Pastoral Letter for the Month

Hello everybody!

 This will be my final Pastoral Message to you. After four whole years you will soon have a new Minister and I will stop travelling the road from Doncaster to Hull. As I reflect on those four years, the first thing I reflect on has been the privilege it was been to work with you over those years.

 Some of that work has been challenging for us all, much of it has been interesting and occasionally routine as we have shared thoughts, hopes and dreams.

 I know for some of you there has been a feeling of being abandoned with no minister in post and no firm idea of when, even if, there would at some point be a minister. But the thing which is important to remember is that throughout those four years you, Elders, members and friends have kept things going. Worship happened every Sunday, activities continued. And your churches continued to be well governed and ordered.

 And so what of the future? Well one thing of which we can be sure is that things will change. In Isaiah we read:

 “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert…………. To give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise”     (Isaiah Ch.43 vv. 18 – 21)

 There is excitement in those words, leave behind the past and welcome this new thing which God is offering – ‘do you not perceive it?’ That phrase has a feel of eagerness, anticipation. Some years after Isaiah wrote those words, Jesus came along calling people to follow him. Come and see and there you will find life and energy.

 But there will be times when you will be challenged. I hope too, that there will be times when you will be excited and hopeful and aware of the ‘life in all its fullness’ which is fully available to those who answer God’s call.

Val Morrison

Interim Moderator