with the Rev Kevin Logan, Vicar of Christ Church, Accrington.

BUSINESS as usual at my umpteenth community meeting.

Litter louts drop wrecked cars in gutter alongside squashed fag ends.

Apprentice arsonists hone skills on yet another of our derelict terraces.

JC loves RG aerosoled on church wall (sudden urge to grab graffiti artiste and spray God loves you on his forehead).

Our mountain of problems is met by a molehill of solutions.

First, helpful sheriffs, street wardens with badges, pound the sidewalks toting cautions instead of Colt 45s.

Second, millions are promised. There's European funding, renewal funding, regeneration funding, community chest funding, funding for housing, funding for anti-social behaviour think tanks.

Hurling funding at our mountain will surely move it. Won't it?

Third, there's resident associations and action forums and a host of other social mechanics tinkering with society's nuts and bolts (yet the number of nuts sadly goes on increasing).

Mid-community-meeting doubt struck. I toyed with heresy -- will this trinity of law, lolly and local action save us?

Will loads of money really cause neighbours from hell to sprout haloes? Will local action truly make saints of the selfish? Could we be worshipping the wrong trinity?

Maybe the old Trinity still has mileage.

Britain became great when we believed we were designed by Our Father to be his children. He gave us his Son Jesus to save us and show us how to be.

He left us his own Spirit to turn us into neighbours from heaven, his powerful agents of recreation.

God's trinity or our trinity? Which?

For God's sake, and ours, why not both?