19 August 2025

Covid, the readjustment of parishes, the aging profile of our membership do not need to be stumbling blocks to our ministry towards young people. If they are not in our churches, they are certainly in our parishes.

And if we cannot see it, we know from the statistics at our disposal that some of them are suffering because they have no decent role models to follow. Others are suffering because their family cannot afford to buy toothpaste and soap.

We have prided ourselves for almost five hundred years on being parish churches. With unions and readjustments, we do not leave our parishes behind. We still have responsibility for the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of everyone within these familiar and well-loved  bounds.

Our congregations can only be revitalised when the children and the young people find their home among us. On their arrival, the Christchild will be born among us and the peaceable kingdom envisioned by Isaiah will come to pass for, as he says, ‘A little child shall lead them.’

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