Last weekend we were away visiting friends who are involved in a variety of parish churches in Newbury. It was interesting for us to visit one of these (St Peter’s) on the Sunday morning and to see that they too are involved in very similar ministries to our church:
Helping the poor and needy in nearby Reading:
Praying for the needs of each other and the community:
It is heartening to know that God is building His church in all kinds of different places and that there is a commonality to the service that the church is offering, even when the style of worship may be different. We listened to an interactive sermon on Daniel, learning about his willingness to seek God in the difficulties of being asked to interpret the king’s dream and how he and his friends sought to put God first in their lives and serve him faithfully where they were. We celebrated with the congregation as they congratulated a member on being awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. We sang children’s songs and prayed for a recently bereaved family. All these things reminded us of the larger picture, that God is building His church in different places in different ways, but that the message of the Gospel remains the same.