Welcome

Dear friends,

A very warm welcome to this service, wherever you are worshipping in the Langtree Team Ministry area. A special welcome to those who are with us for the first time, or  visiting friends and family. May our Harvest celebrations bring you joy, and hope. Today we remember and give thanks for God’s provision, and the labour and skill of everyone in the agricultural sector.

A Global Harvest and a Global Responsibility

Our schools have also been celebrating the Harvest this week, and using the opportunity to remind everyone of our global responsibilities. We are responsible to God as stewards of the Creation, and to our neighbour. Global competition for resources (water, minerals, natural products, fish stocks, fuels and precious metals) is among one of the key drivers of the world economy and improvement of living standards. But it is also among one of the key drivers of war, and environmental degradation. It is the challenge of our time to square this circle. Christians have a vital contribution to make, in that both divine power, and divine humility are expressed, without conflict, in the person of Jesus Christ. This theology offers a unique route through the impasse, and leads us to a vision of sustainable living, which is unafraid to use technology, but is not mastered by it.

Please remember in your prayers Joshua Billig and Alicia Holder, who are to be married at Checkendon next Saturday. May their marriage be life-giving and lifelong.

Thank you to St Leonard’s, Woodcote

Finally thank you to all those of you who came to the Team service last Sunday, and to the congregation at St Leonard’s Woodcote for the warmth of your welcome and kind hospitality. Isn’t it  good to know that, even in small corners like ours, there is still joy to be found?

May the Lord bless you and keep you

Revd Canon Kevin Davies

PS The puzzlers among you will have noticed that, in the penultimate sentence of my missive last week, five hymns were to be found.