Holiday Club

Thursday - one day to go! Holiday Club has been great so far. We've had good fun, even if we could all sleep for a week! So here are a few pictures.

Each morning we have an 'aerobics' session with the Restaurant Cleaning Crew!

Creative prayer - on Monday we wrote on fish, yesterday we stuck our prayers onto a wooden cross, today we stuck red hearts onto clothes on a washing line. It has been great to read some of the things that the children are writing.

Today the children decorated squares for a church banner. This is the 'before' layout - come back next week to see the afterwards!

And just in case you're not worn out yet - clean forwards, clean backwards, clean forwards, clean backwards...

Boomerang

Today our 2010 Holiday Bible Club started, and we had a great time. The title of the club is Rocky's Plaice and throughout the week we are looking at stories from the life of Peter as recorded in the book of Acts.

Today we started with the Ascension (Acts 1) - the story of how, 40 days after the resurrection, Jesus went up into heaven, but with the promise that he would return again - hence the boomerang reference.

The keyword for the day is HOPE. And Christians live with this hope - that Jesus is coming back again one day. And this is not just some wishful thinking, but it is a sure and a certain hope, because God has promised, and God never breaks a promise.

The memory verse the children learned was from Psalm 145:13 - God is trustworthy in all he promises.

Maybe some photos tomorrow.

Our God is Greater

If you read this blog regularly you will know that every Friday morning I get a new email from www.worshiptogether.com arrive on my desktop. Included within this email will be details of a new song, free sheet music to download, and a short video interview with the writer(s) talking about how the song came about, how best to play it ...

You will also know that I am quite a fan of Chris Tomlin's music - even if it is slightly on the high side when it comes to singing in church!

Here is one of his latest songs, taken from the Passion Awakening album, and written with Matt Redman, Jonas Myrin and Jesse Reeves. The first video is just the song, and then if you're interested in hearing more about it the second video is the interview with Matt Redman and Chris Tomlin. Enjoy.

Rocky's Plaice

Next week we will be running our week long summer holiday Bible club, which this year is called Rocky's Plaice. It is based around a fish and chip shop and looks at various stories in the life of Peter as recorded in the New Testament book of Acts. But more of that next week...

Those of you who are going to be helping out might want to get to grips with the Rocky's Plaice theme song and actions!



Whilst on the subject of new songs - last Sunday we introduced 'The Voice of Hope'. Those of you who belong to our 'strings section' might want to listen to the intro...

Lettuce - what's the point?

I've never really been a fan of lettuce, or a number of other leaves that can be used to make up a salad. What's the point of eating something that needs to be covered in dressing in order for it to taste of anything? And what's the point of growing something that the snails and slugs will enjoy more than you?
The 'what's the point?' or the 'so what?' question is one of the most important questions we can ask whenever we read the Bible. If it doesn't make a difference, what's the point?

This last Sunday we reached Hebrews 10 in our series looking at the book of Hebrews, and the first part of this chapter is a conclusion to the things we've been looking at in previous weeks - things like sacrifices, the temple, the priests... And the second part of this chapter is a kind of 'so what?' If all these things we've said are true, then so what? What difference should it make? And the answers are to be found in a bowl of salad!

1) Lettuce draw near to God (verse 22). No matter who we are and what we've done it is possible, because of Jesus' death on the cross, to know complete forgiveness and a totally new beginning, and therefore we are able to draw near to God. Many of us, often because of less than perfect relationships with our own parents, bad experiences with our head teachers, trouble with the boss etc. have a real problem believing that we can draw close to God. And so although we may make it to the door, we don't have the confidence to burst in (see this post)

2) Lettuce hold unswervingly to the hope we profess (verse 23). Remember that this was a letter to Christians experiencing hardship and persecution. And the encouragement comes to hold on to the hope - the hope of forgiveness, freedom from a guilty conscience, new and eternal life... It is easy to hope when things are all going well. But when things are hard we need to hold on to hope, not because it is a crutch that will keep us going, but because the one who made these promises is faithful.

3) Lettuce consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds (verse 24). We're in this together. And although love and good deeds are the sort of things that should characterise the life of the Christian these things don't come easy. That is why we need to encourage each other in them. We can do this by continuing to meet together, by praying for each other, by being interested in each other's lives, by visiting, by calling, by sharing our stories... You may have other ideas - why not comment.

A Long Day

We're back home after a long day at GOSH. We arrived about 11am and left the hospital just after 10pm. One of the first things that needed to be done was a swab of the inside of R's nose and mouth - which totally freaked her out and confirmed that there was no way she was having either of the two tests without a GA. But in order to be able to co-ordinate the GA the MRA and the Echo it meant that R had to be last on the list, so that there wasn't the pressure of another patient coming along in 30 mins. Fortunately with the things we had brought with us, the toys at the hospital and some painting we managed to fill the time, without too many requests for a drink. She finally went down for the tests about 4.45 and was back in the ward shortly after 6pm. It was then just a case of waking up, eating, drinking etc. We will now have to wait for another appointment in order to discuss the results - watch this space. Thank you for your prayers.

Another visit to GOSH

Those of you who were following R's progress after her recent seizure / stroke episode will be interested to know that we are taking her to GOSH tomorrow for an MRA and Echo under GA. It is hoped that these two tests will clarify what it was that happened, and therefore what treatment is appropriate. We have continued to give R aspirin, (treatment for a stroke), disguised within a Petit Filous, although she now knows it's there, and has even helped us prepare it. On at least three occasions she has got out of bed and come to tell us that we have forgotten to give her her medicine.

Since she came out of hospital and went back to school she has been fine - back to her old self. Aspirin, of course, thins the blood, which is the whole point, but it does mean that R bruises really easily and also if she cuts herself it takes a lot longer to stop bleeding - one morning we had a bleeding lip for an hour and a half! Just what you need before school.

Please pray for us all tomorrow, and that the doctors will be able to tell us what happened...

Fire!

One of the things that we are required to do in the church is a fire risk assessment. This involves evaluating fire hazards, evaluating those at risk, seeing whether it is possible to reduce the risk of fire and try to reduce the danger that that fire is likely to cause to people.

For a fire to start you need to have (1) a source of ignition, (2) fuel and (3) oxygen. So not keeping the petrol lawn mower next to the gas oven is a good idea. (Not that we did!)

I wonder how many of us would benefit from conducting a spiritual fire risk assessment?

We know that we do things that let God down, and sometimes it seems that we keep on doing them. But do they just happen, or do they happen because a number of factors come together at the same time?

Let's suppose that (a) there is a certain person in the church who regularly annoys me; (b) I lose my temper easier when I'm tired; and (c) I find it easier to 'say' things I later regret when I use email.

If all these three things were true then it would not be wise to come home after church, having been annoyed (again) by 'that person', to stew on it all day, and then at midnight, when I'm tired, to fire off an angry email (lots of capital letters), highlighting all their failings and wondering how on earth they can think of themselves as a Christian.

Assess the risk and then take steps to minimise the damage.

A Summer of Sport

If you enjoy watching sport on TV then the last few weeks have been great. The football World Cup still has a few days left to go, we've had two weeks of Wimbledon, there has been the cricket between England and Australia. Just a few days ago the Tour de France started. And next year is the London Olympics.

Of course there are those who hate having their regular TV schedules messed around with in order to accommodate '22 grown men kicking a bag of air around!' Maybe you're one of those people. (There are other channels).

If you'd lived in the first century in the world influenced by the Roman or Greek Empires then sport of a different nature would have been a big part of city life. Chariot racing, the Gladiators, the Olympics...all played a big role in life.

And last Sunday we looked at a few verses in the New Testament where the writers pulled out some of the similarities between what is required to be successful in sport and what is required to live the Christian life.

One example is 1 Corinthians 9:24-27. Just as the top athlete goes into strict training - watching what they eat, making sure they get enough sleep, following a carefully worked out training schedule etc - as a Christian I need to realise that growth and maturity will not just happen. There need to be disciplines (such as Bible reading, prayer, coming to church, learning Bible verses) that I need to be developing. This will not come naturally, it will require sacrifice and will at times seem like hard work.

An athlete makes these sacrifices for the hope of an Olympic gold medal. But for the Christian there is a much greater prize.