We are delighted to be welcoming Malcolm to speak this coming Sunday, 5 February at 10.30am. He is a gifted and passionate communicator with a passion for the gospel of Jesus being lived out in our communities. You would be so welcome to join with us – be there if you can!
He is following up on a day spent with the leadership on the Saturday, so all round, it should be a great weekend.
Sunday evening we will be holding our more contemplative Prayer & Praise service at 6.00pm. A great opportunity to launch into the week ahead with time and space for God’s still quiet voice to be heard.
In speaking on James 1:19-27 yesterday (you can listen to this on the sermon page), I used the following quote from Alec Motyer’s book on James and promised I would post it for folk to read it because it was quite long. So here it is.
‘True freedom is the opportunity and the ability to give expression to what we truly are. We are truly free when we live the life appropriate to those who are created in the image of God. The law of God safeguards that liberty for us. But it does even more, for obedience brings life and power (see Leviticus 18:5, Deuteronomy 4:1a & Acts 5:32). The law of God is the law of liberty because it safeguards, expresses and enables the life of true freedom into which Christ has brought us. This is the blessing of which James speak (James 1:25), the blessing of a full life, a true humanity. Obedience is the key factor in our enjoyment of it.*
These are challenging, but exciting words and I would encourage you to take them to heart and ask God’s help in working them out in your life.
As a rather old chorus goes ‘Trust and obey, for there’s’ no other way…’
As the new year gets under way we want to give another opportunity to focus on prayer. Throughout the week, there will be encouragements to pray wherever you are and together with others. We will have Prayer Areas in church where you can take time & space to be with God, to listen and to express your self through different media.
Here’s a couple of the ways you might like to join in…
Wednesday 25 January – 7.30pm-9.00pm - ‘Prayer Appointment’. Meet at the church to pray with others. You may wish to be quiet in the Prayer Area or be together with others in the main church building…
Saturday 28 January 10.00am to Sunday 29 January 10.00am . ‘Prayer Wall’. What is this? An opportunity to be involved in a chain of prayer throughout the 24 hours. Sign up in the church or email us and tell us when you would like to pray (half hour slots) and know that you are part of a praying body that builds a wall of prayer over that time.
On the Saturday, we would encourage you to fast too and stand alongside others in bringing yourself before God in a very ‘tangible way’. If you are not sure what this involves – get in touch…
Come and join us on New Years Day to welcome the new year and reflect on the old – an all age, informal service lasting under the hour! Normal time of 10.30am – don’t worry of you are a bit bleary eyed!
We were delighted to host a Craft Morning this morning at the church – all manner of messy stuff going on and some lovely things made by children and young people for the festive season! Great fun – thanks to all who came, helpers, ‘crafty’ kids and parents too!
Looking forward to celebrating Jesus’ birth this Sunday. We’ll be meeting for a family friendly celebration at 10.30 for about 50 minutes.
Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas and may you encounter the peace of God in 2012…
Looking forward to two Carol Services on Sunday 18 December…
At 10.30 there will be a family friendly Carol Service with a variety of things to help us to celebrate the Christmas season – there may be a surprise or two!
At 4pm as darkness falls we will light the candles and enjoy an early evening Carol Service, with some traditional elements and one or two other items!
Everyone is most welcome to either or both of these services. Both will be followed by Mince Pies and a hot drink to send you on your way into the last week before the big day!
It was great to be able to join together on Sunday night to sing carols and distribute Christmas cards around Fivehead village. Well done to all the youth at WWW who made the cards and to all those who dodged the showers to sing and deliver. Christmas is coming…!
We were also thrilled to have students from Curry Rivel Primary School join with the residents of St Martin’s Close on Monday afternoon for our monthly service. We were made very welcome and the children sang their hearts out. Well done to one and all.
Just to let you know that WWW (the youth club that meets on Thursdays from 6.30-7.30) has a change of plan for Thursday 17 November. We were due to have a film night, but we are now going to be making Christmas cards for the village. We had a lot of fun doing this last year and a number of people commented on how good they were. So come on down and get creative!
We plan to go carol singing on 4 December from 4pm to distribute these cards which will contain all the Christmas activities for the village at both Fivehead Baptist and also St Martins Church. Watch this space for more details…
Thank you so much to Mike Law for speaking yesterday (23/10) – you can hear what he said on the Sermons page. We are looking forward to welcoming Simon Taylor from Kingsbury this coming weekend. He will continue in our series ‘Fit for Life’ looking at some of the ways in which we can develop ‘spiritual fitness’ as followers of Jesus.
We are delighted that the long planned refurbishment of the shed has begun. The shed is an outbuilding next to the church that has been part used for a number of years for youth work. We now want to make it more usable for children and young people, but also to develop a coffee shop area that will be open to the community. We are also doing some refurbishments to the main building which will make the whole space more usable for worship and for a wide variety of other activities. Our aim is for the main bulk of the work to be done by Christmas and for the coffee shop to be open soon after! Watch this space…