2011 Letter No 08

Each month Bill writes a pastor's letter for our monthly church magazine called 'The Messenger'. Here is the letter for August 2011:

This is my final letter to you as your minister. It has been seven and a half years since I arrived, and those years have been full and rich, but now is the time to say goodbye and thank you.

I have wondered what to write in this final letter to you all, and I have been drawn back to a favourite and important Scripture, which I find myself reflecting on more and more as the years pass. Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)

In many ways these words encapsulate the twin themes of my recent Sabbatical in which I explored both prayer and working through conflict in churches.

Prayer is at the heart of what it means to love God. Prayer is communication with God and communion with him. If we love someone we want to be with them, and when we love God this is expressed in prayer.

And one way in which love of our neighbour is expressed is in seeking to resolve the conflicts that so often endanger and can destroy the bonds of friendship and fellowship among God’s people and in the wider world.

So my final message to you is a repetition of the command of Jesus. Love God, love one another in the church and love our neighbours who are outside the church. The whole of what God requires of us can be summed up in these commands.

“And now I entrust you to God and the word of his grace – his message that is able to build you up and give you an inheritance with all those he has set apart for himself.” (Acts 20:32)