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Welcome to our traditional website for the

Three Valleys Team Ministry

 

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A new website has been created.

Please follow the link www.threevalleysteam.org.uk 

There are lots of new ideas, including "Word for the Week", a text and commentary to help each week. 

 

Please explore the new site (which will be run in parallel with this one for the moment)

and 

please send feedback using the contact details for the Reverend George Moody on either website.

 

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Christmas Miracle?

 

 

A man was taking his dog for a walk along the sea front. He threw a stick into the sea and told the dog to retrieve it. The dog did this by running along on the top of the water. He went to the stick and then picking it up ran back. A passer by who saw the dog simply couldn’t believe it. But it happened a second time, and a third. The dog ran across the surface of the water and collected the stick.

 

The passer by went up to the dog owner and started a conversation with him. Eventually he plucked up courage to ask about the dog and its ability to walk on water. The owner seemed unmoved by his pet’s miraculous ability. “Well I don’t know what you are getting worked up about said the owner. Obviously the dog can’t swim!”

 

Miracles and miraculous things are often misleading as well as difficult to understand. Sometimes we don’t even see what is right in front of our face. As Christmas approaches we prepare for what I call a ‘grand miracle’. In this case Christ the Son of God being born to mankind. It is a spectacular example of God’s direct intervention on Earth. Unfortunately we can get so used to this idea of the miraculous that when it fails to happen we shrug our shoulders and say God doesn’t act today like He used to – or perhaps He never did. It is easy to fail to see what God is doing all the time or to miss the point – as did the owner of the dog in my story.

 

Have you considered that every time you give money to a charity that maybe you are answering someone’s prayers for help? Have you considered that if you visit a lonely person you may be the miracle they had been praying for? In fact every time we stop to help someone we become a vehicle for God’s miraculous action on Earth. Conversely every time we turn our back on these opportunities to help we don’t simply fail to support a fellow human being we also deny the very essence of the Christmas we are preparing for.

Yours

 

 

 

Tony Gilbert

Team Rector

 

 

 

 

 

 I hope that you will find plenty of useful

 and interesting information in here. 

    

 

 

The Reverend Tony Gilbert

and

Tony with his wife Nicola