Dear Friends

I wonder if you ventured out into the post-Christmas sales this year? I’m not very good at going to the sales. I need to be really interested in something specific I want to buy or encouraged to go by someone else. Huge crowds and goods piled high just overface me, even if they are bargains! Probably my heart isn’t in it, and I come home feeling deflated and rather despairing.

In contrast to this, before Christmas I went to another large gathering of people, most of whom I did not know and came away with a sense of hope. It wasn’t blind optimism, but the kind of active hope that required each person at the gathering to do what they could and to inspire others towards a better future for us all.

The gathering was to launch the Bradford Faiths Forum, which took place in the Banqueting Suite at Bradford City Football Club. Clearly lots of hard work had been going on behind the scenes for several years in order to get to this point. A variety of good speakers, including some young people who were very inspiring, spoke up for the Forum; its roots, its potential for good, its opportunities and Fiona Mactaggart MP,Parliamentary Secretary for Race Equality, Community Policy and Civil Renewal reminded us of the ways in which government is beginning to recognize faith communities as potential partners involved in valuable work in the community. The recent internal government report revealed that for many people of faith, what they believe is an important part of their identity; shaping their values and their behaviour, as a mark of what is important in the world.

I came home heartened by the experience of being with people of other faiths and hearing how we are making a joint commitment to stand together, committed to the Bradford District and positive about its future. (The full Statement of Intent of the Faiths Forum is given overleaf).

This is not an easy thing to take on in Menston. Our location means that we have local government links with Bradford and Leeds, as well as other smaller neighbouring communities. Our Methodist neighbours are part of the Leeds District whilst we are part of the Diocese of Bradford. It would be easy to allow political and other sorts of boundaries to prevent the building up of important relationships, networks and getting to know our neighbour better.

We now live in a global world, in which we cannot afford to ignore the needs, gifts, faith and culture of others. I believe that our need to depend on one another will grow rather than diminish across the years to come. Even if we are not altruistic, we should be motivated at a most basic level by our own self-interest. If this interdependence is to progress, we need to go on building relationships of trust; towards greater understanding and the breaking down of fear and false barriers, towards more mutual and loving relationships.

This feels like a hopeful place to be at the beginning of 2005.

I hope this is a special year for you, in which you have cause to be hopeful.

Yours in Christ,

Ruth