Dear friends,<\/p>\n
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, remembering Jesus coming to us, and that you managed to find time among the busy-ness of this season to take time to relax and recuperate.<\/p>\n
I also hope you have found yourselves blessed as we begin this new year of 2017. For many, 2016 was a difficult year, and some may be glad to see the back of it. You may be looking ahead to 2017 full of expectant hope, believing this will be a better year. Unfortunately, we have no guarantees of this: only God truly knows what lies in store for us. This, of course, brings us comfort; but it can also be a little unsettling. None of us truly know what our futures hold.<\/p>\n
It is with that in mind that we began 2017 in ClincarthillChurch by focusing on Psalm 46, specifically the following verse:<\/p>\n
\u201cGod is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.\u201d (Psalm 46:1 NIVUK)<\/b><\/p>\n
This is a very important verse for me. It reminds me that the God in whom we believe is one of comfort: we can approach Him and find in Him safety and security. He gives us strength, and helps us through those things with which we struggle. And, perhaps most importantly, He is always with us! No matter what 2017 holds, this is the reality of God, and I hope and pray you find in Him these things.<\/p>\n
This year in ClincarthillChurch, our main priority is discerning what kind of Church God needs us to be in this community. I believe this is the right thing for us to do for two reasons. Firstly, I believe God has a specific purpose for us, and we need to listen to Him to know what that is.\u00a0 Secondly, our community has specific needs, and we need to know what these are before we can respond to them, as God requires us to do.<\/p>\n
While we are taking this time to reflect together, I wonder if we can make Psalm 46:1 our verse for the year, and allow it to shape everything we do as a Church. Can our Church be a place in our community where people find refuge and strength? Will we be present to those who need help? And, ultimately, will we point to the one who is the ultimate source of refuge and strength, and who is truly ever-present in times of trouble?<\/p>\n
These are challenging questions, but I hope we can say a collective \u201cyes!\u201d as we focus ourselves and our work on God for this coming year. God bless you!<\/p>\n
Stuart Love<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear friends, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, remembering Jesus coming to us, and that you managed to find time among the busy-ness of this season to take…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8z2vw-fv","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1536,"url":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/ministers-letter-dec-2017\/","url_meta":{"origin":961,"position":0},"title":"Minister’s Letter – Dec 2017","author":"admin","date":"5 December 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cIn your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":931,"url":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/ministers-letter-nov-2016\/","url_meta":{"origin":961,"position":1},"title":"Minister’s Letter – Nov 2016","author":"admin","date":"7 November 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear friends, Firstly, let me offer sincere thanks from myself and Ruth, for your warm and kind welcome into your congregation! We have been truly delighted by your friendliness, and we look forward to getting to know each of you over the coming months. It will take us a little\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1461,"url":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/ministers-letter-oct-2017\/","url_meta":{"origin":961,"position":2},"title":"Minister’s Letter – Oct 2017","author":"Stuart Love","date":"11 October 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"12Therefore, as God\u2019s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14And over all these virtues put on love, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2075,"url":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/ministers-letter-january-2019\/","url_meta":{"origin":961,"position":3},"title":"Minister’s Letter – January 2019","author":"Stuart Love","date":"6 January 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.(1st Corinthians 10:31 NIVUK) The question, \u201cwhy?\u201d is an important one. It is often one of the most basic questions a person can ask. Children will ask things like, \u201cwhy is the sky\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Minister's Letters"","block_context":{"text":"Minister's Letters","link":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/ministers-letters\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/letter_wide-114373157624ef432f57452b56c2eb19289fd314.jpg?fit=1200%2C674&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/letter_wide-114373157624ef432f57452b56c2eb19289fd314.jpg?fit=1200%2C674&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/letter_wide-114373157624ef432f57452b56c2eb19289fd314.jpg?fit=1200%2C674&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/letter_wide-114373157624ef432f57452b56c2eb19289fd314.jpg?fit=1200%2C674&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/letter_wide-114373157624ef432f57452b56c2eb19289fd314.jpg?fit=1200%2C674&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2178,"url":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/ministers-letter-march-2019\/","url_meta":{"origin":961,"position":4},"title":"Minister’s Letter – March 2019","author":"admin","date":"12 March 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! All this is from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Minister's Letters"","block_context":{"text":"Minister's Letters","link":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/ministers-letters\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/letter_wide-114373157624ef432f57452b56c2eb19289fd314.jpg?fit=1200%2C674&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/letter_wide-114373157624ef432f57452b56c2eb19289fd314.jpg?fit=1200%2C674&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/letter_wide-114373157624ef432f57452b56c2eb19289fd314.jpg?fit=1200%2C674&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/letter_wide-114373157624ef432f57452b56c2eb19289fd314.jpg?fit=1200%2C674&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/letter_wide-114373157624ef432f57452b56c2eb19289fd314.jpg?fit=1200%2C674&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":950,"url":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/ministers-letter-dec-2016\/","url_meta":{"origin":961,"position":5},"title":"Minister’s Letter – Dec 2016","author":"admin","date":"11 December 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear friends, As difficult as it is to believe, it has been over a month since I took up post as minister of Clincarthill Parish Church! I have to say that, from my perspective, the last month has flown by: it almost feels like I haven\u2019t had a moment to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":962,"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions\/962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}