From Rev'd Louise

Monthly reflection

February 2025 All change

I wonder how your new year started? For our three churches in Hope, Castleton and Bradwell, 2025 began with us cancelling church services on the first Sunday due to snowy weather that prevented many in our congregations from getting out. As I spent the first Sunday of 2025 very differently from what I had planned, I found myself reflecting on how we tend to respond to change more generally.

We have probably all known risk-takers or adventurers who seem to thrive on change, but for most of us change feels difficult. Statistics have shown that major changes in our lives, such as losing a job, or bereavement, are some of the biggest causes of stress we ever face, even if it is ‘good’ change, such as marriage, or the birth of a child.

Christians and Christian churches live in a place of continual tension; tension between our worship of an unchanging God, and God’s call to us to be continually changing in order to become more like him. Christians believe that God is perfect love and goodness, and a fundamental part of Christian faith is the belief that Christians are called to work towards a world which shows God’s values. The Gospels, in the New Testament, speak of Jesus’ followers as both ‘disciples,’ meaning ‘learners,’ and ‘apostles,’ meaning ‘those who are sent.’ So Christian faith calls us to allow God to change us, as we learn ever more about what God is like and what God wants for his world. And then to allow God’s values to send us out into the world, challenging us to use what we have learned, to transform injustice and suffering that we see around us.

That all sounds very theoretical, but how can it help us with everyday life? When we are faced with an unexpected change of plan, or a decision that is difficult? I find the letters of St Paul helpful. In his first letter to the Thessalonians (1 Thess 5), he urges them to ‘hold fast to what is good.’ So when faced with change, I try to identify what is good, in God’s eyes, about the old and the new. And in his second letter to the Corinthians (2 Corin 4), Paul writes about being ‘renewed inwardly,’ as we look at Christ’s life and death. Christianity speaks of ‘repentance,’ often in the sense of being sorry for the wrong we have done, but actually ‘to repent’ means ‘to turn around.’ Repentance is about which way we are looking. So again, when faced with change, I try to ask myself, ‘Am I looking towards what God wants, or what I want?’ ‘Will this make it easier, or harder, for us and others, to see and know God’s love for all?’

This month, my prayer for us all, is that we will each learn to become a little less uncomfortable with change, that we will all grow in our ability to discern when God is calling us to change, and grow too in our trust that when God does call us to change, it is always for the good of us, and for all.

If you would like to sign up to receive a weekly reflection, or to receive the regular newsletters from churches and Christian groups across Hope Valley, please go to https://mailchi.mp/2c07821b33f6/sign-up-for-ponder-and-pray or https://mailchi.mp/cbb9a512a36e/hope-valley-christians-newsletter or email me on [email protected] and I can sign you up.

January 2025 Now is the time

Apparently approximately two thirds of UK adults make New Year resolutions. I wonder if you are one of them? Although exact percentages vary, all the surveys I looked at suggested that younger people are more likely to make New Year resolutions than older people.

The names of our months came originally from an ancient Roman calendar, with several of our months named after Roman gods. January is named after the Roman god, Janus, the god of beginnings and endings, and transitions. Janus is depicted with two faces; one looking forwards and one looking backwards. New Year has traditionally been a time to look back over the last year, and forward to the coming year, with New Year resolutions intended to help us move from where we are to where we would like to be. Of course other occasions, particularly births or deaths or a big change in circumstances, can also prompt us to reflect on what is most important to us.

Looking back thoughtfully, and looking forward, planning and hoping, are both important. But Christianity also identifies now as an important time. Bible verses such as ‘Be still and know that I am God,’ from Psalm 46, and the writings of Christian mystics through the ages, teach us that focusing on now is important. Being still, physically or mentally, being ‘present in the moment,’ attentive to ourselves and the world around us – and people of faith would also add attentive to God – enables us to know ourselves better, to be more in touch with our deepest wishes and values, and more in touch with God, and his values for his world.

I believe that wonder is a precious part of being present in the now; wonder at the beauty of a sunset or a flower, wonder at the joy of love, or at our own existence. In the Bible, Jesus told his disciples that to enter the kingdom of heaven they needed to become like little children, and I am sure that part of what Jesus valued so highly in children was their capacity for wonder, their ability to be totally absorbed in the present moment.

If you make only one resolution this year, I invite you to resolve to find more time to wonder, more time to be still and do nothing, and my prayer for us all is that we may all, as Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York, said in the title of one of his books, ‘Do nothing to change your life.’

December 2024 A time of preparation

I wonder when your preparation for Christmas begins? And what it involves? As a small child, I remember our practical preparations for Christmas consisted of one Christmas shopping trip each year with our parents just before Christmas, to buy Christmas presents for relatives, and one afternoon with our grandmother while our parents went shopping without us. And a session deciding which toys we would give away, since we would probably receive new toys at Christmas. Then on Christmas Eve, my Mum juggled baking for Christmas Day and helping us wrap presents, while our Dad worked until mid-day. In the afternoon, Mum did all the things she had not been able to do in the morning with two small children under her feet, while my brother and I helped Dad put up the Christmas tree.

But our excitement, our anticipation, our emotional and spiritual preparation, for Christmas began weeks earlier, with the opening of the first window on the Advent calendar. Long before chocolate Advent calendars were common, I remember looking forward each day to the next bit of the Nativity story that I knew so well. And even as a small child, I remember wondering every year at that tiny baby, exactly the same as every other baby ever born – and yet so utterly different.

Years later, as a young teenager, I began to wonder seriously why God would want to send his Son to us, in the midst of the mess and the danger that was the world I saw around me in my teenage years. How, I wondered, could God love us that much? How could God be willing to take that much risk for us? What I did not know then was that I had discovered something of the Church’s traditional preparation for Christmas, part of the Church’s traditional observance of Advent.

Traditionally, the Church’s season of Advent has been a time of spiritual preparation for receiving afresh the awareness of God’s incredible and infinite love for us, demonstrated in his gift of his Son, born at Christmas. And that preparation includes taking a careful, thoughtful look at our own lives, and at the world around us, and recognising afresh just how much we are in need of God’s justice and peace and love. So, for me, my Advent preparations always include time to reflect. Time to wonder afresh at God’s love, for us, for me, for all. Time to assess my regular charitable giving, against the world’s need and God’s generosity. Time to focus on the world’s injustice, and ask myself, and God, what steps I can take against injustice and suffering. Time to give thanks, that in the midst of all that we are, and all that we do, God still loves us more than we can possibly imagine.

So my prayer for us all this Advent? That we would all find time amidst the practical preparations for Christmas, to prepare ourselves. Time to reflect on what the message of ‘peace and goodwill’ that we sing of in our Christmas carols, might actually look like in our world, and how we might play our part in living and sharing that message.