Skip to main content

'Go well! Stay well!' - A parting message from Rev Sarah

Image
By



‘Go well! Stay well!’

These are the English translation of parting words I learnt when living in Zimbabwe.

I had no idea, when I arrived in 1997, that Shipley was to be my home for the next 17 years!  And that my desire to follow God’s call to be ‘an ordinary circuit minister’ would be fulfilled in Shipley and Bingley and Bradford North Circuits.  Every ordinary person, however, is special and unique in God’s eyes, ‘I have called you my name you are mine’ (Isaiah 431) and each of us has a particular God given task to carry out. 

Sometimes, it’s only retrospectively that our task becomes clear!  As I prepare to leave, I’ve done some looking back hoping that I have been faithful to God’s will.

And the phrase that comes to mind is from John’s Gospel. Jesus says to his followers, ‘I call you servants no longer but friends.’   The time those early disciples had spent with Jesus had changed the nature of their relationship with Him and each other. They’d got to know each other, worked together: become friends.

Over the years, folk who were strangers to me have become friends. And I hope for you, people and churches, in the now established Bradford North Circuit, you are beginning to feel less like strangers and more like friends.

Friends love and respect one another. Friendship is a relationship of give and take, of support and challenge, and of straight talking and sympathetic encouragement. It is not always easy – we let each other down and don’t always live up to each other’s expectations. Some of us are easier to get on with than others!

Yet Jesus says we are to love one another as he has loved us. He was saying this to the motley crew of women and men who, after Pentecost, were fired with God’s Holy Spirit to spread the Good News of God’s love, justice and peace to the ends of the earth, beginning where they were.

And Jesus is still saying it to you and me. We are to love one another. It’s quite a tough calling. And there’s more! For we are to love our neighbour as ourselves! This calling, which is for each one of us, is set within the knowledge and experience of God’s overwhelming love for me and you.

I thank God for the friendships that have sustained me during my ministry here and I thank you all for the best wishes, gifts, support and prayers, my family and I have received.

So friends, I trust that I will ‘go well’ and you will ‘stay well’ as, in our different ways, we’ll be faithful to the ‘God we adore, our faithful unchangeable friend’.

Rev Sara

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Circuit Talents Challenge

By
"For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money ..." Matthew 25:14-30 Why don't you take up the Circuit Talents Challenge by taking a £5 note and making it grow for the Circuit? More details ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The wind among the trees

By
I sat among the trees once. And a wind was blowing. Quite a strong wind; I could hear it in the trees –   rushing, rushing. A lovely sound, soothing to my ears. I stopped what I was writing and began to listen. I remembered that Jesus said that the Holy Spirit was like   the wind. You could hear it; see its effect. But you couldn’t see the wind itself. You couldn’t see   where it was coming from, nor going to. And I wondered, “Are you showing me something about your Spirit, Lord?” So I sat, and I listened, and I watched. They were big, old trees where I sat. Tall they were, in an ancient wood, well-branched,  shapely. Beech, grey bark against the clear blue of the sky. And leaves: they were leaves that knew the wind;   leaves that let the wind know them. They looked, like beach leaves look in a wind: full of life –   and with a certain beauty all their own. I watched the great crowns of those great trees. I watched the branches sway and the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

For such times as these! - A good news story from Windhill!

By
For such times as these! (Esther 14:14) On June 1st James Stannet (from e:merge , a Christian Youth organisation) began his youth work for Christchurch LEP in Windhill. He says, "Well! June has been a really busy but very productive month. On Wednesday, in the park, numbers are climbing week by week, now averaging 25. Good partnerships have been made with local organisations. this has been a blessing: enabling us to deliver varied sport activities and build good relationships.' 'The Hope Revolution, youth event, based at Christchurch LEP was a massive hit. A BIG Thank you is expressed to the Church for the support, encouragement and prayers. 200 people attended the Fun Day. Despite the rainy weather, 100 young people took part in local projects: two house clear-ups, school garden project (Windhill Primary) and running the Fun Day. 10 Christian Organisations working together resulting in several families requesting Christian children's activities.' ...
Post a Comment
Read more