From the Vicar
Fr. Ron writes...

in the week before Christmas...    Dear Friends,

                        Corrie Ten Boom once said...

If you look at the world, you'll be distressed.
If you look within, you'll be depressed.
If you look at Christ, you'll be at rest.

Good advice for me I think--and I suspect for you, too.   As we   enter 2008 the world seems to be in an ever more distressing state.   Terrorism, crime, global warming, British society going from bad to worse; with hardly anything cheerful in sight.   If you see the news on TV or buy a national paper each morning, it sometimes seems that the world is going mad with nothing to stop it.   At home it is no better.   All the things we used to value   -   family life,    respect for the elderly, politeness, decency and honesty are viewed as fairly meaningless.  

What of marriage? This year at St. Margaret's I have no weddings booked.   Normally I would have had several definitely booked with dates booked for several more.   Is marriage now completely disregarded?    Not according to a recent survey (see page 3).   However more and more couples are setting up home and having a mortgage and children before finally deciding to get married. And when they do then fewer are choosing a church wedding.   The ones who do choose a church wedding say how pleased they are that they did.   But with fewer attending church then fewer children are familiar with church and fewer will want to have their wedding there.   The number of Christenings seems to be unabated but I suspect that with less pressure from grandparents and parents the number of these too will dwindle.  

Looking within will make you depressed too.   As a clergyman I have seen the decline in church attendances. Christmas used to be such a busy time for us but as I look forward to Christmas I do so with no great anticipation. The attendances at our Christmas services in 2006 made me gloomy and I have no high hopes for this year.   Even the Christingle without the Brownies and Guides is not what it used to be.   Having done this work for thirty four years I am now wondering if I was any good at it.

No don't look at the world or within yourself, you'll only get distressed or depressed.   Look at Christ, says Corrie Ten Boom.   All things are his. He will guide us in the way forward.    He may guide us in ways that we can't begin to see for ourselves.   It is a different world now to that in which most of us grew up.   Maybe the Church will have to be different too. Look at Christ and find peace.   

Ron

The Archdeacon of the East Riding,
the Ven David Butterfield, writes...

Happy new year! As we look to a new year, 2008 could be "new" for us in more ways than one.

We worship a God of new things. He once told his people of old, "See, I am doing a new thing!" The word for "new" in that quotation is one of two that we find in the Bible.

The first word means "new" in the sense of "fresh" - a new version of something that has been around for a long time. Recently my Papermate pen ran out, so I bought a new one. My new one is identical to my old one. So it's new in the sense of "fresh". Pens in themselves are not new! The second word means "of a brand new kind" and describes something that has not been seen before. So when the Hungarian inventor Ladisla Biro produced the first ballpoint pen in the 1930s, it was "of a brand new kind". No-one had ever seen one like it before.

When God says, "I am doing a new thing", he uses the second of these words. Christmas is a celebration of the moment in history when God came to earth in Jesus. This was a "of a brand new kind" because God had never done this before. That's why the same word is used to describe the second half of the Bible - the New Testament. It's a testament - an agreement - of a brand new kind that God made with his people through Jesus. Many of us watch a lot of television at Christmas. It's amazing how many of the programmes are repeats - new broadcasts of old programmes. However, God isn't a God of repeats - but of brand new programmes - ones you haven't seen before!

So in wishing you "a happy new year", my prayer for you is that 2008 won't just be a fresh performance of the things you have experienced before. But that it will be "new" in the sense that God will do something unprecedented in your life.   Happy new year!

David Butterfield

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