Dear Friends,

We had a double newsletter to cover December and January and so this is the first letter of 2025, and it comes to you at a time in our church calendar when we are listening weekly to Paul’s letters to the Hebrews and Corinthians.

Reflecting on the process of writing this ‘newsletter’ three things occurred to me

• I never think about Paul’s epistles as actual letters.
• Are parish newsletters like epistles?
• We rarely we write letters nowadays.

Some of you may be old enough to remember that moment after Christmas when as a child you had to sit down and write thank you letters, writing postcards to friends when you were on holiday, airmail letters, learning to address an envelope.

I have never thought of the letters in the bible in the same category the letters we write I have seen them more as sermons or essays, but they often include opening greetings and closing good wishes:

‘Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother. To Philemon our dear friend, to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier and to the church in your house…’ Letter to Philemon verse ‘Finally brothers and sisters, farewell, Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace….’2Cor.3.11

I invite you to pause and think for a moment what it feels like to write and to receive letters.

For me there is a substantive difference between a letter and an email, the joy of receiving a letter is quite different to the chore of checking emails. I wonder if Paul found letter writing a chore and would have embraced emails or perhaps podcasts would have been his choice. When I imagine the journey that Paul’s letters, sometimes sent from prison, to the early and disconnected Christian communities, he was working hard at maintaining connection; and I wonder if it is an art that we should cultivate and treasure.

On Sunday January 26th many of you signed a card with messages of support for Bishop Marrian Budde and I know that another outspoken Bishop, Bishop Helen Anne Hartley has received hundreds of cards of gratitude for being outspoken about the Makin report and the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Somehow posting a card or letter feels more like making a connection than whacking off an email of support. Letter and card writing has a materiality lacking in emails because we touch the paper that the recipient receives, that is a connection closer to St Paul and his papyrus.

The power of putting actual pen to actual paper is threatened by AI and the rising cost of a postage but the act of sitting down to choose carefully the words you want to send to someone you care for or concerning something you care about remains.

Could you like Paul write about your faith, do you perhaps journal or keep a diary?

Those who were confirmed over a year ago now, received a copy of this book which invites you to read and consider a psalm and then record your own response on the opposite page by putting pen to paper on the page of the book.

Maybe in this time of long evenings and miserable weather we could rekindle the art of writing in our community – could you surprise someone with a letter, a card, a postcard?