As usual, we celebrated New Year’s Day by having a party. As with most parties, there was plenty of food:

… and plenty of chat.

There was a quiz on 2016 to do:

  … with the winners triumphant:

There were also silly games to play, like musical statues (with a twist that when the music stopped, the couple had to stand still in a plastic bag…!)

… and a game when you had to be either a Christmas tree, Santa or Rudolph when the music stopped:

A lot of fun as usual!

We had birthdays to celebrate today!

One was from yesterday:

Another was actually today!

We also enjoyed singing to our newest church member, born on Christmas Eve.

Dave spoke this morning from Josh 3:1-6, reminding us that we need to enter the New Year with faith and keep on believing in order to enter into all that God has for us. Josh 3:4 tells us  we have to keep our eyes on God in order to know which way to go, ‘since you have never been this way before.’ There are new things for us to learn and new promises to claim this year!

In order to move ahead, we must:

1. be willing to wait on God – always a hard thing to do, but necessary for us to come to the end of ourselves so that we see God move in miraculous ways. The Israelites had to wait 3 days at the banks of the River Jordan, waiting for Joshua’s command. The disciples had to wait for nearly 6 weeks before they were clothed with power from on high. God’s power is revealed to us, but often, there is a waiting period before we see Him move in miraculous ways.
2. follow God wholeheartedly. Previously they had followed the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, but now the ark of the covenant became the symbol for them to move. The ark was the symbol of God’s presence, reminding the people that they had to keep their eyes on God. We have to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ, following Him as our example and high priest.
3. consecrate oursselves, setting ourselves apart for God. Consecration was often associated with ritual cleansing and changing clothes, with the new beginnings that God brings. We have to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility and love (Col 3:9-10), putting off the old self and putting on His righteousness. God calls us to holiness, purity and a life free from sin.

Josh 3:1-6 reminds us that new territory lies ahead. We can be confident that God will be with us. We don’t have to look at the depth of the Jordan but at the length, height, depth and breadth of God’s love.

As we enter 2017, let’s pray God will do new things throughout this year. Do join us at our prayer meetings on Thursday 5th and 19th January at 7.30 p.m. and take the opportunity to pray in all our meetings as well as on your own and with others in small groups.

Pray for:

• new birth, for people to become Christians and find new life in Jesus
• new vision, for us to see the opportunities and paths God has for us this year and to embrace all He leads us to do
• new hope, for our churches and villages to find the living hope that Jesus brings and for despair, depression and doubt to be banished by the power of the gospel
• new opportunities to witness and serve our God both locally and further afield (pray for the mission trip to India in April and for new gifts and ministries to arise in our church.)

God hears and answers prayer, so let’s be a praying people who come before God earnestly, fervently and with faith in our hearts that we will see Him moving and doing new things this year!

Many of us go into the New Year with new things: presents bought for us at Christmas, new clothes, new ideas, new resolutions. We like the idea of newness and begin a new year with a fresh sense of anticipation and excitement, believing we can shed the obsolescence of the old and move on pastures new.

Such anticipation and enthusiasm do not generally last long, for January in England is often a long, cold, bleak month and we are people who easily slip back into old habits, old patterns of thinking and old ways of doing things. Nonetheless, we serve a God who is seated on His throne and who makes all things new. (Rev 21:5) This gives us encouragement to hope afresh and to persevere through the storms, difficulties and trials which 2017 will inevitably bring.

This new year is a time for renewed hope and commitment. Each Sunday, as we gather together to worship God and serve Him, we see the opportunity for a new week of worship and service. Each day is a new opportunity for worship and service. We serve a God of second chances, of fresh opportunities, a God who makes everything new and who gives us new birth, new life, a new song to sing, and new hope (see 1 Pet 1:3). As we celebrate a new year, let’s celebrate all the new things God will do this year and rejoice in the new life He brings.

The birth of my granddaughter on Christmas Eve has made me ponder new birth in new ways. Having given birth to my own son by Caesarean section because he was in a breech position, I have no personal experience of labour whatsoever, but am assured by all other mothers who have that experience that labour is just that – hard work! The rewards of a baby are worth the pain (see Jn 16:21), but there is no doubting the pain, effort and sheer hard work that go into delivering a child. My daughter-in-law had a long labour and I was privileged to be able to glimpse something of her struggles and work in the agonisingly long wait through that labour until the excited news arrived of a safe delivery.

As we are praying for spiritual new birth, it strikes me that perhaps we need to be much more aware of the need for hard work in prayer. People need to be born again; we long to see people coming to faith in Christ and being born again of the Spirit. That does not happen overnight, however, any more than a baby arrives in the world instantaneously. There is often a journeying towards faith: questioning, doubting, wondering, aching, longing, arguing, fighting, yielding, surrendering. Many people may be involved in that journey (‘links in the chain’, we often say, or, to use Paul’s analogy, those who plant, water or harvest the seed. (1 Cor 3:6-9)) We need to understand that prayer is work, and it may often need to be as determined, effort-filled and arduous as the labour of a woman before giving birth in the natural realm. Paul said, ‘Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured.’ (Col 4:12) Wrestling in prayer conveys the fact that to pray for people to be born again is not something for the fainthearted. We have to be persistent and not give up.

There are times during labour when the woman feels she will fail, that she cannot continue, that there will never be an end to the pain she is experiencing. She needs the encouragement of others (usually a birthing partner and a midwife, who combine both love and experience) to persevere and press on. The moment of delivery may well involve excruciating pain, the tearing of her very flesh perhaps, but the moment the baby is in her arms, there is a sense of achievement and victory beyond words.

We need to pray with the same kind of commitment and determination of a woman in labour. This is a spiritual battle, and the devil does not want to yield control over people. We need to pray with fervour and perseverance for God to shine the light of His love into people’s hearts, that blinded eyes may finally see (2 Cor 4:3-6). We need to pray for God to give us words to speak to those we love: family, friends, colleagues, neighbours, passers-by. We need to pray for the conviction of the Holy Spirit to come upon people. We cannot do this casually or even occasionally; we need to pray without ceasing (1 Thess 5:17), wrestling in prayer even as Jacob wrestled with God (Gen 32), determined not to give in or give up, but to press through until we see, figuratively speaking, the head engaged!

My son told me that his daughter’s head literally battered against her mother before finally she emerged into the world. Natural birth is not easy for the mother or for the baby. Spiritual birth is not easy. Those whom God is calling may be resistant and reluctant, but we are called to pray them into the kingdom, ‘battering’ in prayer, so to speak, like a battering ram.

This is not an easy subject, for we much prefer a life of leisure and contentment to one of sacrifice and prayer. If we want to see people born in Zion (see Ps 87:4-6), we have to be willing to wrestle in prayer, however. We cannot do without the hard work (labour) of prayer.