News Archive
October 2005
Toddling in
A quick encouragement — the new Monday toddlers session started today (October 31) and three new families arrived to join in!
Skipping the hard bits?
What are your favourite bits of the Bible? Is it John 3:16, Philippians 4:6-7 or Psalm 23?
Perhaps
the bits of the bible we skip over or skim through say more about us
than the ones we come back to time and again. How about the hard bits
where we can’t really understand what God is saying, or the passages we
perceive to be boring? Harder still are those passages that we know we
need to be obedient to but we find it difficult to live up to. Do we
cherry pick the bits that fit our perception of God and how we would
like to live and see the others as irrelevant?
Lost lines
I came across this poem by Emily Bronte some years ago. It has always
stirred my emotions and when I came across it again the other day I
thought it might inspire others as it has inspired me.
Lost lines
No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm troubled sphere!
I see heaven's glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.
O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present deity!
Life - that in me hast rest,
As I - undying life - have power in thee! » more
Bless and treat
Here’s an idea. How about we get together with our lovely children/ flatmates/ families/ friends to impact our community in the name of Jesus this next week?
Picture it…We get together and all dress up in things that could be described as bringing light and life and joy. Clowns, angels, sunshine, stars, butterflies, pantomime horses or rubber chickens if you can get them! Then we go out into our streets with large baskets full of flapjack or cookies, maybe even some gospels from CLC, and along the way we memorise the following blessing.
‘The Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord make His face shine on you
and give you His peace.’
Then we start knocking on doors.
Dr Who?
During the evening service on Sunday, Phil Lightbody was saying that we
should be like Dr Who. I've been going to church for a while, but I
have to admit that I've never heard that before. He also mentioned a
feature in the Guardian on people's favourite possessions. Hmmm... mine
might be my MP3 player - sad but true. Visit the 'Our publications' part of the website to download an MP3 (in two parts) of Phil's talk.
In a foreign land
I've just heard from a friend that her mum died over the weekend. She had cancer and had her life cut short. But my friend, whilst grieving her loss, was excited that her mum (a Christian) had gone home to be with the Lord. I've been challenged that, actually, as Christians we are strangers and aliens in a foreign land. One day each of us will arrive in the place we were created to be; the eternal presence of God. We will have a new physical resurrection body. It will be very real, according to scripture; not some ghostly or ethereal experience. It should inspire us to have a light hold on the things which are temporary and which will perish and instead concentrate on storing up treasure which moths and rust cannot destroy. The number of our days here is known only to the Father; but we should live each day in the confidence of our future eternity with Him.
Trumpet calls
Pray4tyneside - a network which has formed a 24/7 prayer wall around our region - is planning a trip to Birmingham NEC on October 29th to join with thousands of other Christians in praying for our nation. It's called Trumpet Call 3 (we've already had 1 and 2 and they were awesome) and at the last Trumpet Call arrows of prayer bringing peace and God's protection to Tyneside were sent by thousands towards us. We in turn fired thousands to other regions. If you are interested in prayer and worship we'd be really pleased for you to join us. The day trip costs £15, and we leave Newcastle Central Station in a luxury coach at 6.30am. The event starts at 11am and finishes at 6pm. We arrive back at about 10.30pm (but remember, we get an extra hour in bed that night!) The coach journey can be a great opportunity to meet other people of all ages from different churches. I'm the prayer co-ordinator of pray4tyneside, so email me, Jenny Steiner, if you'd like to come along.
Growing toddlers
Anyone who ventures into the church building on a Tuesday morning is
met with a roomful of children and adults, laughter and (sometimes)
tears. At Toddlers we have had continued to have new people from the
surrounding area join us and we now have over 50 families coming
regularly. Since April we have had a total of 60-70 adults and
children attending each week. Many of you will be aware that we have
talked about creating a second group, and we are ready to announce the
new Monday group will start on October 31st.
» more
Hungry student?
It’s been great to see so many of our students returning after the
summer - and especially great to see so many new faces this last two
weeks. I'm sure you will have connected with the Student Team and
received all the information that you need about the church. This
Sunday coming is the last of three when we invite students to have
lunch with us after the service. So if you are hungry on Sunday after
the service you know what to do!
» more
Opening our eyes
As we think about the mission journeys in Acts on Sunday mornings, I came across an interesting comment written by Dennis Pethers, the director of mission agency Viz A Viz: "When we think of mission perhaps a good place to start is by encouraging one another to recognise that the beginning of mission is not normally when we open our mouths; it's when we open our eyes."
In other words it's about seeing a need and asking God to help us minister to that need.