Dear Friends, As I hope you are all aware, from 6 June through to 12 September Nicola and I are on sabbatical. URC Ministers are entitled to a three-month sabbatical every 10 years. (We were due to go on sabbatical last year, but it became clear very early on that the pandemic was going to […]
Russell’s Monthly Newsletter – May 2022
Dear Friends, Bear with me if you are not a football fan, but it’s been an interesting few months for football. The issue over the ownership of Chelsea has brought into focus once again the rather murky network of premier league club owners and the eyewatering amounts of money poured into the national game. People […]
Russell’s Monthly Newsletter – March 2022
Dear Friends, On the morning of Thursday, 24th February I awoke to news that made me feel physically sick. The Russian President had authorised a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The horrific scale of the force – around 150,000 troops – and the severity of the initial assault were shocking. As disorientated Ukrainians mobilised to defend […]
Russell’s Monthly Newsletter – January 2022 – ‘Is February your favourite month?’
Dear Friends, At this time of the year there are always multiple attempts across the media to try and summarise the year just past. For 2021 the need to try and make sense, find hope and seize on signs of optimism is not easy. Finding a way to talk about another complicated year is fraught […]
Russell’s Monthly Newsletter – February 2022 – ‘Is February your favourite month?’
Dear Friends, If you ask most people to name their favourite month, I suspect few people will suggest it is February. The days are still short, the temperature cold and, traditionally, the cupboard will be extremely bare as it will have been raided throughout the earlier months of winter. So for most, February is a […]
Russell’s Monthly Newsletter – November 2021 – ‘Do you like Autumn?’
Dear Friends, Do you like Autumn? For me it is a time of hard work – both in the church (November is always a busy month as we mark Remembrance and then move quickly on to the start of Advent) and in Fairoak Close it is the time of year when we are trying to […]
Russell’s Monthly Newsletter – September 2021 – ‘A New Academic Year ……’
Dear Friends, How is it September already? They say time flies when you are enjoying yourself. Perhaps that phrase needs to be reworded to say: time flies when you are dealing with a global pandemic! At least with the start of a new academic year we can begin to see signs that life at church […]
Russell’s Monthly Newsletter – July 2021 – ‘United Reformed Church’s Vision2020 initiative – 10+ years on’
Dear Friends, In my report to the Annual Church Meeting, I referred to the United Reformed Church’s Vision2020 initiative launched over 10 years ago. I reminded myself – and, perhaps, you – that the programme included a list of priorities for mission with the challenge that, in each area, the denomination, including each local congregation, […]
Russell’s Monthly Newsletter – June 2021 – ‘Trinity’
Dear Friends, Rawan Anani is a Palestinian artist whose colourful paintings evoke her love for her homeland and its culture. Recently, ‘Roots’ magazine drew my attention to her recently painted ’Gaza in my heart’ which shows three women standing in the waters off Gaza closely drawn together and set against a backcloth of a traditional […]
Russell’s Newsletter – Christian Aid May 2021
Dear Friends, For more than a generation, Christian Aid Week has been a primary focus during May. In one of the largest mobilisations of a volunteer work force anywhere, people from so many different backgrounds delivered envelopes to as many households in the country as possible and then returned to collect donations to bring hope […]