Welcome to 2025. Every new year brings a sense of anticipation. Perhaps the opportunity to make some plans or mark significant events. As a family we use our Christmas presents to set up times we will get together over the next six months. This year that involved a spreadsheet to coordinate diaries. As a result, Christmas will last until at least June when we are planning a weekend in London to see some shows and visit Kew Gardens. 

It is good to have moments to look forward to, as life can also be very unpredictable and bring much sadness. As a church we have entered this new year mourning Cathy Fowke-Hallet, Eddie Gubbins and Tony Payne. We give thanks for their lives, their friendship and all they have brought to our church life, we will miss them and hold Mike, Joanne, Nanette, Anne, Cliff, Heather, Dilys, Mel, Anna and their wider families in love. Their deaths and the various illnesses we have around the church community are reminders that each moment is precious, for we can not take the future for granted.

Yet, we follow a faith that looks into the future with hope and expectation, that acknowledges sadness, pain, fearfulness whilst also finding goodness, grace and courage. And these are the things that carry us forward and allow us to face the future with anticipation. At the beginning of the Acts of Apostles, the disciples have Jesus back amongst them. The trauma of his death is over and for forty days perhaps they hope everything will be as it was. But, this is just an interim for the newness to come. A newness that does not hide death away but presents us with God who overcomes death and Jesus who is present with us, even as we try to make sense of the intricacies of life. As we work our way through the Acts of the Apostles this year – I hope we will get many opportunities to see Jesus at work in the present, not just in the past.

Be blessed, Craig