another Church year, it also marks a couple of other significant points - the fifth year of the vision, and the beginning of the seventh year since I started working here.

As we look back over the last five years we can recognise that we have achieved an enormous amount. On fabric we have seen the renovation of the car park, completed this year with the installation of the sculptures. We cab also chalk up another major success, for the first time since before I arrived we will have paid all of our Parish Share without any help from the diocese – after five years hard work we have achieved financial independence. We have continued to develop our spiritual life, although none of us were sure whether it would work, the evening services have taken off and give another dimension to our worshiping life.
Having said that, as we have tried to look at our spiritual gifts and how we might use them in the life of the church, we have come up against the problem of “too much to do”, alongside this seems to be a lack of confidence in our abilities and in God’s ability to use us. Somehow while we can see so much that has been achieved and see exciting possibilities, we have begun to slow down.

Therefore, although we haven’t completed the parish vision, it seems right at this time to follow the Old Testament rule of the Sabbath year. Every seventh year the people of God were to allow the ground to rest and recover. For the Jewish people who depended on the crops for their food, it was also a very demanding year of trust in God.

One might like to think of it as being like a long winter season. As any gardener knows, while everything may look dead in the garden, plenty of things are still happening – the ground is recovering, the plants are resting & becoming more deeply rooted. Winter rather than being dull, becomes a time to look back and celebrate and a time for the gardener to plan ahead for the coming year.

In the Sabbath year, much like the garden in winter, it may appear as if nothing is going on; actually the most important things are happening - time for us to become more deeply rooted in God, and time for us to build stronger community.

More Deeply Rooted in God - the preaching themes seek to explore the Christian faith in a systematic way. They can be explored in different contexts, e.g. youth and adult fellowship programmes, magazine articles.

Growing Stronger Community is about finding ways in which we can enable people to become integrated into this community, creating more opportunities where people can get to know one another better.

This is time for God’s people to rest and recover, to be ready for what God calls us to next. We shall also use this time to review the past five years, celebrating our successes and reviewing the things that haven’t gone so well; celebrating those who have joined us and remembering those who have died or moved on. Like the gardener, we will be looking forward, seeking God’s vision for the next seven years.