Cromer Parish Church with St Martin's

May Leader

'But the fruit of the Spirit,' says the apostle Paul, 'is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.' What would a Spirit-filled, Spirit-inhabited, Spirit-led Church look like if we were to ever walk in on one? Well this list, at least in part, provides the answer. That’s why we’re going to be spending the next few months, until we reach the Summer holidays, looking at each of these characteristics in turn, and asking God to grow them in us.

As I shared when we started the series, a man called Francis Schaeffer - one of the great Christian thinkers of the last century - described the first of those fruits ‘love’ as the ‘ultimate Christian apologetic’.  it is the ultimate way in which we present the reality of the Christian faith to the world. As I said at the time, we can try and use all the clever words, all the clever arguments we like and the world will simply come back with its own clever words and clever arguments.

But to ‘love’ - real love, agape love, as God intends to grow in each one of us, individually and together - there is simply no answer. It is what above all else, according to contemporary accounts, caused the early Church to grow, and change the world God gave it to serve.

And what is true for love, it seems to me, is true of all the other fruit God wants to grow in us as well. A Church, a community, which is genuinely loving, joyful, at peace with itself and others, shows patience, and is a community where kindness and goodness reigns, faithfulness is seen, gentleness experienced and where self-control leads to godliness. There is no answer to that. Such a community, made up of mixed fallible people like you and me, can only come about by a supernatural act of God.

So, be with us for this series, listen to the talks from the website, if you miss them on Sundays, and pray that God would use them to make his Church here all that he longs for it to be for the sake of this town.

Revd Canon Dr David Court
Vicar of Cromer

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