I am sure that readers of Church Chat will be aware that on 27 October 2002 we “change our clocks”.  I doubt that many of us will change one clock for another, but I expect most of us will alter the time shown to Greenwich Mean Time again.

We use a lot of expressions during our lives that don’t mean quite what they say.  Many of the more amusing “quotations” appear regularly in this magazine.  Money features in several.

Rabelais called money “the sinews of battle”, but Francis Bacon disagreed and declared “money is like muck, not good except it be spread”.  We can all remember, of course, that Timothy tells us that “The love of money is the root of all evil.”.  While Oscar Wilde in The Importance of Being Earnest first told us that money is “ready”.

In this Church our offering money is always “ready”.  Ready to work for God’s kingdom both here and abroad.  The finance Committee are already meeting to prepare a budget for 2003.  Church Members who have strong views on the way Church money is allocated are welcome to bring inspired ideas to me.  After all, it has been the inspiration of members that started a monthly magazine in the first place, and later persuaded the Church to commit the magazine to tape for the hard-of-sight, to name but two examples.

Of course, not all suggestions can be taken up at once, and some will be turned down by Church Meeting, but we value your ideas.  Some take a long time to come to fruition.  We are still working on a front door entry for people who cannot climb steps for example.

We shall produce a list of all the ideas given to us. If they don’t make the “wish list” for this year’s budget, they may provide the trigger for even greater things in the years to come.

So go on out there – put on your praying hats and bring me your inspirations. As William Wordsworth says “ nothing can bring back the hour…”.

Carol Baughan