After the busyness of our Christmas celebrations, I do hope these last few days of December will be a bit more restful and may enable each of us to get some space for some personal prayer and reflection in preparation for the New Year.

In this connection I have written a letter to all those who are on the Electoral Roll or in the Worshipping Community which you should be coming through your door in the next day or two. In it I gave some of my vision and hopes for the coming year (under the heading “Church Alive in ’25!”) and invite you to fill in a Response Form giving some indication of your hopes and commitments for the year to come.

I do hope you will find this a helpful process and that we will thus be able, as a Church family, to go into the New Year with a strong sense of confidence and hope.

This picture of our Advent wreath in Martyr Worthy can be a symbol for our Itchen Valley parish: the four candles representing the Christian witness of our four churches but all gathered around the central light of Christ himself. May we all shine brightly for Him in 2025!

With love and prayers

Revd Peter