Dear Friends

Going on holiday or being away from home means that at some point most of us will return! If this doesn’t sound too absurd, I think going away is important so that we can ‘come home’ again. It’s one of the tests of where ‘home’ is for you if you have recently moved house. I find that I come back with a different perspective to one I had before I left; often a better more balanced one, although there is no guarantee for this!

At other times we don’t get the chance to be physically away, but we mentally need to try and see something from a variety of different perspectives. One way is to imagine different scenarios. How else can we plan ahead, design and manage possibilities for the future, when things are changing.

Change is unsettling and we don’t usually look for it, but it comes and life moves on. Over the summer a small group of us have begun to plan for the time when Margaret Harvey our organist takes up her retirement. It will be a big change for her and for us. For so long ‘music’ at St John’s has meant Margaret and the choir. It is understandable and would be tempting to want more of the same, a formula which has been so successful, but our society and the community we live in is constantly changing and the church has to be willing to explore new possibilities for new times; for us all but especially where our children and young people are concerned.

Edward de Bono says in his book, New thinking for the new millennium ‘You can send ‘repeat orders’ to a mail-order house and continue to wear the same clothes as before, which may be elegant, well-cut and suit your personality. But repeat orders do not give you the possibility of change. The identification of standard situations and standard responses by the analysis and judgement habits of the last millennium do not equip us with the design thinking needed for change.’ In his book De Bono encourages his readers towards design, constructive and creative thinking.

It is not easy to think into a new situation and it is likely that this won’t be a straight forward time, so I would ask that we might be patient and gentle with one another. Forging new paths is often uncomfortable graft. Jesus and his disciples have been there before us.

We will probably have an interim period before Christmas, unless we are very fortunate to find a musician, who can come to us at short notice. This may mean that things might not be quite what we are accustomed to during this transition, but that all being well we will have music to enrich our worship as best we can. I feel excited thinking about the number of people there are with musical skills and interest in the congregation and in the village. This already feels like a time in which people are being supportive. May it draw out good things in us as we find the way forward together, so that our worship and our life continue to reveal the inspiration of God, as we make our journey by faith.

Yours in Christ,

Ruth