A busy weekend lies ahead! Don’t forget tonight’s prayer meeting at 7:30 p.m. We are too busy not to pray! Prayer is the foundation of all our outreach and we need to seek God and ask for His help in everything we do: ‘May the favour of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us— yes, establish the work of our hands.’ (Ps 90:17)

On Friday evening at 7 p.m., we will be setting up for the Community Open Day on Saturday, so please come along to help with that if you can. There will be no badminton on Friday as we set up instead.

The Community Open Day will be on Saturday 9th July from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Come along for refreshments, craft activities, face-painting and much more! This is an opportunity to celebrate six years since we moved to Market Street – six years of God’s faithfulness and provision in this building and a chance to reflect, remember and rejoice.

In the evening at 6 p.m. we’ll be having a family fun night, watching the Disney classic ‘The Jungle Book’ and sharing chip butties after the film. Do come along to that if you’re free.

On Sunday 10th July, we’ll be meeting at Cherry Tree Court at 10.30 a.m. and at Market Street at 6 p.m., so let’s continue to celebrate God’s faithfulness and goodness together.

To live life well, we have to have wholeness of personality; we have to be single-minded people who are not at war with ourselves (let alone other people.) Jesus reminded us that we cannot serve two masters (Matt 6:24) and James tells us that where doubt digs its roots into us, the result is double-mindedness which means we can’t expect to receive from God. (James 1:5-7) If we allow worry and doubt to win the battle of the mind, then we are divided, for both these things distract us from whole-heartedly trusting God.

I read recently that the word ‘integrity’ comes from the Latin word ‘integer’ which means ‘whole.’ A little lightbulb lit up in my mind – a dim memory of (loathed) maths lessons, where I learned that an integer is a whole number (not a fraction.) Somehow, I had never connected the two before. Integrity – wholeness – is essential to good spiritual, emotional and physical health. We need honesty and consistency in our character; we have to act according to the values, beliefs and principles we claim to hold. Whenever we don’t, we create inner tension and division (double-mindedness) which causes us to vacillate, hesitate and ultimately to disintegrate (whose etymological roots mean to do the opposite of bringing parts together in wholeness…)

Distraction, anxiety, doubt and despair will rob us of confidence in God, peace and gladness. Phil 4:6-7 reminds us ‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.‘ We need God’s peace to be that guardian which protects us from double-mindedness and allows us to pursue God with all our hearts. The Message version of these verses says ‘Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.‘ God’s wholeness and unity ultimately become the bedrock on which our wholeness can stand.

C. S. Lewis once wrote ‘faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.’

I know all about moods; some would say that the definition of being a woman is being moody! But all of us experience different moods: joy, elation, apprehension, fear, anxiety, indecision, terror, misery, boredom, bewilderment, confusion, to name just a few. A mood is a ‘temporary state of mind or feeling’, but at the time, there doesn’t seem to be anything very temporary about it!

My mother always used to say that moods needed to be ‘kicked into touch’, and the older I get, the more I see the wisdom of those words. C. S. Lewis went on to say ‘moods will change, whatever view your reason takes… Unless you teach your moods “where they get off”, you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith.’ (‘Mere Christianity’)

James says something similar: ‘If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.‘ (James 1:5-8).

Training the habit of faith is not easy. It requires determination and conscious choice: we determine and speak to ourselves that we will believe and praise, whatever the mood (see Ps 34:1-3, Ps 27:8, Ps 42:5-6). As Eugene Peterson remarks, the command to ‘lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord’ (Ps 134:2) involves a simple motor movement: ‘you may not be ab le to command your heart, but you can command your arms. Lift your arms in blessing; just maybe your heart will get the message and be lifted up also in praise.’ (‘The Journey’, P 176) Today, whatever our moods, we can, by faith, bless the Lord; it’s surprising how feelings follow faith and action, rather than preceding them!

Further work continued on the house for the Open Day on 9th July:

To find out more, you’ll have to come along to the Open Day which will run from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. All are welcome. There will be a range of craft activities, face-painting, a pilgrim trail and the usual refreshments, with displays showing what has been happening at church over the past six years. In the evening at 6 p.m., we’ll also be having a family film night, watching ‘The Jungle Book’ and enjoying chip butties!

We’ll be setting up for the Open Day on Friday 8th July in the evening (7 p.m.), so there will be no badminton that night. Please come along and help us get ready, though!

Six years ago, Stephen spent his birthday at the official opening of the church in the Market Street building! Tonight, he was still celebrating God’s good plans for his life at church!

Mark used the plans of the church building to send us on a treasure hunt to find out a key Bible verse about plans:

The verse was Proverbs 16:9 – ‘In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.‘

Stephen then took us through the meaning of life through the illustration of flat-pack furniture:

Life comes with instructions, but so often, we feel we can disregard these and build life according to our plans. The results can be somewhat confusing:

Only when we finally follow God’s instructions do we find out what He plans to give us!

God has good plans to give us hope and a future (Jer 29:11). We need to take hold of His plans for our lives and live according to the Maker’s instructions!