Thought for the Day by Phil Moon (Vicar) Does the future exhaust you? In Daniel 8, Daniel has just had a vision of the distant future, and he was exhausted by it. He then goes on to say that ”I was appalled by the vision; it was beyond understanding.” (That last part almost certainly means “it was too big to grasp.”) It just made me think if we might not be in a similar situation. Does the future exhaust and appall you? Perhaps a second wave? Perhaps the constant pivoting to change the way we ‘do church’? Perhaps the thought that church might not be quite the same ever again. Perhaps the horrible thought that there may be more times coming up when we can’t see our parents/children/grandchildren/grandparents. If so, I think you’re in good company. Daniel’s company. And for Daniel, after he had rested, he went back to work. He plodded on. So how come he managed to do that? The passage (Daniel 8) is pretty clear: God is in control of all world history; He controls the future; He knows how much we can cope with; He sustains us especially when we can’t sustain ourselves. So if the future exhausts you, turn to the One who carries the future in the palm of His hand. Daniel 8:27 “I, Daniel, was worn out. I lay exhausted for several days. Then I got up and went about the king’s business. I was appalled by the vision; it was beyond understanding.” Phil We're Back - by Phil Moon (Vicar) ,Next Sunday, 12 July, morning services will begin again at BH. We’ll still do the online services at 10.00 and 6.30 but we’ll also be doing a service at 9.00am each Sunday in the BH building. It will normally be a communion service, and with strict social distancing (2m) it means that numbers will be limited to between 20 and 60, depending on whether it’s all single people coming or many people wanting to come from larger households. For this Sunday, 12 July, you will be contacted with priority given to regular 8am service attendees. Going forward, as numbers are limited, you’ll need to book via MyChurchSuite, and we’ll send you some important information for the service. Bookings for Sunday 19 July will open on Monday (further information to follow). If you are shielding, it’s much the best thing for you NOT to come and if you’re 70 or over and / or with a pre-existing health condition, please consider carefully the wisdom of coming. We won’t stop you, but we do ask people to be cautious! When you arrive, you’ll be asked to use sanitising hand gel (and again when you leave), you’ll be directed to a particular seat (please don’t use another one – that will muck up our seating plan!) We aren’t allowed to sing, and at communion it will be bread only, but we will have a decent sermon, and remember Jesus’ death for us. And at the end we’ll be asking people to leave straight away and not to loiter about outside. That of course goes against all that we’d like to do, but we are simply following the Government and Church of England guidelines. So, it’s a step forward, and it’ll be wonderful though a bit odd to be able to meet together. Obviously it’ll be neither right nor possible for us all to meet together just yet. And as restrictions ease we’ll be allowing more to come, we hope we’ll be able to sing, and in due course we’ll be doing children’s ministry, but we’re not able to do that for at least a few weeks yet. Do please pray. Pray that some who’ve begun to come to our services online would come in person. Pray that we’d have great wisdom in gauging the safe maximum numbers we can allow in the building. Pray that everyone would be wise in their own personal decision about when it’s safe and right for them to return to church. And I do so much look forward to seeing you one Sunday morning soon. With love Phil Remember: |
Mental Health Awareness 2021
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