Dear Friends,
John 15:12 says “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
How are we actively showing love to one another? As we slowly see restrictions being lifted, new challenges arise, and we have to make decisions as to what is best for our own context and circumstances. Many people have exceeded all expectations to ensure that worship continued during Lockdown, although possibly in a new way than has ever been seen before. This was a brief time in history when new skills had to mastered and delivered at lighting speed and everyone was expected to work outside of their normal comfort zones. We have learned how to download and play hymns, get the perfect angle for laptops, teach people how to turn their microphones on and lead services whilst helping people access Zoom and other online worship. As I started each service, I attached a sticky note to my laptop screen saying 'slowdown', which is a good reminder to us all.
This speaks of our weekly worship but how has the pandemic affected mission, our extending love to others. Perhaps we are feeling despondent. It can be tempting to look back at the past and remember the golden years of yesterday. Perhaps we have memories of packed Churches and lively fellowship. We should perhaps remember that God is constantly doing a new thing. God constantly challenges us and offers a vision of a future that is new and exciting. There are no set answers of course but hopefully we can all be encouraged to dream dreams and catch visions of what might be possible in the future.
This year at Synod, we were invited to take part in an initiative called ’Real Love’. This initiative was introduced by Revd Rob Cotton from the Aire and Calder Circuit. Rob spoke of how the Church in Wakefield demonstrates the love of Christ in many different ways. One way of which was distributing ‘hearts’ to the local community with a message of hope letting people know that they are loved by others and by God.
Our Chair of District Revd Kerry Tankard invited each Circuit within the Yorkshire West District to also share this love and hope within our communities. Our Synod representatives decided that we would give a message of love to the shops and businesses across the Circuit. With this in mind, cards have been produced and Churches will be invited to distribute them as a way of reaching out into our communities. Our hope is that this simple gesture can extend God’s love to others and show both our and God’s care.
Every Blessing, Jenny
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