Discerning our Gifts

This is the next subject in our ‘Gifts’ series that Dan will be speaking about on Sunday.

 In the coming weeks, we’ll be suggesting a few different tools that are available to help us work out together what our respective gifts might be. We are also giving thought to a ‘personality test’ that we could do as a whole church – to help us get to know one another better, and understand how we each might exercise our gifts. So watch this space…

 Another aspect of this whole arena is the idea of ‘calling’. Exploring vocation often takes time and space, and so the Diocese offer regular Quiet Days to facilitate this. The next one is on 8 February, 10:00am-3:30pm. It offers a mixture of short talks, reflections, prayer and plenty of room for personal prayer and reflection on the ways in which God might be calling. If you are interested please let Jon know.

New Sermon Series: "Gifts"

Back in November, we met in the Assembly Rooms and discussed ways we might come to a clearer understanding of what our individual/joint strengths and gifts might be.

 Part of the fruit of those discussions is this new series, which we will be running up to Lent. It will start by drawing us right back to our purpose/vocation as humans, but will consider how we discern, exercise and grow our gifts, and reflect on the relationship between ‘spiritual’ and ‘natural’ gifts. Through the series we will also offer different tools to help people gain a clearer insight into their gifting.

 On 24 March, we’ll get back together in the Assembly Rooms with a view to re-invigorating some of our Teams, and thinking how we can give expression to our gifts for God’s kingdom. 

New Alpha Course

Our 2019 Alpha Course starts on Thursday 24 January, 7:45 pm at SJ’s.

We’ve already had three people from the community sign up on the back of our Christmas Services, so we’re encouraging you all to extend an invitation to the people you know. There will be some postcard invites available next week, but you don’t need one of those to make a good, old fashioned face to face offer to someone who may be interested.

You can point them to our website for further details about the course. But as usual, we will  provide a meal, there will be a short video clip, and the opportunity to knock around questions on the subject matter of that evening.

Make it one of your 2019 resolutions to pray and ask someone!

The Happiness Course

Wellbeing is a concept that is in vogue at the moment, not least of all because contentment appears to be increasingly elusive for people.

‘The Happiness Course’ hasn’t simply jumped onto the latest social trend though. It is a course designed by the Christian charity, Livability, who have been working in some of the country’s most deprived areas for a long time. Forged out of their engagement with local communities, the course encourages people to grapple with what’s really important in life to help them discover a sense of wellbeing that is deeper than a fleeting good mood.

Dawn and Penny have been on training with Livability and would like to ‘test drive’ the course with you. The plan is to run it at SJ's, 7:30-9:30 pm (coffee from 7:15 pm) on the following Thursday Evenings – 19 & 26 July, 2 & 9 August. You don’t need to attend all 4 sessions on this taster series, but if you are interested please ring or text - Penny (07912 870528) or Dawn (07985 943158).