Rivertown United Reformed Church

“Because I love them”

Greetings! It is so good to have settled among you. We are already starting to feel “at home”! And once again, many many thanks for all the wonderful expressions of goodwill – and all the hard and generous work that has gone into making the Manse such a lovely home. Thank you very much indeed!

It happened on a beach in Tenby, not long before we moved. We were 4 – Joanna our daughter, Ruth and I, and of course, 12 year old dog Toby. As we played with him on the beach, a couple came up to us and asked “Does your dog moult a lot?” “All the time!” I replied, “he must grow it again very quickly – and thickly – otherwise he would have been bald years ago!”

We are now truly in Autumn, as the green turns to beautiful shades of red, yellow, orange and gold. So many of the trees that have given shade and beauty – often because of, rather than in spite of, the almost record-breakingly wet summer, are beginning their God-given winter rest. It seems nothing is happening – nothing we can see, save the tiniest of buds appearing. Buds that, strangely, are already there well before the dead leave fall to the ground. The trees, stripped of their glory, are preparing - or being prepared - for the new beginning in spring. If they did not shed their leaves – just like our Toby constantly sheds his hairy coat – both would either be overburdened with leaves or hair that they couldn’t sustain – leaves and hair that would get older and older and unbearably tatty (to use a Scouse word!). In the same way God works constantly with us and within us, removing the “chaff” of our lives so that we may not waste our energies, physically or spiritually, on what is neither profitable for us nor good for the world. So that we don’t end up exhausted, but have a chance to review our priorities, to regain our energies. Holidays were originally “Holy Days”, weren’t they?

God knows our limits, and has said we will none of us be asked to do more than, with God’s help, we are able to cope with. Sometimes it seems nothing is happening. Don’t you believe it! Just now the world is in a state of alarm. I say the world – I mean a very large number of the “haves”.. The “have-nots”, who daily scrape a meagre living to survive, will be too busy, to far from the world’s financial superstructures, to know what is happening. Pray God they at least will be spared its effects. But what’s happening – surely the comparatively affluent are being stripped bare of their excesses, so that they may realise again who they, whom they are here to serve. We hear of confessions – of commission-based property sales. But in all this God is at work – and maybe the greedy will in time produce what the Bible describes as “fruits of repentance”, in the form of a more responsible code of practice.

Here in Garden City, Northop Hall and Rivertown you have been 3 years without a minister – not exactly a “holiday”! And we as a family had for 2 years been seeking a pastorate – the one where God wanted us. Had nothing been happening all that time? No – for, as always, God is able to do what we cannot, through the lives and actions of others and the Holy Spirit. Perhaps we have all learned that God’s hand upon us is stronger than we thought. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:16: “So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.” So I am confident that, together, we can do great things for God – and expect great things from God. Roll on the future! Bless you all,

Colin, Ruth – and of course, Toby dog!