At about 11.05am on Sunday morning I settled down with a coffee at a Greggs – somewhere beside the A303 – somewhere between Devon and Cambridgeshire. I clicked the link to the live stream hoping to catch a few minutes of the service. Clearly there were a number of significant technical issues on Sunday morning, and I want to thank our current team, particularly Debbie and Anne, who do such a great job – not only presenting the slides in the room but also making sure that the live stream goes out. Their job has got significantly more challenging since July. Like so many things in life, it goes unnoticed until it goes wrong. But each time something unexpected happens we learn a little more! 
If you would like to be a part of this team then please do get in touch – training will be provided. Also, thank you so much to Mandy who re-recorded her sermon for us on Monday, as we used to do back in the days of pre-recorded services. This is now available on YouTube if you haven’t seen it already. You’ll find it here. 
As we have seen already in this series, Jesus is interested in our attitudes, our motives, our desires. And this week the focus was very much on our attitude to money. How much is my happiness, my contentment, my peace, my security wrapped up in what I have. Would I feel any less secure about the future if I didn’t own my own home or have a good pension? Would I feel more secure about the future if I did own my own home or had a good pension? Where does my security actually lie? Mandy quoted from Psalm 62:10b, ‘though your riches increase, do not set your heart on them’ and asked a question about our response to a promotion, a pay rise, an unexpected gift. Do we celebrate that our standard of living can increase? Or do we celebrate that we have more to give? 
I was reminded of the story of John Wesley whose attitude towards money can be summed up as ‘Gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can’. Whilst working in Oxford (in the 1700s) Wesley earned about £30 a year. His living expenses were £28 and he gave away £2. When his earnings increased to £60 he continued to live off £28 and gave away £32. Wesley continued this practise throughout the course of his life. Eventually his income was to increase to about £1,400 a year – he lived off £30 and gave the rest away. He apparently became well known for his saying, ‘What should rise is not the Christian’s standard of living but their standard of giving’! A challenging testimony. 
We have heard a lot recently about the cost-of-living crisis and the dramatic rise in energy bills. People forced to make the choice between eating and heating. The continued rise in the use of foodbanks. I was struck by Mandy’s challenge at the end of her sermon which started something like, ‘no matter how difficult it may get…’, and referencing the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego moments before they were thrown into the fiery furnace. Am I going to trust God? Am I going to put my faith in God? Am I going to remain kingdom focused? No matter how difficult it may get? | 