8th April 2022

When I was a child, during the war, the family hardly ever missed a news bulletin on the radio. I remember asking ‘When the war is over will there still be news broadcasts, because, surely, there won’t be any news?’ How wrong can you be! Recently there seems to have been more news than ever, with Covid, parties in Downing Street, and then the invasion of Ukraine as well as everything else.

This morning, as on most mornings, I will open my i-pad and read the latest news and comment in The Times. Normally I buy a paper copy once a week, but to be able to read the newspaper of my choice so easily is one of the gifts of modern technology. We very quickly begin to take these electronic wonders for granted, but I do sometimes recall that none of my grandparents had either a telephone or a television!

These last two years of Covid have pushed many (most?) of our churches to use the internet in its various manifestations to ensure that as many as possible have the opportunity to share in Christian worship. It is said that not a few people who had not attended church services for many years have begun regularly to worship again. I hope this is so. I also hope that we have learned the value and importance of these modern means of communication and, as churches, will not neglect them when the pandemic has receded. Surely they are a God-given facility and should be used in the service of God.

David T Roberts