Dear friendsI've had a number of conversations this week about what it is to be church, in this time of our lives and our country. There is so much difficult news to read, hear and absorb that it might even feel as though prayer is too difficult to articulate. I said a couple of weeks ago that "no prayer is too small" and I believe this to be true with my whole heart. I equally believe it to be true that no prayer is too big - in fact I believe that this is what God wants of us: our whole lives, our whole selves, our whole prayers. So it is entirely appropriate that we pray for the needs of ourselves, and our nearest and dearest. It is equally appropriate that we offer our prayers, our laments, our pain and confusion at the magnitude of what we see in our world - the violence, the war, the injustice, the poverty, the cruelty. In bringing the small and large, the close and distant, we come before our Lord who is intimate and infinite, who holds our yesterdays, our todays and our tomorrows. If we can bring everything before God, and bring that as prayer, then we will grow in our relationship with Him, we will become attuned to a prayerful existence, and before we realise it, we are understanding more of what our prayers should be, through the work of God in the Holy Spirit. What then feels like a time of darkness, and difficulty, becomes a call to respond, and an awareness of God even in the most challenging of circumstances. That is what it is to be church, I believe: that beacon of light in midst of challenge, a voice of hope in times of despair, a place of love and compassion in a world, even a local society, in which many feel unseen, unloved, and unheard. We point to Jesus.What does that look like, feel like and sound like for us at St Martins?We want to be a place of light, hope, love and compassion to the families in our parish, so offering a free "lunch and film" afternoon during half term enables us to reach out. We want to extend this by offering Christmas food hampers and a Christmas gift for each child in families that are most struggling in our parish. We are responding to the call of Jesus, and there is opportunity for everyone to be involved.We are planning the Christmas Bazaar (Saturday 3 December!) with high hopes of being generous in our welcome, generous in the way we might all take part, so that as we are the hands and feet of Jesus, we give all those who may come along a glimpse of the generous love of God.We want to continue to pray, and so we will continue with our monthly prayer evenings (next one is Monday 7 November) as well as being intentional in speaking about prayer.We want to be a space where we can share stories, which may include space to lament, and we will be bringing news soon of an evening watching "The Chosen" with conversation, as well as Advent groups in the weeks leading up to Christmas: we will literally be pointing to the birth of Jesus.We want to celebrate where there is good news - and we will do this particularly this Sunday when Steve preaches for the first time as a Licensed Lay Minister. Steve is a great example of someone who is able to see the Holy Spirit of God at work even when things appear bleak.So in that spirit of pointing to Jesus in our actions, our words, our prayers, our story telling and in our worship, I look forward to seeing you on Sunday morning!God blessBecky