Thanks.

Great.

Well, thank you so much, Peter, and it's a joy to be with you and a joy to be able to share, uh, with you.

Um, just to those who are not in Europe, apologies that I'm not excluding you.

That's just, this is my parish, okay? This is, uh, where I spend most of my time working in the continents of Europe.

But, uh, great to have you with us wherever you're from.

Um, uh, Peter was telling me you've done over 300 of these, um, that explained to me why, uh, you finally invited me.

Yeah.

We trust you will be blessed through this ministry.

Great.

Well, it has been an absolute joy, uh, to be with you, uh, this week.

Um, some of you were here, many of you were here last night and you heard Andy Bannister.

Uh, some people were asking whether he got home safely.

[laughs]

Well, it has been a joy, uh, to be in this beautiful part of the world, to be able to explore it a bit together.

It's been, uh, a joy to meet so many of you, and the warmth of your welcome and receptivity has been such a blessing to us.

[laughs]

But you know how the illustration goes.

You know, ultimately, like, all the other things in life are like rearranging chairs on the Titanic.

You know, it's going down, and so the only thing that matters is getting people in the lifeboats.

And if our world is going down, is the only thing that matter getting in the lifeboats? Is everything else in life just rearranging chairs? Is enjoying good foods, beautiful music, arts, architecture, is that just rearranging the chairs? What about sunsets and hiking and sea swims? Do, do they matter at all? What about our jobs? Is there any point to being an engineer or a farmer or a car mechanic or a computer scientist? D- does that matter? Does how I play sport matter? Does the environment matter? Politics? Injustice? Poverty? What about all these other aspects of life? Do they really matter? You know, I sometimes meet atheists and they say, "That's the problem with religion.

The problem with religion is you're too heavenly-minded to be any earthly good." They say actually it's much better to live your life thinking that this is all we have because then you'll really make the most of life.

Have you heard people say that? Maybe someone said that to you.

Work, rest, and play.

We trust you will be blessed through this ministry.

Amen.

Well, thank you to the group.

That's been wonderful to sing so far, and it's great to be with you this week and this evening.

Now I have to say, I love summer and everything about it.

I love the warm days, I love the light evenings, I love the endless barbecues, I love the Christian festivals.

And so it may sound strange to you tonight to discover that my favorite day of the year is actually in the middle of winter.