I came across this verse in my Bible reading this morning. Paul was writing to the church in Thessalonica, which he had recently helped set up. Unfortunately, he had been forced to leave them because of persecution.
Yet, in his letter (one of the oldest in the New Testament) you gain a real sense of Paul's personal commitment, concern and devotion to the new Christians in that place. Yet, because of the threat of his persecutors, he is unable to meet with the church in person!
One person was lamenting to me on the phone this week, that with all the restrictions and mask wearing in church services and especially with the newest restriction of not being allowed to interact with anyone in the church building there is a sense of 'humanity' being taken out of church. There is some truth in that. The virus means we cannot meet 'face to face' and that is a real loss.
I personally really miss our large gatherings when I could see everyone. Of course, if you have been watching the online services you have probably seen more that enough of my face. However, as your vicar I have not seen many of your faces for months. I do hope and pray, though, that the services help 'to restore what is lacking in your faith' (see 1 Thessalonians 3:10 above).
But I also have an idea that I hope may give us a small sense of the large sea of faces that we used to see when we gathered together at church before all this began!
It would be fantastic if EVERYONE could send in a photo of themselves. You could make the photo festive - i.e. standing next to the Christmas decorations at home or wearing a Christmas jumper, but please do not let ambition for the perfect photo stop you sending in a photo!
We would then form a montage of photos and names under a heading of 'Christmas Greetings from St. Luke's', that we can play at the end of our Christmas services. This of course will only work well if most people do this!
So, please as soon as possible, and by next Friday (18th) at the latest, send me a photo of you or you or you and your family and a list of your names and we'll include you in the montage. If a photo is not possible, then we could just include your names if you let me know that is what you want. The simplest way to send me the photo is by replying to this email.
I look forward to seeing you!
This is a good alternative to sending a Christmas card to the whole of St. Luke's. However, if you also want to bring in cards for the church family this Sunday or post them to me, we will display them on a board in church.
If you haven't done so already. Please do not forget to respond to the letter and re-register - click here to re-register.
Our Bible passage for this Sunday's service is: Revelation 3:14-22
We urgently need some contributions for this Sunday's online service... please see below.
