New Years Eve

This newsletter is dropping into your inbox on New Year’s Eve. Not a religious festival, but a day that provokes a lot of commentary in society and has deep roots in other rituals and traditions. In some Christian traditions, notably in the free churches especially Methodists and the Salvation Army, ‘Watchnight’ services have become popular over the past couple of centuries, not least to offer an alternative place to be from a more indulgent alcohol-fuelled gathering.

But a ‘vigil’ in itself is an ancient Christian practice, simply meaning to keep awake. To keep watch. To stay awake and bear witness.  Vigils are held outside jails, after terrorist attacks, before verdicts, at times of solemnity or communal grief.  And Christian vigils are held on New Year’s Eve, tracing back to the Moravian church in the 18^th century and adopted by John Wesley for his Methodist movement too.

As we enter 2026, it’s become a commonplace to say that we, humanity, are facing huge challenges, global, local, personal, communal.  Will this be the year that the guns and drones fall silent in Ukraine?  Brazil goes to the polls, and COP 31, the United Nations Climate Change Conference will be in Turkey in November. Politically in the UK, underlying trends are revealed in, for example, tougher requirements (from 8^th January) for anyone applying to come to the UK on a skilled worker visa and in April, the roll out of the extension of the pension age from 66 to 67.  Our society is making it harder for immigrants to come here at the same time as asking all those who are here to work longer.  These two developments perhaps reflecting deeper trends as governments address increasing numbers of people moving willingly or unwillingly across the planet and the longer life expectancy of western populations.

Meanwhile it’s notable that in most of the lists of ‘what’s happening in 2026’, it’s not normally mentioned that there will be a new, and first female, Archbishop of Canterbury. She will be ‘enthroned’ (installed) in Canterbury Cathedral on the Feast of the Annunciation (the angel Gabriel letting Mary know she would bear the son of God) on 25^th March.  Critics will say her main task will be managing decline or even overseeing palliative care of the church. Supporters will hope that her tenure will see a more vibrant, engaged, safer and prophetic church.

For St James’s, 2026 will be a decisive year for the progress of the Wren Project. During this year, depending on a few factors, most importantly the decision making of funders, the scope and timing of the restoration of the church building, re-landscaping of the outside spaces and rejuvenation of the other buildings will be determined.  A lot of discussion and planning will flow from this amongst all of us, led by our PCC. Much more about this during the year.

The path ahead is unknown, with contours as yet unseen and adventures as yet unimagined.  With challenges ahead too, that will test us to our limits.

There are two very traditional prayers prayed at this time of year; both with strong associations with the Methodist Church.  One by the 18^th century Anglican priest John Wesley who founded the Methodist movement, (Methodist churches hold ‘Covenant Services’ on the first Sunday of each new year) and the other by a Wesleyan missionary, later sociologist who worked at the London School of Economics in the first half of the twentieth century, Minnie Haskins.

Both these meditations have one teaching at the heart of them, easy to describe but not always easy to do. We’re asked to trust in God in an uncertain world facing an unknown future.  Our calling is day by day to deepen our trust in God, in the small things and the big things. Which is a whole vocation for living in itself.

God Knows by Minnie Haskins  

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’

And he replied:

‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’

So I went forth, and finding the hand of God, trod gladly into the night.

And he led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

The Covenant Prayer by John Wesley

I am no longer my own but yours.

Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will,

Put me to doing, put me to suffering;

Let me be employed for you

or laid aside for you,

exalted for you, or brought low for you;

Let me be full, let me be empty,

let me have all things, let me have nothing;

I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal,

and now glorious and blessed God, you are mine and I am yours.

So be it.

And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.