6th September 2026 

Happy Birthday HTSJ!

The moment I felt pretty sure that our merger was working was on Christmas Day 2023. For that service, I decided that we were going to start with no announcement with a flashmob - with one voice singing "O come, let us adore Him", joined by another, then another, and so on until the whole congregation was standing and singing. It didn't work. But the reason it didn't work wasn't any failure on the part of the organisers, nor because the singers had got it wrong. It didn't work because, as soon as the first voice started to sing, the entire congregation jumped to their feet and joined in with enthusiasm!

I think this little moment says something profound and beautiful about the work of the Holy Spirit within HTSJ and the culture we are seeking to join in with God to build together. It tells me a story of faith and trust - that, even when we're not quite sure what's going on, even when we don't have a map, we're ready to get to our feet and get stuck in. I went to bed on Christmas Day 2023 smiling about this, and I'm still smiling, nearly three years later, as I write this column for our birthday week.

I've noticed the same faith and trust in the many conversations I've had this week with people who readily signed up  for our 24 hours of prayer, and only later said they had no idea how they were going to spend the time. But, they did - we did - and I've been hugely encouraged by your texts and emails telling me that your hour of prayer was a fruitful, blessed time for you.

And it's this faith and trust that has enabled us to keep travelling together on this journey of becoming Holy Trinity with St John's. Because this was, for all of us, "a new thing" (Isaiah 43v19). In the early days, there was no map. We had to work out who we were together. We had to work out where we were going together. We got some things right and some things wrong - together. There were, I remember, some exceptionally long PCC meetings where we thrashed out some of the most difficult questions. 

As I've looked back over the past five years during this week, some of the Psalms set for Morning and Evening Prayer have been particularly resonant. Psalm 127 reminds us:
"Unless the Lord builds the house,
the builders labour in vain." (v1)
And Psalm 126 promises:
"Those who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy" (v5)

That, five years down the line, we can look back with joy and thanksgiving on God's work among us is a sign of God's faithfulness, of grace that has held us when we have faltered, of the Lord building what we could not have built ourselves. But it's also about you, the people of HTSJ. People who have stuck with it through the tears and the struggles. People who have given of yourselves and joined in with enthusiasm, even when things weren't clear and there was no map. People who have been humble and gentle and trusting and kind, even when what has been required of you has been testing and challenging. I pray that, this weekend, we can celebrate "with songs of joy."

And then, we continue. We go into the next five years, following the Lord who is building his house here and who invites us to join in. There will, I'm sure, be more "sowing with tears". There will, I pray, be more "songs of joy". But the one who calls us is faithful - and he will do it! (1 Thessalonians 5:24)

Happy Birthday, HTSJ!