Welcome to Everyone and a special welcome to our good friend Paul Jones (from Trinity College) who will be preaching today on two very familiar parables, the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin, which I will be following up on with next week’s sermon on the Lost Son.
As always, there are follow-up questions contained inside this newsletter which should help you: dig a little deeper; and think about how to apply what you learn and make some life-transforming decisions!
We have two significant events coming up in the last quarter of the year. Chronologically, we have the “Life & Witness Consultation” taking place from 2nd – 11th November. This is a larger consultation than usual with Carolyn Kitto facilitating review and planning as we prepare to move further into the discipleship/mission quadrant. This will be preceded by our upcoming combined service on 21st October, (followed by congregational meeting which we will use to introduce and pray for the themes of the consultation). Please put this dates in your diary as markers and be prepared to be interviewed and otherwise engaged in workshops and training. It’s my first one so I’m looking forward to seeing how it all works and have high expectations for setting directions for the next 4-5years.
In addition, I had a meeting last week with a working group of people who are helping me create a Community Christmas Carols event for this year. At our last Church Council meeting we agreed to hold this event on Sunday 23rd December in place of our usual Christmas Eve service. So that means our Christmas services for this year will be:
Sunday 23rd December, 5-8pm – Community Christmas Carols
Tuesday 25th December, 8am – Christmas Service
The idea behind the Community Christmas Carols is to invite a number of choirs from our church and wider community to lead us in a carol-singing service preceded by a sausage sizzle and fun activities for families (Bouncy Castle, etc). The Carols will begin at about 6:45pm. We will start small this year and, God-willing, look to expand in coming years. This will be an ideal event to invite friends and family who don’t normally come to our church. We are expecting about 300 people to attend! Please pray for the organisation and good attendance of this event.
Meanwhile, in the next month, you can expect to see a structural change in the administration area. This was approved sometime ago by Church Council but we are now not far off having a partition wall (part solid, part glass) built in front of our reception desk which will include a lockable door, a service window and ledge (for writing forms etc). After that we may be looking for some volunteers to paint . . .
God bless, Ian.