Last night’s ‘Churches Together’ meeting, attended by members of Goldthorpe Parish Church, Goldthorpe Salvation Army, Furlong Road Methodist Church and Great Houghton Methodist Church as well as GPCC members, looked at the topic of mission and how whole-life discipleship is needed if we are to fulfil Jesus’s Great Commission in Matt 28:18-20. We need to see that there is no such thing as a sacred/ secular divide, for as Mark Greene explains in this DVD clip, God is interested in every part of our lives and our influence in society is not restricted to the times we spend together in church gatherings or doing church events.
Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like a woman baking bread, using yeast. (Matt 13:33) Dave kindly baked two loaves for us, made with exactly the same ingredients except one used yeast and one didn’t. One was flat; the other, more than three times the size of the unleavened loaf. As God works in us by His Spirit to motivate, demonstrate love and inspire creative ways to serve Him, our influence can be transformation to our local communities. The same power which raised Christ from the dead works in us too! (Eph 1:19-21)
We spent time identifying our spheres of contact, those places where we go regularly and meet people, sometimes briefly, sometimes regularly (as in the context of work or neighbours, for example) and realising that we can pray for these people and for opportunities to be Christ to them. We also enjoyed an activity involving jigsaws, when we realised that if any of the pieces are missing, the picture will be incomplete… just as we are all needed in God’s service for His mission to be completed.
Here are the completed jigsaws:
We concluded the service by sharing Holy Communion together, celebrating Christ’s death and resurrection and sharing in this act of remembrance together as a sign of our unity. Christ’s power, available to us through this sacrament, is able to transform us and make us salt and light in our community and we pray God will use each one of us to make disciples.
After the service, we enjoyed good food as always – many thanks to all who provided refreshments for us to enjoy!