What we have to do

GOD CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN

AND HE CAME INTO THE CHURCH

AND THEN STARTED WHAT WE HAVE TO DO

I couldn’t have put it better myself. This was one of the many, many inspiring contributions that you, the people of our 3 Churches, made towards our dream of how the Church, and our churches, could be. And this response was written by a child! Incidentally, if she or he wants to come forward, there may be a little reward for such a stunning summary of what it’s all about.

Members of our two parish councils have been busy collating all your responses. They met this week to review how we are doing, and to plan the route towards a Pastoral Council for our 3 Churches. It will be the job of that body to oversee our growth towards the vision that God has given us. Our goal is to produce by Easter a neat vision of where we believe God would want us to be going, and to launch the new body with an interim group to run for six months. We hope to celebrate all this at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Maundy Thursday. But let’s get back to that child’s vision.

“God came down from heaven” Our vision must be firmly rooted in Jesus, our Lord and Saviour – this is God’s Church, not ours. The Word came into the world and became flesh, and therefore we are to put flesh on that Word for our own time and place. “Love one another as I have loved you”.

“He came into the Church” Jesus and his Father breathed their Spirit into us at Pentecost, firing up those first followers to truly be the Church of Jesus Christ. St Paul teaches us that we are nothing less than the Body of Christ. Now we are that same Church for the twenty-first century in north Cardiff.

“He started what we have to do” Brilliant. We are to do what He did! Simple, but so profound. Our vision must be that of the Gospel. The risen Jesus said, “As the Father sent me, so am I sending you”. Our agenda is His agenda...

So let’s move on together into the next part of our journey together. It started with the man whose Death and Resurrection we will celebrate in a month’s time. It is still His journey and mission, carried out through and with us. That is our privilege, that is our challenge.

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