A message from our pastor:

My Dear Friends,

Perhaps it's just a sign of advancing age, but to me, it seems that the year has only just begun and yet here we are with Easter only about a month away already. At the end of last year, I had very clear ideas about what I wanted to get done in the early months of 2006 but somehow, others things cropped up and I suppose that I must have been distracted somewhere along the way because those things still remain undone.

Sorting through a somewhat overcrowded cupboard at home recently I came across an electric train set. There were four engines, yards of track, carriages, a level crossing and all sorts of other bits and pieces and I remembered where it had come from. About fifteen years ago (while I was still growing up) I thought I would like to build a model railway. If necessary, it would even take over the spare room and it would be the envy of all who beheld it. And so, in fulfilment of my dream I started collecting the necessary parts including track layouts and wiring circuits. But somehow, along the way, it all came to nothing and so finished up, unloved and neglected, in a cupboard.

To my mind, one of the saddest and most forlorn verses in the Bible is John 6:66 where it says: 'From this time, many of Jesus' disciples turned back and no longer followed him' (NIV). Basically, they too had simply lost interest. The use of the word `disciples' is interesting though because it indicates that these folk, whoever they were, must have made some considerable investment of their time and effort in following Jesus and his teaching and now they decided tolet it all go - possibly other matters claimed their attention. But, whatever, they abandoned their journey with Jesus and drifted off.

Elsewhere in the Gospels we have Jesus' own words: `He who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God' (Luke 9:62) which, in it's turn also points to those who, in one way or another, had let other matters claim their attention instead.

A part of our journey is now complete, Lent is shortly over, and we begin the last stage of our journey with the Lord as he moves resolutely on His way to the Cross. It is a spiritual journey that, as a Fellowship, we all make together and one that we will, I pray, finish together.

However, as we know from past experience, it is not always an easy journey to make; other distractions are always on the path ready to divert us and claim our attention and, of course, the way can be hard and difficult. Therefore, more than ever, we now need to support each other in our prayers day by day so that as our Lord enters on the final stage of His journey, a journey that is made for our salvation, we also will make it with Him and then be there to greet Him on Easter morning - together as a Fellowship with not one soul lost or fallen on the way. May we all celebrate a joyous Easter together.

Who knows. I might have another go at that model railway!

Geoffrey Griggs, Pastor.

This article first appeared in the Ramsden Bellhouse Baptist Church Review - Spring 2006 Edition.