Dear Friends,

It was a great delight for me last Sunday to be leading live worship face to face with a real congregation for the first time in twenty months. Zoom has great advantages, but it cannot replace the immediacy and the sense of occasion which happens when people gather in the same place to worship God.

Dear Friends,

It is a great pleasure to be among you again, and this year for the months of July and August. But it is also a sad occasion as this marks the end of Lance's ministry in the English Reformed Church. I was glad to be invited to share in his last service, but sorry that I could not stay for the picnic. I was last in the church and first out on Sunday, as I had promised the Dutch authorities to keep back from close contact until I had had a Covid Test. This happened on Tuesday and the result was negative. But the very kind representative of the GGD who phoned the good news to me, suggested that I should not do much mixing for another ten days.

Dear Friends,

I feel very sad to be writing this last weekly letter to you and making preparations for my last service on Sunday. I keep thinking how different it would be if we were not in pandemic and if we were just planning a normal, unrestricted morning service. I am delighted though that there is a gathering after the service outside in the Begijnhof (weather permitting) and I do hope that this will be a good time of fellowship and of being together, in some cases maybe for the first time for a long while. For details please see the website.

Dear Friends,

As you can imagine, Sally and I have been preparing for our move and for the second time in 7 years have been 'downsizing' - i.e. getting rid of stuff. Having to pack up all our possessions to transport them back to the UK provides an opportunity to dispose of excess baggage - things we no longer need, especially when the flat we will be moving into in London is considerably smaller than our spacious apartment here. It's a good discipline. The Bible features people on the move: the Israelites in the desert, the disciples on the road, Paul travelling round the ancient world to evangelise.

Dear Friends,

Greetings to you once more at the end of week in which quite a bit of my time has gone into preparing for a return to church this Sunday of at least a limited congregation. It's frustrating that numbers continue to have to be kept down - but a joy nevertheless to anticipate some 'live' fellowship and seeing one another face to face. We are working hard to make sure that as many of you as possible can attend as often as possible in the next three weeks and we're taking this one week at a time. Early next week I will be contacting those who have applied for seats next Sunday, June 27th, and letting you know if you will be able to come.

Dear Friends,

This week I would like to make a big plug for the third of our Summer Prom concerts this Sunday, June 13th, in support of the Mulanje Mission Hospital in Malawi. The concert features Café de Chansons and special guests in a programme of French popular song. Café de Chansons played the Mulanje Mission Hospital Concert a couple of years ago and were absolutely wonderful. The concert will go up on our website at 13.00 hrs and I thoroughly recommend that you access it at some point.

Dear Friends,

Greetings to you as another week rolls by - and we are one week closer to opening up our church for limited numbers and subject to Covid regulations.

As I mentioned in an earlier letter, we are proposing to open the church from Sunday June 20th. My last service will be July 4th and the plan is therefore to invite anyone who so wishes to register for Sundays June 20th, June 27th and / or July 4th. Depending upon how many people government regulations allow, Consistory will then allocate people to each of these three Sundays, trying to ensure that everyone gets a chance to attend at least once. Current regulations stipulate 30 physically distanced people but that might increase in the next few weeks.

Dear Friends,

I have spent much of the past week attending the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland via Zoom, listening to many debates concerning the future of our denomination. Our Scriba, Heleen, was also a Commissioner on this occasion. It was not an entirely joyful experience.The Church of Scotland, like many denominations, is in severe decline with many problems of finances, membership, recruitment of ministers etc. It is good, therefore, that the General Assembly always takes place around the time of Pentecost - which we celebrated last Sunday - as, especially in recent years when the news of the state of the church has not been good - it is important to remember that the church was launched 2000 years ago with just a tiny group of inadequate people. Through the power of the Holy Spirit great things happened.

Dear Friends,

Greetings to you all and I hope this finds you well.

This coming Sunday is Pentecost, when we recall how shortly after Jesus' ascension the wind of the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples, transforming them and sending them out on their mission to the world. The Holy Spirit is spoken of in John's Gospel as the Comforter - one who brings strength to the vulnerable and I do pray that you will know something of that Spirit strength in these difficult times.

Dear Friends,

A few matters for this week:

1) at our Consistory meeting this week we decided that, all being well and if things continue as they are, we will be opening the church for a limited congregation on Sunday June 20th. At present we can't be sure how big the congregation can be - currently it would be 30 but it might have increased by then, so we will have to monitor the situation.