Greetings everyone, and may Karen and I wish you all a Happy New Year.

 I wonder what kind of memories you have of 2009.  For Karen and I it was a busy year, and it seems difficult to believe that a full year has gone since I wrote last years’ piece.  I wonder whether you look back on 2009 as a good year.  Certainly there have been really encouraging signs of growth in our churches.  I write this immediately after returning from Cheadle Hulme’s wonderful Nativity service.  It is a long time since there were enough children in church to be able to hold a full cast!  Signs of growth are encouraging and we look with optimism to a new year.

Nevertheless, many will look back on the year with sorrow.  Both our church communities have mourned the loss of much loved members, and people in both congregations continue to struggle with serious health problems.  We continue to care and pray for the healing of everyone in our church communities.  We celebrate good news where we can and stand with those where we cannot.

Forgive me if I sound rather like the Queen in saying this, but New Year is a time of reflecting back, and looking forward.  It is a time when we take stock and assess the direction of our lives individually and together.

My hero Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book entitled “Life Together”, spelling out the incredible worth of Christians being able to share their lives with each other; he did so under constant harassment and persecution.  He wrote, “The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer”.

We take all this for granted, but as a community of faith we should cling together, support each other, celebrate and cry with each other.