Chads News - 7th January 2026

 Dear Church Family,

Happy New Year!

Following the accounts of Jesus’ birth, the gospels launch into the life and ministry of John the Baptist. John had a single purpose in his life, to ‘Prepare the way for the Lord’. Matthew, Mark and Luke all quote Isaiah 40 to describe this ministry of preparation for Jesus to come onto the scene. John’s message included a call to repent of every way we have strayed away from obeying God and to level the ground. Very similar to ‘creating space for God’. So as you start 2026, how is the Holy Spirit asking you to ‘prepare the way of the Lord’?

We had a wonderful Christmas at St Chads, sharing the love of God and good news of Jesus with hundreds of people in our community and creating space for God. The Christ-mas season seems to end abruptly, ‘normal’ life resumes with a bang this week, but what can we take from what God gave us, into our daily routines in January?
The words ‘Prepare the Way for the Lord’ are ringing in my heart as I write this and think of the year ahead.

Preparation is a crucial part of life. When painting and decorating, the time spent stretching out masking tape, putting down dust sheets and cleaning surfaces can take more time than the actual painting. Christmas seems to take huge amounts of preparation, one friend who had experienced health problems at the start of December commented, “I can’t believe we managed to get ready for Christmas dinner in only two weeks.” Preparation motivates us, because we care about the outcome, we are propelled forwards into the future and what would be hard work is worthwhile as we look forwards.

So how is God asking you to “Prepare the Way for the Lord” as we start 2026? In what ways will that include creating space for God? What might he be asking you to repent of and turn-around? What do you need to invest time into?

The theme of our preaching series from January to Easter is “Dwelling in God’s Pres-ence”. We are going to go on a whistle stop tour through the whole of the Bible from Gen-esis to Revelation, looking at God’s desire to dwell with us. In one way, we could see the whole story of the Bible as God preparing a people to dwell with Him forever. It might take two weeks to prepare to host family for Christmas, but all of human history is a far greater degree of preparation.

What preparations do you need to make for this year, in order to dwell in the presence of God?

with love,
Richard

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