How We Got Here

This post is all about the new signs going up in the building! – not maybe the most exciting viewing on the blog, but all these things are necessary to help people and to keep them informed.

The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus asking for a sign from heaven (Matthew 16:1). He told them that they could read the weather signs, but didn’t know how to interpret the signs of the times. May we have wisdom from heaven to understand far more than the signs going up in the new building!

After the last service at Beever Street last Sunday, this week has seen the moving of all the ‘fixtures and fittings’ to the new building on Market Street. As anyone who has ever moved house will testify, moving is a tiring and often stressful experience (apparently, it’s the third most stressful experience in life after divorce and bereavement…)

Thanks to all those who helped pack up everything at Beever Street and unpack everything at Market Street. It will soon feel like home!

Everything in the community hall before it was all tidied away:

Unpacking the children’s equipment in the children’s room:

Working on boxing in the boiler in the children’s room so it’s safer:

Clearing equipment away in the storage area underneath the children’s room:

Sunday 30th May 2010: an important day in the history of Goldthorpe Pentecostal Church, as this was the last meeting at Beever Street.

The church first met there in June 1964, with an extension to the building being added in 1997. Now, as the church has grown, the building on Beever Street just isn’t big enough, hence the move to the new church building.

But for tonight, we remembered God’s faithfulness over so many years and rejoiced in all He has done. Mark preached from Ecclesiastes 3 and we acknowledged that the time has come to move on.

At the end of the service, we took a photo of the church members – the last official photo we will take at Beever Street. Not all the members could be present, but for those who were, it was a night to remember.

This is the ‘silly’ one!

And in the words of the song,
‘Greater things have yet to come/ And greater things are still to be done here.’ (God of This City, Bluetree).

Watch this space!!

Other work has been done as well, such as:

…fitting locks onto doors…


…removing boards from the kitchen windows…

…drilling holes so that the inner doors can be re-hung…


…continuing with the casing for the electrics in the community hall…


…supervising other people’s safety…!

One of the things I have had to look at in our fire safety risk assessment is how we would raise the alarm in the event of a fire. Whistles, air horns, automatic fire detection devices are all mentioned in official literature. I don’t think this method is covered, but I’m pretty sure it would be effective!

In the Bible, the shofar was used to announce holidays (Ps 81:3) and the Jubilee year (Lev 25:9). It was also used to signal the start of a war (Joshua 6).

The signal of the trumpet is also mentioned in the New Testament. In 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul writes “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.”

That kind of trumpet is very different to sounding a fire alarm, but we all need to be equally ready!

(Post title given by our central heating expert, Dave!!)

When we arrived at St Mark’s, we found there were two boilers, one of which is located in the children’s room. There was also a water tank there that was very high up. One of the jobs today was to move the tank to a more sensible height…

Fitting the scaffolding in a smaller room was a challenge in itself!

The old water tank:

The empty space where the old water tank used to be:

The new water tank:

Someone looks to be having fun!

And someone doesn’t look like it’s quite so much fun!