This is an archive of articles published in Contact over the years.

March 2010

You have probably read the message ‘From the Minister’s Desk’ in last month’s edition of Contact.  I urge you to read it again and take to heart the message it contains.  It was addressed primarily to those attending membership groups during February but we all need to read it.  Bruce was pointing out that membership of a church is essentially different from membership of clubs or societies since members of a church commit themselves, right at the outset, to seeking God’s will.  When the church meets at a church meeting we come together to find out, together, what the will of God is.  What we hope to do is to confirm God’s will and put it into practice.  During last year the church meeting confidently felt that God was calling Bruce to be our Minister and confirmed that by a 100% vote to call him to the Ministry of this church.

I regretfully have to say that it doesn’t always seem to work out that way.  I have been a church member, here and elsewhere, for more than 70 years and during that time I have experienced relatively few 100% votes.  Sadly we have not always been of one mind.  Perhaps something of that reality is reflected in a prayer in one of the books of prayers that I use from time to time.  It was written by Karl Barth, the Swiss theologian, and it reads:-

‘O Lord our God, you know who we are; men with good consciences and with bad, persons who are content and those who are discontented, the certain and the uncertain, Christians by conviction and Christians by convention, those who believe and those who half-believe and those who disbelieve…
but now we all stand before you, in all our differences, yet alike in that we are all in the wrong with you and with one another, that we must all one day die, that we would be lost without your grace, but also in that your grace is promised and made available to us all in your dear Son, Jesus Christ.’

‘O Lord our God, you know who we are’.  It may be time for us all to reassess ourselves, to pause for thought and to ask ourselves whether we are people of ‘good consciences’ or ‘bad’, ‘Christians by conviction’ or ‘Christians by convention’, ‘do we believe or half-believe’, are we ‘certain or uncertain’; do we know that all the promises of God are made available to us through His Son, Jesus Christ, and that whatever questions we may have, the Grace of God is sufficient for all our needs.

‘O Lord our God, you know who we are.’  -  make us what you want us to be and make us in our church the instruments of your will and purpose, and may we show forth your praise in this community of Sawston and in the wider society.