April 30th 2020

READ
Psalm 11 (NIV)
1 In the Lord I take refuge.
    How then can you say to me:
    ‘Flee like a bird to your mountain.
2 For look, the wicked bend their bows;
    they set their arrows against the strings
to shoot from the shadows
    at the upright in heart.
3 When the foundations are being destroyed,
    what can the righteous do?’
4 The Lord is in his holy temple;
    the Lord is on his heavenly throne.
 
We make a brave show of it and use technology to make the best of a bad job but we can’t seriously pretend that the present restrictions on large gatherings has been anything other than harmful to church life as we’ve known it. In that sense perhaps the foundation we’ve constructed for congregational life and what we have built on it God has blown away that in his providence we might have space to think and pray.

I hope you are praying as I am that God will protect what is crucial, what is foundational in his eyes, and that the church will emerge from this crisis perhaps leaner but stronger, having taken to heart the lessons and being more dependent on his grace and power. As it ever has been, the present and future of the church and his purpose for us are in God’s hands. So, what will remain and what have we learned?

Well that’s what I hope we can think about in our internet services over the coming weeks under the title “Essential Church”.  We are going to examine those things that are central, the things we’ve missed most perhaps, the things circumstances can’t destroy for those things are the foundation on which we can and must rebuild. The Lord is in his holy temple, The Lord is on his heavenly throne.”  “In the Lord I take refuge” (Ps11:4 & V1)

I hope you will join us at 11am on Sunday on the church website when we begin by examining our identity.
 
LISTEN
Reign in me.  (Chris Bowater)

---