No, it's not the banks this time, but those companies who make or sell security safes.

They are reporting increased sales over the last twelve months. The reason for this increase is attributed to two possible reasons.

The first is that because people no-longer trust the banks, they have started storing their cash at home. The other reason is that there is a feeling that crime increases in times like this and so people are looking to lock valuables away.

Behind all this is a lack of trust - trust in other human beings; trust in institutions like banks and governments. In fact some are saying that our society is suffering from a crisis of trust.

We have become mistrustful of others and even of those institutions that are there to help us, like health care and police.

The actions of a few bankers and business people that make the headlines, have along with other things eroded our ability to trust and have made us deeply suspicious of anything and anybody.

But without anyone to trust, you can't help but feel isolated and vulnerable. It destroys something fundamental to what it means to be human.

So who can you trust? You may think it rather obvious if I said God, but at the heart of faith is the intention to trust another.

A phrase that is repeated over and over in the bible is a call to "believe".

In John's gospel for example you read that such belief is the source of life itself - "everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life".

Unfortunately, the word believe is often used simply to declare our opinion as to whether something exists or not. We say we believe or not in things like UFOs or ghosts.

But the invitation to say you believe in God, as Jesus invites to do, is not to simply have an opinion about whether he exists or not, but to place our trust in him.

To say "I believe" is say "I trust" and then perhaps to begin to understand what Jesus meant when he said "he who believes in me will never be thirsty".

Perhaps if we were to renew our trust in God, that sense of trust which has become rather fragile in our society might be recovered.

A renewed trust in God not only restores our relationship with God, but has the ability to transform our relationships with fellow human beings.

* Tim Hyde is the Minister at St Helens Baptist Church.