There are still quite a lot of community events going on in August, of special interest if you have children.

Tuesday 22nd August will see the second of the ‘Churches Together’ family fun days at Houghton Road Centre in Thurnscoe, from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. There will be the opportunity to play crazy golf, do craft activities, and there will be toddler toys available for under 5s. Lunch is provided, free of charge.

Wednesday 23rd August is the ‘Bounce Into Summer’ event, organised by Goldthorpe Development Group, on the land in front of the Dearne Playhouse. This event runs from 12 noon until 4 p.m., and a £2 entrance charge gives you access to all the rides, bouncy castles and stalls available. Face painting, trampolines, helter skelters and much more!

On Thursday 24th August, there is the ‘Performing Arts’ workshop at the Dearne Playhouse from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Suitable for young people aged between 10 and 18, this is the opportunity to take part in drama, song and dance, leading to a performance at the Dearne Community Arts’ Festival on Friday 1st September. Contact us for more details or to book a place at the workshop.

The Dearne Community Arts’ Festival, so long in the planning, is almost upon us! This community-wide event to champion creativity and celebrate community will take place at the Dearne Playhouse (formerly known as the Welfare Hall) in Goldthorpe on Friday 1st and Saturday 2nd September from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. Come along to see a range of exhibitions (paintings, photographs, crafts, model aircraft) and performances on stage (featuring music, dance, Thurnscoe Harmonic Male Voice Choir and a fashion show from the local sewing class) as well as demonstrations (floristry, hand massages, 3D printing, spinning). Competition winners (including Stacey, Gemma and Grace from GPCC) will be given their prizes at 12 noon on Saturday 2nd September! Entry is free and there will be something for everyone to enjoy! Places are still available at the Creative Writing Workshop run by the Barnsley Bard, Ian McMillan, on Friday 1st September at 2 p.m.

Looking further ahead, we have just had confirmation from the Goldthorpe Development Group of the date for this year’s Christmas market, which will be earlier than usual, on Friday 24th November from 4-8 p.m. We hope to be involved in this again to raise funds for the Salvation Army Christmas appeal and to be able to connect again with our local community!

A long time ago (2000), Lottery funding was granted to Houghton Road Centre for the creation of a minigolf course in the land next to the building, which had formerly been used for football. The original idea for the project came from Berneslai Homes worker Sylvia Cox, and the committee of the Centre worked hard on developing both the building and the grounds. As is usually the case with funded projects, it took a long time from the initial granting of this funding to seeing the project finished on the ground. Anne Corder, a landscape architect working with Landcare, worked with children from local schools to design the mosaics, and the project hit a number of problems, including the need for additional funding (from WREN) and maintenance issues. It was finally opened in March 2003, but has never been used to its full potential because of the need for volunteers to supervise the facility.

Photos from the opening in 2003 Today, ‘Churches Together’ launched its first family fun day at Houghton Road Centre. The minigolf was opened up to the general public and a number of young people enjoyed playing golf.

Inside, craft activities for toddlers were available:

In addition, Thurnscoe Pentecostal Church put on great refreshments and altogether about 40 people attended in total. We are very grateful to Pastor Kevin for all his help and to Alison Sykes for her commitment to using our local facilities to benefit the community. Come along on the next 2 Tuesdays (22 & 29 August) between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. for more family fun!

Today we have another ‘Churches Together’ prayer meeting at Houghton Road Centre in Thurnscoe at 9.30 a.m., where we will be praying especially for the family fun days scheduled for today, 22 & 29 August from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. These are an opportunity for people to come along to the centre for craft activities, play crazy golf, enjoy chat and snacks, and we pray God will use these days to reach out to people in our community who may not come to church services but whom we can befriend in His name. Please pray for these fun days, even if you can’t attend.

Tomorrow (Wednesday 16th August), there is another craft session connected to the Dearne Community Arts’ Festival. This is at the Salvation Army from 10 a.m. until 12 noon, and Dearne hOurbank will also be running a mask making session there for young people aged 10-20. Apart from being an opportunity to learn new skills, it’s another great opportunity to connect with people from our community.

Many thanks also for your support of the Salvation Army food bank. Alison came yesterday to collect all the items, and she wanted to pass on her grateful thanks to everyone for the continuing support which helps to feed needy families in our area. It’s good to be able to work together with all the local churches to support and help our community.

Please pray also for Karen Beecham as she moves on from Furlong Road Methodist Church to work in churches in Rotherham, and pray for Wayne Ashton, who will be looking after Furlong Road Methodist Church in future.

Stephen spoke tonight on God’s lavish love, using a scone to illustrate his points!

God’s love is limitless, intense, everlasting and personal (John 3:16). God’s love is such that He sent His only Son to save us and promises to make His dwelling in us. (Jn 14:23) Just as when we move into a new house, we take over the whole place, so God wants to move into every part of our lives. His love is beyond our knowledge and understanding (Eph 3:19); it is a love which will last beyond the grave (Rom 8:39), but so often, we struggle to try to fathom this love instead of simply receiving it as dearly loved children. (Eph 5:1, 1 Jn 2:28-29).

Our lives, on their own, can be rather like a scone: dry, with some flavour, but lacking true love.

God wants to lavish His love on our lives (1 Jn 3:1-2) – rather like lavishly adding jam and clotted cream to the scone make it taste much nicer!

God’s generosity, grace and love are poured out onto our lives with no sense of stinginess or holding back (see Eph 1:5-10). So often, however, we find it hard to accept that we are ‘dear children’; we want to be adults and don’t relish the thought of accepting God’s love with child-like faith. If we want our lives to overflow with love and the many gifts God gives, we have to become as little children, however, and receive God’s gifts with open arms.

We had a birthday to celebrate this morning at Cherry Tree Court:

Some people seem to be born worriers, worrying even when things are going well that this period won’t last! We often torment ourselves with tortured visions of what might go wrong in our lives and frequently find ourselves in an almost permanent state of anxiety and worry which robs us of peace.

Mark looked at some of the Biblical ways of dealing with anxiety and worry this morning. Phil 4:6-7 tells us not to be anxious about anything, showing that when we pray about our worries, thanking God for the fact that He is in control, He gives us overwhelming peace which is beyond our rational understanding. We need never despair, no matter how hard our circumstances, because we know we serve a God who is able to do something about our circumstances.

1 Pet 5:7 urges us to cast, or throw, all our troubles onto God. We are urged to discard worry, to throw it far away (as when a fisherman casts a net vigorously into the water.) We have to humble ourselves before God, handing our lives over to Him, and refusing to pick up our worries again once we’ve let go of them. We can do this because a) we know God cares about us as a loving Father and b) He will do the caring for us, in our place.

Deut 31:8 reminds us that God goes before and behind us and will never leave us or forsake us. This means we don’t have to be afraid or dismayed, because His presence makes all the difference.

Ps 23 shows us we can have confidence in God at all times and because of our confidence in His ability, we do not have to be afraid, even when we are at death’s door. Though we may have trouble in this life, God gives us a table of blessings from which to eat, and therefore we can be sure worry doesn’t have to have the last word!