River Wissey Lovell Fuller

Rector's Letter

November 2001

Enthuse

God is good. God is loving and powerful, able to transform every part of us. But we are timid. We in the Church are timid even though we know that we are filled with the Spirit of God. We are afraid to speak out for fear of sounding self-righteous. We should never be self-righteous but neither should we be afraid to share the insight into life that daily living close to God now and over the centuries has brought us.

But we have been timid. We have given the impression that we don't believe in anything very much; that nothing is important enough for us to be passionate about. But this is untrue. We in the Church, individually and together, care passionately about education, health, government, law and order, international conflict, the environment, poverty, injustice, race, religious tolerance ... and the list goes on and on. We care because we know that all of these must be addressed if all people are to live a full and fulfilled life as God intends. So we are also enthusiastic about beauty, art and ways to celebrate and be happy.

But we have been timid so now there are only a few of us still active in our beautiful mediaeval Churches. Whether we grow in numbers or not we will not be timid anymore.

Whether you are a believer or not, I wish you God's blessing.

Revd Nigel Tuffnell

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