... a people preparing for the coming King. January

Transcription

1 ... a people preparing for the coming King January

2 Jim Solomon Pastor, Hattersley Community Church Mottram Evangelical Church and Hattersley Community Church are interdependent churches who seek to be evangelical in their understanding and charismatic in their experience. Together we live to glorify God, serve his church and reach his world. Insight is the monthly newsletter, prepared by Margaret and Stephen Winfield and published in print and on-line by Mottram Evangelical Church, Stalybridge Road, Mottram, Hyde, Cheshire. SK14 6NF. Tel Articles for inclusion should be submitted before the deadline indicated on the diary dates page. Contributions should be sent to 4, Hall Drive, Mottram, or by to We do ask that contributors submit their name for inclusion with submissions, as personal contributions are accepted on the understanding that they are not necessarily the opinions of the Editors or the Church Elders. Church Child Protection Policy All church children s and young people s work is carried out by personnel who have undergone disclosures and in accordance with the Church s Child Protection Policy. To view this policy please call Jim on On the cover The Sunday Youth help check shoe boxes at the Operation Christmas Child warehouse. January is traditionally the time when we resolve to eat healthier and get more exercise. There are many reasons why. Healthy eating and exercise improves both our physical and mental health, it makes us feel better about ourselves and if we weren t blessed with a national health service would save us money! The Bible agrees that bodily training is of some value but it also says that godliness is of value in every way (1 Timothy 4:8). Healthy eating and exercise will bring good results in our physical, mental and emotional lives but it won t directly affect our spiritual lives. For this we need to spiritually eat and exercise well. When we do that it will benefit us not only spiritually but also physically, mentally and emotionally. That sounds good but how do we do this? Let s look in the Bible at Philippians 4:8-9: Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me practise these things, and the God of peace will be with you. Healthy spiritual eating is dependent on what we think about. That s not to say that we can control what thoughts pop into our head as it s clear that we are all tempted with bad thoughts. It s not wrong to be tempted but it is wrong to ponder and dwell on bad thoughts. I ve heard it said like this We can t help birds from landing on our heads but we can stop them building a nest! This is how sin works (see James 1:14-15). Sin starts in our thought life. A wrong thought comes into our mind, we fail to get rid of it and end up pondering and dwelling on it. Eventually we own it so much that we decide on an inappropriate course of action. At this point the thought is born into an action. If we don t repent the action is repeated and over time we become a slave to it. Sin always results in death. This is why it is so important to spiritually eat well. Spiritual exercise is practising what you have learned and received and heard and seen. Our aim as Jesus followers is to be like our master. We must practice whatever we have learned through reading the Bible, revelation from the Holy Spirit or seen in the lives of godly men and women that point to how Jesus lived on earth. Maybe you could make your own list of what you know about Jesus actions. Here s a few things to get you started: he spent time in his father s house, he healed, he preached, he fed the hungry, he set captives free, he laid his life down. This year let us spiritually eat and exercise well so that we keep away from sin and that the God of peace will be with us. Jim 2

3 From The Message Bible As the rocks rained down, Stephen prayed, Master Jesus, take my life. Then he knelt down, praying loud enough for everyone to hear, Master don t blame them for their sin - his last words. Then he died. Acts ch.7, v 59 & 60 The Message Bible, Gwen Taylor In January to March, we will be providing an opportunity for those who are interested in exploring some fundamental and big questions to get together over a meal and have a conversation together under the title Identity. Identity explores questions such as the following by examining themes in the Gospel of John over a seven week process of discovery. Who am I? What is the purpose of life? Who is God? Can I make contact with him? During this process, nothing is assumed. Everything is explained. Anything can be asked! Each session reveals more about the identity and mission of Jesus and shows why he is the key to life and the one who can answer our big questions. The sessions are suitable for those who are not yet Christians and interested in knowing more, or those who are new to the faith. He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose. Jim Elliot Philip James "Jim" Elliot (October 8, 1927 January 8, 1956) was an evangelical Christian who was one of five missionaries killed while participating in Operation Auca, an attempt to evangelize the Huaorani people of Ecuador. Gwen Taylor For those who are not new to faith or exploring what Christianity is about, please consider who you might invite to come along to Identity with you. And don t forget to pray that the Holy Spirit will lead many to faith in Jesus! The dates and themes for Identity are as follows: 19th Jan The God who created us Are science and Christianity enemies or friends? 26th Jan The God who wants to rescue us What about other religions? 2th Feb The God we were made for Where can I find lasting pleasure? 9th Feb The God who wants to comfort us Why do we suffer? 16th Feb The God who loves relationships Do I need to go to church to be a Christian? 1st Mar The God who died for us Does God care about justice? 8th Mar The God who wants to persuade us Do I need to see in order to believe? Each session will begin with a meal at 7 pm and we aim to finish the sessions at approximately 9 pm Martyn 3

4 Mottram Matters Prayer 4 Prodigals Prayer 4 Prodigals is a monthly prayer session during which we intercede on behalf of friends and family who have either drifted from their faith, or have never made any kind of response to the gospel message. We have also met recently with the elders of HCC for mutual support, encouragement and prayer, and to consider together how we can strengthen each other as we pursue God s calling on each church. We have decided to meet together once a month for this purpose, on the first Monday of the month. Our next meeting will be on Monday 4th January at 8 pm at, and once again, we ask for your prayers as we listen together to what the Spirit is saying to the churches as we enter the New Year! For the last four years we have met on the third Tuesday evening of each week. However, because Identity will be running on Tuesday evenings for the next three months, it will be necessary to change the day and time of this important time of prayer. So, please note that Prayer 4 Prodigals will now meet at 4 pm on the third Sunday of each month. Why not book these dates in your diary now and join us as we plead for God s mercy to be lavished on our loved ones! The first gathering will be on Sunday 17th January. Africa Feedback As mentioned in last month s Insight, those of us who visited Tanzania and South Africa on a short missions trip in October/November would very much like to encourage you with some of the things we saw and learned whilst over there. Life in the Spirit Conference 2016 has a long and strong connection with Life in the Spirit, from its early beginnings to its current leadership (including one Gareth Lloyd-Jones). In February each year, Life in the Spirit hosts an annual conference at the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire. The conference is open to anyone who is involved in any ministry in the local church or Christian mission, whether young or old, male or female! And its purpose is to equip, encourage and envision those who attend as they serve Jesus as he advances his kingdom. The conference in 2016 runs from Monday 22nd Thursday 25th February. So Please book the afternoon of Sunday 10th January for an Africa Feedback session. We will provide a simple lunch (bread and soup, cake and tea/coffee) and then spend an hour or so giving you some of the highlights of our time in Dodoma and Cape Town. We will close with prayer. We would also like to invite you to make a donation to the general funds for the Tanzania (UK) Trust to support their other ministries in Dodoma apart from the new medical centre (we will explain more on the day). Please come prepared to give generously and joyfully! Elders Meetings The elders have recently taken the decision to gather more frequently to pray, search the Scriptures and wait on God for His prompting and direction. We will now be meeting every Monday evening from 8 pm for a couple of hours, and we would be most grateful for your prayers for us as we gather! Please pray that God will knit our hearts together with His and that we will become increasingly sensitive to the urging and provoking of the Spirit as we seek to serve. The title is Not Ashamed and is seeking to answer a very important question: Is the Gospel still understood, explained and unashamedly explained as the Power of God for our salvation or must it be compromised in our quest for cultural relevance? Life in the Spirit Conference 2016 is set on asking questions and stirring faith in God and in His answer to our every question. The speakers include: Joel Edwards (former General Director of the Evangelical Alliance, now International Director of the Micah Challenge and a Commissioner for Equality and Human Rights Commission) Sam Storms, a charismatic Calvinist, theologian, author and Lead Pastor of Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City! Steve and Esther Uppal, Senior Leaders of All Nations Christian Centre, Wolverhampton. Why not consider coming along for the week (or even just a day!) for a personal, practical and pastoral challenge and for a time of fellowship with other like-minded people! You can find more details on the website at Martyn

5 Real Lives 2016 is a series of opportunities to share our faith with our family, friends and neighbours during the course of the year. It will culminate in five days of outreach from 28th September to 2nd October during which the speaker Roger Carswell will interview some well-known Christians about how their faith influences their lives. Most of the local churches in Mottram and Hattersley are involved in planning this together and we hope to be able to have a joint worship service and celebration together on Sunday 2nd October. Our vision is to be able to erect a large marquee on an area of grass somewhere in Mottram which will be used for the Roger Carswell interviews during the evenings, and events for children from the local schools during the days. In preparation for these events, there are several things you can be doing: Consider prayerfully who you can invite to one or all of these evenings: I would challenge you to find 3 people for whom you pray consistently during the course of 2016, and let s see what God will do in and for them! Set aside an hour each month to pray together with people from the other churches: this will be from 8 pm 9 pm on the third Monday of each month, starting in January. Let s ask and be amazed! We will also pray at our monthly prayer and vision evenings on the third Wednesday of each month. Prepare to support this financially: it will not be cheap to arrange these events and none of the churches is overflowing with funds, and so we shall need to give generously! Thursday 21st January 2.30 pm Afternoon Tea with Roger Carswell 8.00 pm Prayer and Vision Evening Afternoon Tea with Roger Carswell Real Lives 2016 will commence on the afternoon of Thursday 21 st January with Afternoon Tea with Roger Carswell. This will take place at 2:30 pm at and will be a united event between most of the churches in Mottram and Hattersley. For those who have not yet heard Roger speak, he is a humorous and gifted speaker who thrives in settings where he is able to share the gospel. This promises to be a fun and thought provoking event and will be entirely suitable to invite along our friends and neighbours! If you are free during the day, please do consider coming along and, of course, please cover the event with prayer in the meantime. Prayer and Vision Evening Our Prayer and Vision evenings are an opportunity to pray about issues facing the ministry and mission of and to share together what we sense God is stirring in our hearts. These evenings are so important for the church that we cancel our small group gatherings during the week that they take place to allow as many as possible to attend. I strongly encourage you to join with us: book the third Wednesday evening of each month to join the fun! However, our normal pattern will not be followed in January! For this month, our prayer and vision evening will take place on Thursday 21 st, 8 pm at. This will be a united meeting between the local churches at which Roger Carswell and the local ministers will describe the vision for Real Lives 2016 followed by a time of prayer for the events planned during the year! I look forward to seeing you there! Martyn

6 Hattersley Community Church have signed up to the ISAIAH 62 PRAYER INITIATIVE praying for Israel with Christians from around the globe on the first Wednesday of each month. If you ve got a heart for Israel why don t you come and join us? The next meeting is from 10 am to 11 am on Wednesday 6th January 2016 at Michael & Sylvia's (4 Worthington Close, Hattersley) We would like to encourage people to book tables as a group of friends/ church etc. It will be such a great enjoyable event very different! We can be flexible. It s 25 a ticket, so if there are a group of 8 or more, we can just cluster the tables together to form your own group of friends for the event: a party within a party! Ruth Lymefield Garden Centre Broadbottom I have set watchmen on your walls O Jerusalem; They shall never hold their peace day or night. You who make mention of the Lord do not keep silent, And give Him no rest till He establishes And He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth (Isaiah 62:6-7). Jim BRING FAMILY & FRIENDS 11am Saturday 9th January Enjoy a Country walk Country food Being together Come by car or train: (train from Hattersley at 10.36am, returning or 1.14pm) RSVP Ruth Mighty Men s Breakfast Saturday 9th from 8 to Please let Martyn Catterall know if you will be there. (the ladies will go hungry again this month)

7 We held our second Wednesday Worship on the 16th December. The traditional Christmas service was very well received from our friends within the community who access the Matinee and Cafe, and it was great to spend time chatting afterwards over Bob's stunning winter warmer soup. We had a festive day of treats with our Sunday youth in December. Andrew M. kindly cooked us all Christmas dinner as a thank you to the young people for the ways in which they serve the church so cheerfully at different events. The afternoon of games was wrapped up nicely with a social in our very own Mottram Movies cinema. This included other local young people from the different churches we connect with through the ONE youth network. It was a great day and a personal highlight had to be the young people's inclusion at Prayer 4 Youth which took place within the afternoon. It was great to cover them in prayer and we would encourage you to keep praying! We're very blessed to have each of them and are excited at what God is upto and the potential for things to come.'ask And Be Amazed'! Within the service we were treated to a special rendition of O Holy Night by Emma Ramsden, a testimony from Geoff and a short but powerful sermon from Martyn. Many thanks to all who took part and we look forward to the potential of making Wednesday Worship something of a regular occurrence. It was a fun, festive finale at the Matinee. Can you recognise these faces? Debs We took a small group down to the warehouse in Stalybridge to help with the shoeboxes. Rhianna Lee had championed the appeal at Longdendale school to the success of 100 shoeboxes! Well done Rhianna! This has been an interesting Operation Christmas Child campaign in one way or another but I want to give you a brief update. Total number of shoeboxes for Greater Manchester was 33,412 (up 1000 on last year) We exported to Kyrgyzstan (8637 boxes), Liberia (8275 boxes), Romania (11971 boxes) and Serbia (4529 boxes) Close to 800 people signed into the warehouse over the three week period and this included Lloyds Bank, Mazars, William Turner and Lex Auto. Several schools came along with their boxes and stayed to help. Included in one box was this letter. Hi my name is Kevin I am 14 years old, I m from Albania, but now living in the UK. I m wanted to show you a little story, about what happened to me. When I was in my country Albania, I was in year 6: In January Germany people sent some Shoe boxes to Albania. Inside the box were some presents, sent to my school, with lots and lots of things in the box. Everybody in school got a shoe box. When I m opened my box, I felt very excited and started to cry. When I first I am see in the box is the later in Germany and say in wonderful world. Inside the box, I had socks, books, pencil, game card, toys and lots of things. I wanted to thanks to every single person. I want to say we are all the same and it doesn t matter, what religion you are? I hope you have as much enjoyment, when you open the box, just like ME, when I received my box. Good luck, From Kevin Kociu Following Kevin s writing and championing of the Operation Christmas Child appeal in his school, he subsequently appeared in the local newspaper further promoting the campaign. Many thanks to all concerned for another successful campaign. See you next year. Martyn Catterall

8 What, Where, When and Who Miscellany Time to Book: Church Weekend Away 2016 What happens in and around our Churches, When it happens, Where it takes place and Who to contact for more details and to volunteer. Sundays (see Diary Dates for full details) am Mottram Morning Worship, Stalybridge Road Martyn Cooling am Please set aside the weekend of 6th-8th May 2016 in your diaries for the next Weekend Away at Cloverley Hall in Shropshire! am Mottram Monday Matinee 7.00 pm to 8.30 pm Church Aloud 7.45 pm (2nd Mon of Month) Debs F Louise Lee /HCC Lads Cell (13 to 17 s) Simon Davidson Adults 10-12(as at 6/5/16) 5-9(as at 6/5/16) 0-4(as at 6/5/16) 8.00 pm to pm Small Groups There will be surcharges for rooms with en-suite facilities and discounts for those who wish to make use of the camping facilities rather than have rooms in the main house. Booking forms are available from the church lobby or on request from Elizabeth Martyn Benstead. Various locations. Martyn Cooling Thursdays Tearfund Prayer Meeting Venue varies. Shirley Brierley Tuesdays am to pm School term Tuesday Café 5.15 pm To 6.30 pm Rock Chicks Meeting Place (10-14 s) Sam Patterson Linda Winson am Womans Prayer & Bible Group. to 12 noon School term Susan Cooling pm to 8.00 pm School term Kids 4 Christ 7.00 pm To 8.30 pm Lifecentre Youth Group 7.00 pm To 9.00 pm Create Street Dance Wednesdays am to am HCC Prayer 9.30 am to am Mums Bible Study 8 The following costs are estimated based on the feedback from Cloverley to date and may change slightly: 6.00 pm to 7.30 pm Monday 2.00 pm To 4.00 pm Men s Group 2nd Weds of month Paul Barlow Hattersley Morning Worship Pinfold Primary School, Hattersley Jim Solomon This will be another fun-filled and faith-stimulating weekend together in the peaceful and beautiful surroundings of Cloverley Hall. 4 Worthington Close, Hattersley. Sylvia Garry Susan Cooling pm Free (Junior school age) Jim Towell jim@towells.info The Hub Rivkah The Hub Rivkah (8-12y 7pm, 13y+ 8pm) Worship Group Susan Cooling The February Insight Copy Deadline will be on Sunday 24th January so the printed version is ready for January 31st. Stephen and Margaret Please note that there will be no Small Group Meetings on Wednesday 20th January due to the special Prayer and Vision Evening for Real Lives 2016 on Thursday 21st. After the splendid Christmas Dinners, normal Tuesday Cafe service will recommence on the 12th January Articles for Insight Sorry! We can t be everywhere! If you have photos or reports on Mottram or Hattersley church events, please send them to us for including in Insight stephen_winfield@btopenworld.com 4 Hall Drive, Mottram, SK14 6LH See the Diary Dates for the copy deadline. Stephen and Margaret Winfield 8

9 January Diary Dates Sun 3rd HCC 7.00 am Prayer for Church (at 4 Worthington Close) am Prayer 4 Church am Mottram Morning Worship and Lord s Supper HCC am Hattersley Morning Worship and Lord s Supper Wed 6th HCC 7.30 pm HCC Whole Church Bible Study at HBC various Small Group Meetings Sat 9th 8.00 am Mottram Mighty Men s Breakfast Sun 10th HCC 7.00 am am am HCC am 1.00 pm Prayer for Church (at 4 Worthington Close) Prayer 4 Church Mottram Morning Worship Hattersley Morning Worship Africa Feedback and Simple Lunch Wed 13th am Men s Group various Small Group Meetings HCC 7.30 pm HCC Whole Church Prayer at HBC Sat 16th 7.30 pm Tanzania (UK) Trust Formal Dress Charity Dinner at Roe Cross Greeen Sun 17th HCC 7.00 am am am HCC am 4.00 pm Prayer for Church (at 4 Worthington Close) Prayer 4 Church Mottram Morning Worship and Lord s Supper Hattersley Morning Worship Prayer 4 Prodigals Mon 18th tba pm Prayer 4 Real Lives 2016 Tue 19th 7.00 pm Wed 20th HCC 7.00 pm Identity 1. The God Who Created Us HCC Prayer Walking and Outreach (meet 4 Worthington Close) Thu 21st 2.30 pm Afternoon Tea with Roger Carswell (Real Lives 2016) 8.00 pm Prayer and Vision Evening (Real Lives 2016) Sun 24th February Insight Deadline HCC 7.00 am Prayer for Church (at 4 Worthington Close) am Prayer 4 Church am Mottram Morning Worship HCC am Hattersley Morning Worship Tue 26th 7.00 pm Wed 27th various HCC 7.30 pm Identity 2. The God Who Wants to Rescue Us Small Group Meetings HCC Neighbourhood Meeting (venue tba.) Sun 31st February Insight HCC 7.00 am Prayer for Church (at 4 Worthington Close) am Prayer 4 Church am Mottram Morning Worship HCC am Hattersley Morning Worship followed by Bring n Share Lunch and HCC Members Meeting = Mottram Evangelical Church. HCC = Hattersley Community Church UTD = United Meetings (at unless stated) HBC = Hattersley Baptist Church Mottram Evangelical Church