Dear Friends,

This weekend we come to the end of the Church year with the feast of Christ the King. This feast is a reminder that the journey that we walk with Jesus each year, from anticipating his birth at Advent, celebrating the incarnation at Christmas, watching his ministry unfold and find its fulfillment in his death and resurrection, and then recognising the presence of his Spirit in our lives as inner guidance in living according to his teaching, that journey ends in the triumph of God's love revealed in Christ over all things. This is a sovereignty that is not domination of oppression but service and freedom - it takes the yearly journey with Jesus year by year for us to grow into a full understanding of how God's power reigns in love.

This is a good time to reflect back on where you have glimpsed that love in our life through the last year, to give thanks for those times and to ask for God's grace to enter Advent with anticipation of seeing that love at work ever more clearly in the year to come.

I will be taking the middle of the coming week (21st-26th) as some Annual Leave in preparation for our journey to Christmas through Advent. I'll attach the list of special services in December with this letter.

God bless

Samantha