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We can’t fathom now that we will eventually experience stratospheric joy despite the depth of the
despair preceding it, but that is the greater story.

When we step into these forty days as people of faith, we do so while having the end in mind, and
so the pain we encounter in the gospels is always tempered by the knowledge of the glorious
morning we know is coming.

It will be a path woven through doubt, grief, fear, and hopelessness, but we know how it ends,
and that helps.
We understand that the journey to the empty tomb always passes through the desperate garden
prayers, through the brutal chaos of the cross, and through the absolute certainty that all is in-
deed lost – but that is never the last word.

I imagine this declaration isn’t so easy regarding the current burdens you carry and the battles
you wage right in this moment. Today, take solace in remembering that this isn’t the end of the
story, that it may simply be the struggle in the windshield. Soon it will be in the rear view.

Martyn Neads

6. Administrator’s Report 2023

Well! I don’t think anyone could argue with my comment that 2022 has been a year like no other
that I can recall.

My report to you is somewhat curtailed as I have only been the Administrator since December -
just 3 months. What has become apparent is that the role that we used to call Church Secretary
bears very little resemblance to the now grandefied title of Administrator.

Back in December I offered to become the Administrator of this Church - this was to help to get
us back on to level footing - working together as a family. I’m not sure yet what is expected, and I
believe there are things that I have yet to find out.

We are like a dysfunctional family; one group not working with another and some individuals ‘bad
mouthing’ others. THIS MUST STOP. We cannot profess God’s loving nature if we continue to
work in a fractured family environment.

Sometimes it takes the family Grandfather to bash heads together. I have the age and the white
hair to do this. The ill feeling amongst some (and it is only a few) must stop. There is no place in
this church for such attitudes.

Your Elders DO work hard for you and much of what they do around the Church goes unnoticed,
often unrecorded and not always appreciated. So, I take this opportunity to thank all Elders for
their efforts, not just over the last year but also over the decades that they, and others, have
served you.

As a matter of curtesy could you please let the Elders know of any initiatives you are undertaking
on behalf of, or at, the Church. They have ultimate responsibility and should not find out about
these things after everyone else. Basic courtesy please.

I would like to express my thanks to Martin Barnett. Martin’s job title is Book-Keeper although you
won’t be surprised to learn that he is doing so much more than this. Thank you Martin we do
appreciate all that you do.

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