Dear Friends

What a winter we have had!  Can you believe it’s still snowing?  It has been such a cold winter, one of the coldest on record and then just when we begin to think spring has come as the snowdrops are flowering and the crocuses are beginning to bloom, the snow descends again!  One positive note is that we are all certainly getting used to the bad weather.  It is stopping fewer things from happening but it does make life quite difficult and maybe we should have been awarded the Winter Olympics rather than the summer ones planned for 2012 - our winter has been colder!

Things can be difficult in life sometimes; things don’t always go the way we plan.  Watching the news from the Winter Olympics the other day I saw the British two-man bobsled turn over on their first run.  The reporter met up with the team after the event and asked how they felt about the danger when things go wrong.  Their response was ‘Well it’s not ballet dancing!’   I guess what they were meaning is that sometimes things don’t go the way we planned.

As a teenager I attended a superb Circuit Youth Weekend away, the title of which has stayed with me ever since ‘This is life, not a rehearsal’.  We only get one shot at life - and in knowing Christ we have life ‘in all its fullness’ (John 10:10).  In all our
decision-making, at church and in our personal lives, we need to remember that
everything we do should honour God - we won’t get the same chance again.  This can be difficult as sometimes we don’t feel ready to make decisions.

During the next month the Church Council will be making an important decision
regarding tenders for the work on the spire.  With the money raised for Phase 1 (the architect’s drawings and tendering) we have reached the point where we will appoint a contractor.  This could be a decision we don’t feel ready to take.  It may even be a difficult one, but it is an important one nevertheless.  As the Council meets during March, we would all be grateful for your prayers as we look forward to the next steps surrounding the work.
This decision may be a large one but each of us takes small steps every day of our lives and my prayer is that we will use each day to fulfil God’s purposes, live life in all its fullness and bring glory to God’s name.  Remember, this is life, not a rehearsal, and choose to follow God’s leading more closely.

Yours in Christ
Ben