'For nothing changes here...'?

There is a hymn line which goes 'for nothing changes here'.  It describes, rightly in my view, a sense of permanent faith in a trustworthy God.  It's similar to that other hymn line, 'Thou changest not..'  Both refer to God's faithfulness and a belief in eternal values which can give life a sure and stedfast foundation.

However, in terms of 'how we get there', life is constantly changing.  Our pathways, strategies and experiences continuously evolve because that's the only way to survive and thrive in life.

For example, today as I read the headlines on the BBC News website ( a morning routine of mine), it was interesting to learn that for the first time in its long history the Royal Mail will soon, for a charge, not only deliver but also collect parcles, in an attempt to catch up with their new rivals.  The website also had a feature predicting that by 2025 half of all industriualised tasks will be undertaken by some sort of 'robots'.  

As Bob Dylan might have sung: Times, they are a changing.

Of course the Church also evolves.  

There was a letter in The Church Times last week explaining why a previous correspondent was finding it so difficult to track down what sort of hymns Anglicans sung in their Parish Churches in the 17th Century.  The answer was simple, Angliscan didn't really start singing hymns until the 18th Century, before then it would have been a said service with some chanted Psalms.  Yet things change!

It sometimes feels to us as if we live in a swirling chaos.  Change is an inevitable consequence of both the aging process and the product of meeting challenging surprises.  Faith, however, seeks to affirm that there can be a calm, secure centre to our life and that's the nature and character of a trustworthy and dependable God.

Blog Holiday next week.

Church Life Focus

We have received a letter of appeciation for our harvest gifts made to New Hope in Watford.  The organisation tell us that their Haven Centre assists 36 homeless people with food every week and that from April to June 215 people have received support.

This week the audio and 10.30 service will be lead by our church secretary, Mrs Janet Reid with The Revd Erna Stevenson as the preacher.  There will not be a recording of the video service this coming Sunday.

The service at church on 1st November will be Holy Communion for All Saints Sunday.

This year, instead of making up shoeboxes for charity, we will simply be collecting 'items'.  These will be put into shoeboxes made up by the charity Link to Hope.  Their work has been featured in two recent Family News articles.  Ann Parker will be 'collecting' these items - which are listed below.  She's asked that they be left by her porch during the last week of October and she will take them to Link to Hope.  We hope that next year we'll be able to return to our more normal custom of individually making up shoeboxes for a Christmas distribution to disadvantaged folk.