{"id":25284,"date":"2024-01-04T13:03:27","date_gmt":"2024-01-04T13:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/?p=25284"},"modified":"2024-01-04T13:03:27","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T13:03:27","slug":"letter-from-churchwarden-gill-long-january-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/?p=25284","title":{"rendered":"Letter from Churchwarden Gill Long  &#8211;  January 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>In the stillness following the hustle and bustle of the advent season, and as we welcome in the new year, let us take time to listen. What does God want us to listen to? Are we listening enough to others and importantly to ourselves?<br \/>\nWe can hear God\u2019s word by reading bible passages, prayers, worship and in conversations with others and of course God himself. Be open, ask him and be ready to listen for his word.<br \/>\nDo we listen well to others? Are we keen to get our point over and therefore not give one another the grace of listening and not interrupting? Research suggests that we only remember between 25 percent and 50 percent of what we hear. Do we miss the important parts?<br \/>\nDo we give ourselves the respect of listening to what our bodies and minds are telling us. Try spending a few minutes a day being \u2018in the moment\u2019 and listening to what is going on within us.<br \/>\nJames says, \u201cUnderstand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry\u201d (James 1:19).<br \/>\nHe is reminding us to be eager to listen but only to wholesome advice, good instructions and the experiences of others, and above all to God. He also highlights the need to be slow to get angry, reminding us that when reprimands are given, sin is exposed. We should think how our words are being listened to and how they can affect those listening to us.<br \/>\nListening is one of the most important skills we have. How well you listen can impact on the quality of your relationships with other people, yourself and God.<br \/>\nListen and you will receive.<br \/>\nHappy New Year.<br \/>\nGill<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the stillness following the hustle and bustle of the advent season, and as we welcome in the new year, let us take time to listen. What does God want us to listen to? Are we listening enough to others and importantly to ourselves? We can hear God\u2019s word by reading bible passages, prayers, worship&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":20374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[394,4,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advent-and-christmas","category-community","category-news","ctfw-has-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25285,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25284\/revisions\/25285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}