We are a lovely small church with a very welcoming atmosphere and our vicar of over seven years retired last month, so we are within that period of time now known as vacancy.

Like countless many who have experienced vacancy, we celebrate the time we had with a very lively vibrant spiritual leader, we mourn her loss to the family of St Peters and we rebuild, refocus, recruit and move onward with our spiritual life.

For we are a family and what more testing time is there than the period of change we now face.

The team leading the parish will now show the depth of their Christian compassion and faith as we celebrate God’s creation and his son Jesus Christ whose life example means so much to so many. He grew a family around him. A disparate group Jewish and Gentile who pulled together to help lead us to the church we celebrate being members of today.

We will grow as individuals as we internalise what was said for example in Ecclesiates, “for everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.”

One hopes that we can support individual members of our family, that we hold their anxiety and concerns, keeping our church as a safe and secure haven for all.

I do not often appreciate graffiti, but a piece I would reflect on as I drove along the Hogs Back, has only recently been painted over. There is a bridge or a retaining wall where the phrase, “know that you are deeply cherished” has recently been painted over.

No obscenity, just to my eyes a clear and sincere message that we should all carry within, but so often we lose sight of.

Change then is very upsetting to many people and what better way to support people than to show compassion.

We can do no better than follow the advice of Paul in his letter to the church in Galatia, chapter six, “bear one another’s burdens and in this way you will full fill the law of Christ.”

For if we bear one another’s burdens we must surely then feel deeply cherished.