Family history has become increasingly popular in recent years partly due to the BBC series 'Who do you think you are' in which a celebrity goes on a journey to trace their family tree. 

 

A sense of identity and 'who we are' is important to all of us, but it is also important to us as a church. Having a strong sense of identity and purpose helps all of us in that we know what the church stands for in terms of its values and its mission.

 

It is good that people feel at 'home' at SCC and appreciate the love and the friendliness they find in the church. But church is not just there to solely meet my needs for love, acceptance and friendship.  There is a danger here if that is all there is at SCC. Our understanding of church can in the end become quite narrow and even selfish. The church should be a place of nurture and personal growth and a focus for mission and witness.

 

I said last week that my job in 2010 is to help each one of us grow as Christians in 2010 and to end the year as stronger Christians than when we began. This week we are starting to focus on five core values of SCC. They are not new but they will increasingly shape us in terms of our teaching and discipling we well as our mission.

 

May God bless us in 2010 not by keeping us in the confines of cosy religion but by challenging us through His word and the activity of the Holy Spirit to be changed and transformed both progressively and dramatically as the year progresses.