"Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged,
for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."

Joshua 1:9

Each year, we have a Bible verse which is aimed at helping to focus our hearts and minds on what we believe God is wanting to do in our Churches in the year ahead. So what do we think God is saying this year - you can read below some of the Rector's thoughts about 2010!

2009 was a year or building projects in both our churches and we start 2010 with the excitement of being able to use them in the ways which God wants us to, in order to build his Kingdom in this place. Like a skilled workman who opens his packages on Christmas morning to find exactly the present that he needed for the work he has to do, God has given us tools for the task ahead - exactly the ones we need to do his work. A shiny new Parish Centre with all the facilities and resources we could need, Langton Church, reordered and redecorated - we start 2010 with the work of building these things almost complete ... so now what?

One thing we could do is to keep them nice and shiny and not use them, for fear of spoiling them. But like the workman's tools, that is not what we have been given them for. The only other alternative is to use them for the purposes for which they were given to us - to be tools that we use to build God's Kingdom. If that is the case (and it is!), then we have to roll up our sleeves and get on with the real work of using them - as places where we can invite people to hear about the Good News of the Kingdom. Alpha Courses, social events, quiz nights, World Cup Football ... 2010 is full of opportunity.

The problem is that we get worried that maybe we are not doing the right thing. In fact we get so worried that we will get it wrong or that someone will not approve, that we don't do anything at all. Our verse for 2010 is about the moment when Joshua stood looking across at the city of Jericho, with the thought that his motley band of people were going to have to conquer the land that God had promised them. As he walked around the city a few months later, for the seventh time, with the band playing and the people wondering how this was going to help Joshua must have had a pang of fear and the temptation to say, "ok, let's leave it for another day". But maybe he had the words God had spoken to him ringing in his heart: "Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.". Words that say "you can do it!".

Joshua was not the one who had planned all of this - God was. We are not the ones who have planned the uses of the Centre according to our agenda and our plans and our desires - God has given us this, and I firmly believe that we can go about using it and building His Kingdom, using His Tools, with the confidence that Joshua faced the battles ahead. Mountains look big from the bottom, but however high they may be, the climber with the right equipment, the confidence and belief in His heart - and the determination to do it, will reach the summit. That is my hope and my prayer for us in 2010 - to have the knowledge that we now possess the equipment, we should have the belief, and that God will give us the determination to succeed in fulfilling his plans for us in the year to come.

Tim Storey

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