It’s all about love

Holy Trinity Church, Huddersfield, Sunday 7 April 2019

40 Blogs of Lent: 29

A different week at church today, the church APCM, that’s Annual Parochial Church Meeting,which is the churches Meeting where the last year is reviewed, and plans for the future is announced. It has been a good year, congregations have increased in number, more money is coming in and the books balanced in the black. The big news going forward is the week of mission we are having in June this yearbook celebrate 200 years as a church, under the title Shine. I have reserved a week on this blog to report it. Watch this space.

There was a service as well, at the time of the early traditional service that preceded the Church Meeting. There the shorter than usual sermon gave a taste of what was to cone later, being about love, and using the church’s strap line, Loving God, Loving Huddersfield.

These are points that Vicar Mike made there.

Regular air travellers will know the pre take off safety talks. How to locate the emergency doors There is a right order, if you get it wrong others will be at risk.

First love God.

Second love your neighbour.

God is lavish with his love and God is love. We respond by us loving God. By giving ourselves in 24/7 worship, that is loving God with all that we are.

Loving God comes first, after that we are able to love other people. It becomes instinctive to love others if we love God. (My thoughts, not in the sermon, were on love of self, loving others as we love ourselves means we need to have an image of ourselves as loved by God. Loving God helps us, eventually to find this. Tangent over, back to the sermon.)

The other great command is spread God’s message to the rest of the world. It is how we share God’s love. Our loving could be a word of kindness or an invitation. In that way playing our part in the renewal of all things.

God’s love is beyond knowledge. As we live in that love may we begin to love others as he has loved us.

What had the greatest impression on me in the service and Church Meeting though we’re coloured post it notes. We were all asked to write three words on a yellow post-it that described how we felt about the church, something we had contributed on a pink post-it and something the church was doing well and not so well on two separate green post-its. Then stick them on different places on the wall. It was good to reflect.

Family. A word that I noticed on several of the notes about what Holy Trinity church means to people.