2008 Letter No 11

Each month Bill writes a pastor's letter for our monthly church magazine called 'The Messenger'. Here is the letter for November 2008:

The economic crisis facing the United Kingdom has now been officially classed as a recession. I am not an economist, and I do not understand the technical differences between economic downturns, recessions and depressions, but I understand enough to know that being in a recession is not a good thing. It means that jobs will be harder to find and wages are likely to be lower. Some businesses will collapse. Many families and individuals will have to cope with less money to buy the necessities of life, while the prices of food and fuel continue to rise.

And of course, this nation is not alone in facing hard times economically. While our newspapers focus especially on the troubles in the United States and Europe, where a number of banks have faced collapse, there are other parts of the world where the poorest are unable to buy enough food. The prices of staples such as rice and wheat have spiralled. At the end of March and beginning of April of this year the price of rice increased by 50% in just two weeks in many places in Asia and Africa. These are hard times.

I do not know what the future holds for us in this country or for the wider global economy, but I do know that many will face hardship. And yet in all this I recall the message that Keith Smith shared with us on a Sunday morning at the beginning of October. Two parts of that message seem particularly relevant.

Keith talked about the idolatry of materialism, which is choking our Christian lives in the West, and about the contrast in attitudes to possessions which he has found between Burkina Faso and the United Kingdom. He also spoke about a recent flood in Burkina Faso, and how the aftermath of that disaster had created an openness to the gospel among the local people that had not been there before.

In Britain might it be that an economic recession could act like the flood in Burkina Faso? If money can often be an idol in people’s lives, when that idol begins to collapse and is seen to be frail then might people not turn to the true and living God? It is not a certainty, but it is a possibility. In my prayers at the moment I am asking that people will turn away from the idol of material possessions ... and that is a prayer which is as relevant for people within our churches as for those outside the Christian faith. It is relevant in my own life. You do not have to read much of the Old Testament soon to realise that God’s people are drawn into idolatry very easily. Often people try to worship these idols alongside worshipping the true and living God. But that does not work. We are told, “Be careful not to forget the covenant of the LORD your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the LORD your God has forbidden. For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” (Deuteronomy 4:23-24)

Now is a good time to look at the priorities in our own lives. Are we people who truly seek first the Kingdom of God, trusting that the Lord will provide for our physical needs as well as our spiritual ones (Matthew 6:33)? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus commands us, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also … No-one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” (Matthew 6:19-21, 24). These are sobering words!