Some of you may be noticing a whole raft of changes around here at the moment. First of all, the new notice board at church… then new leaders appointed… now a new website and new look blog to deal with. You may well be feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all. (I certainly am!)

Dave was at pains to remind us on Saturday that the changes we are experiencing do not actually mean we are ‘under new management‘, since God remains in control of His church in Goldthorpe and God never changes. (Mal 3:6 TNIV) In that respect, the French proverb ‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’ is perhaps applicable here! (‘The more things change, the more they stay the same…‘) Nonetheless, change is all around us and we can either embrace it and allow it to shape growth within us or we can resist it and draw back. My prayer is that we learn to do the former, for, as Eugene Peterson says, ‘change can be a catalyst for growth. It can stimulate developing, deepening, lengthening, enlarging – our lives becoming more, not less.’ (‘Leap Over A Wall’, P 135)

The context for that quote is David becoming king over Israel many years after he was initially anointed by Samuel. At the age of thirty, he is finally anointed king and he makes Jerusalem the capital city, thereafter forever known as the ‘City of David.’ In the Message version, 2 Sam 5:10 reads ‘David proceeded with a longer stride, a larger embrace since the God-of-the-Angel-Armies was with him.’

The change reflects all God had done in David’s life. He had not become embittered by the long hostility of Saul, nor had he become paranoid about the Philistines or terrified for his own safety during all those years in exile and on the run. ‘All the conflict and hostility, all those blessings and wonders, all that hate and love metabolised into a holy life, a life robust in God and prayer and obedience. He lengthened his stride; he enlarged his embrace.’ (ibid.)

We hope you like the new look of the church website and are grateful to Gary Burgin and Mark Wood for their hard work in updating both the style and the content of this. We are now working more with WordPress, for those of you who may be interested in such things and we hope to keep this much more up-to-date in future. It’s still a work in progress, with new content being added on a daily basis, and please let us know what you like about it and what you find difficult (font colours, styles etc.) We are hoping to have audio sermons on the website in the near future so you can listen to sermons as well as reading summaries here on the blog. But these things, whilst vital and useful to any church in the 21st century, can only be catalysts for growth. We are praying that every change facilitates growth and acts as a spur to growth, for we know that God’s word to us at the start of 2014 is ‘Grow up!’ We want to be ‘transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.’ (2 Cor 3:18 TNIV) so that we reflect the beauty of the Lord and can be used to draw many more people into His family.