Hello – Rev Will

Rev Will Hunter

93 Blackpool Old Road

Poulton-le-Fylde

FY6 7RG

01253 883736

willhunter001@outlook.com

Sunday 30.08.20.

Hi Everyone

It’s good to have arrived! Thank you so much for the warmth of your welcome; your cards and gifts of food and flowers, we already feel very much at home. We left the Manchester area on Thursday in torrential rain on the M61 but by yesterday (Saturday) were basking in sunshine walking along the coast on the Costa del Bispham!

Moving to a new house is a strange experience and makes me very aware of how much ‘stuff’ we accumulate over the years and how much we keep ‘just in case’. Maybe those 80 boxes could have been reduced to 40! The gospel has something to say to us here with its call to simplicity and above all a focus on people rather than possessions!

I cannot claim to have been doing a lot of sermon preparation in the last week but glancing at the lectionary for the 6th September I notice it is all about seeing things how they really are and boldly speaking the truth to one another when we fall into sin. This is certainly challenging for traditional British values of politeness and reserve.

Brit abroad: “If it’s not too much trouble could you kindly pass the salt…thank you so much”

Mainland Europe/Middle East “Pass the salt”

Getting beyond differences of culture, however, Jesus is warning his hearers that religion is not at all a private matter and that we are truly, deeply accountable to one another. We all have blind spots and Jesus is saying that we need each other’s help to become aware of them. This is not the dreaded ‘I’m just telling you the truth in love’ scenario (I’m using the cover of Ephesians 4v15 to give you the right knee of fellowship and let you know my prejudices) but rather a genuine concern for the other person and where their actions are leading.

Our task over the coming years is not to become more efficient or better organised (though these are not bad things in themselves) but to become more human, more compassionate which is in fact to become more Christ-like! We may actually discover we need to laugh more and have fun together for the sheer heck of it!

Please bear with us as we spend the next 6 months forgetting your names and not recognising you in the street and above all don’t feel you ever have to be on you best behaviour with us! We look forward to getting to know you all over the coming months.

With love from Box City,

Will & Pat x