Dear Friends,
So, we enter the 175th anniversary year of laying the foundation stone of Legacurry Presbyterian Church in 1843. The actual congregation was constituted some two years beforehand and met without a building. The current meeting house was begun in 1843 and completed for worship in 1844. We thought we would use 2018 as the 175th anniversary of laying the foundation stone and commencement of building.
Physical and spiritual foundations were laid a long time ago but many changes have taken place since 1843. Some do not like changes to worship and witness. ‘It isn’t the same as when I was growing up!’ Good! Neither should it be! The Presbyterian Church is meant to be a Reformed church always reforming. If we do not change and adapt to the world we now live in then we will gradually become irrelevant and die. Jesus never permitted His disciples to live within the comfortable parameters of the familiar.
That is not to say that all things change. We cannot change the eternal Gospel or the authority of God’s Word over all matters of faith, and life. The call to be disciples of Jesus who go out to make more disciples of Jesus has not changed since the day beside Galilee when Jesus gave His Great Commission. Likewise the call to be a community of God defined by love and devotion to Christ and one another has not changed.
This year should cause us to look back with thankfulness but it must not be about nostalgia, remembering how things used to be. It must be about looking forward with vision, commitment and sacrifice, as our forefathers did, to extend the Kingdom of God in this place. We can only do this together in obedience to the Word as a, Worshipping, Welcoming and Witnessing community.
May we carry the baton faithfully and fruitfully in our generation and then pass it on to the next.
Yours in His name,
Bobby Liddle
