June 2018 Dear Friends, From the rising of the sun to its setting, your name be praised, O Light of the World! Truly, Jesus Christ is our sun of righteousness. He is a sun which never sets, he is a light which no one can extinguish. Summer means sun. The sea is warm and welcoming. […]
Russell’s monthly newsletter – February 2018
February 2018 Dear Friends, It is a familiar story: a man, born in humble beginnings, knows he is destined for something greater. No, not the story of Jesus, but the story of 19th Century circus entrepreneur P. T. Barnum in the film The Greatest Showman. Bearing in mind this is Hollywood – and a musical […]
Russell’s monthly newsletter – Easter 2018
March 2018 Dear Friends, The ultimate disgrace today, it seems, is to be called a loser. You cannot sink lower than that. To be labelled a loser is to be consigned to derision, to be avoided by the crowd, to be friendless and hopeless. We live in a world of winners and there is no […]
Russell’s monthly newsletter – February 2018
February 2018 Dear Friends, It is a familiar story: a man, born in humble beginnings, knows he is destined for something greater. No, not the story of Jesus, but the story of 19th Century circus entrepreneur P. T. Barnum in the film The Greatest Showman. Bearing in mind this is Hollywood – and a musical […]
Russell’s monthly newsletter – January 2018
January 2018 Dear Friends, So the decorations are dispatched to the loft for another 11 months and we journey into a new year wondering what joys and trials lie ahead. According to my horoscope 2018 will be…. It is easy to dismiss any such forecast as a piece of magical mumbo-jumbo – but given the […]
Russell’s monthly newsletter – December 2017
December 2017 Dear Friends, My dictionary defines a paradox as something which appears to be absurd, but is actually true. Really gripping thrillers grab your attention by means of paradox. And the story of Christmas is full of it. The events in the ‘little town of Bethlehem’ seem quite disproportionate to such a world-shattering event […]
Russell’s monthly newsletter – July 2017
July 2017 Dear Friends, Below is part of my address to this year’s AGM: I have been struggling in the last couple of weeks to know what to say this morning. It would be misleading to stand here and pretend all is well with the church and the world. It is clearly not. Recent terrorist […]
Russell’s monthly newsletter – May 2017
May 2017 Dear Friends, Sitting in our favourite ‘watering-hole’ looking out at the Mediterranean Sea whilst on holiday in Spain after Easter, life seemed calm and stress free. Then Ross announced, having seen the news pop up on one his social media apps, that the Prime Minister was going to call a snap election and […]
Russell’s March 2017 Newsletter
March 2017 Dear Friends, A few weeks ago, in the depths of a cold January morning, someone confessed to me: ‘I can’t wait for spring’. I had to agree with them. Leaving home on the school run entirely dependent on the car’s headlights to guide me, knowing that by the time Ross comes home at […]
Russell’s New Year’s newsletter
January 2017 Dear Friends, Nicola, Cameron and Ross join me in thanking you for all your good and kind wishes at Christmas and join me in sending you greetings for 2017. They didn’t put up blue plaques in Biblical times. If they did, there would have been one in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, ‘King […]