The Turning Update

The Turning initiative is only 3 weeks away, so here are a few more details that we have received about what’s happening locally:

 ·         The programme will kick off on Sunday 22 September, 6:30pm at Coney Hill Baptist, with all the churches praying for the week and worshipping together;

 Throughout the week (Mon-Saturday, 23-28 September), there will be a pattern of morning and evening gatherings:

 ·         The morning get together will start at 10:00am at St Francis (other possible venues to be confirmed) for training and prayer, followed by sharing faith on the Hayes, West Wickham and Coney Hall ‘High Streets’, finishing up with a debrief;

 ·         The evening meeting will take place at 7:30pm at Coney Hill Baptist for prayer, testimony and worship – encouragement for the next day.

New Term Looming

I don’t want to prematurely draw a curtain on the Summer season, especially not on a Bank Holiday when we’ve actually got some sunshine! But as we approach the start of a new academic year as a church, there are a few new ventures and updates in the pipeline for the Autumn:

• Going online with ‘Church Suite’ - the new tool for some of our Communications and Publicity;

• Refreshing/ Development of our Teams;

• An experimental initiative called ‘Learning Leadership’;

• Our Church Weekend Away.

I’m deliberately not giving details as yet, but keep your eyes open for information on all these things in the coming weeks. In the meantime, enjoy whatever is left of the sunny days.

Jesus said, "I am ..."

In the sixth century St. Gregory composed a commentary on the book of Job and he is famous for saying that “Scripture is like a river . . . broad and deep, shallow enough here for the lamb to go wading, but deep enough there for the elephant to swim.”

As we study the I Am statements of Jesus this summer it astounds me that Jesus was able to use imagery like these to help all of us understand more of who he is, what he is like and why he came to the earth.  There is a broadness and depth that makes it shallow enough for our new believers to wade in but deep enough for our scholars and theologians to swim in.

This morning, I (Amber), will be mentioning how God has been using imagery in The Lion King since I was 9 years old to help me better understand my friend Jesus and help me to understand Scripture more.

Is there any imagery that helps you to understand our Heavenly Father more?