The new notice board now has information in it, thanks to a local signwriter:

Work was also done putting up new notice boards inside the community room (to prevent damage to walls when posters and notices are put up there).

This proved quite a tricky job, largely because the walls are not straight in relation to the windows and so making the boards look ‘square’ was no mean feat!

Meanwhile, back in the corridor, Pat continued the second coat of paint:

Dave has clearly been affected by all this hard work… (read the label…)

A lunch break (note the new handles on the kitchen hatch):

The corridor received its first coat of emulsion yesterday: ‘chapel porth’ being the name of the new colour of paint.

After the painting, the cleaning has to start! Yesterday, it was the turn of the windows and the chairs.

Today, new notice boards are due to be delivered for the community room and the outside notice board will be receiving its first official signs, but decorating is on hold while Slimming World meet in the building. A day off from painting!

Flanders and Swann wrote a song called ‘The Gas Man Cometh‘ (listen here) which seems very apt to me at the moment as we continue with the decorating work at church! It’s a song of repairs in a house and when the painter comes, ‘with undercoats and overcoats, he painted every part, every nook and every cranny‘; that’s certainly how it feels at the moment!

Today saw lots of undercoats in the corridor:

… and in the alcove leading to the stage and children’s room:

… and to woodwork in the disabled toilet:

New door knobs were fitted:

In addition, the ceiling received a second coat of paint and one door in the corridor was glossed, plus a number of other jobs were finished off (including cutting some skirting board for the corridor and deciding on signage for the new notice board.)

This kind of effort can only be done by teamwork, and as one person remarked today, ‘teamwork makes the dream work’! For reasons known only to Himself, God entrusts us with work to be done for His kingdom and allows us to participate in His work. Whether that’s painting doors or making cups of tea or any other kind of job, we are all needed to make the dream work, all vitally important members of His body, all given gifts by His grace to be used for His glory (1 Pet 4:10). We are truly grateful for all who continue to help in this most practical of tasks.

Week 3 in the GPCC household, and the decorating continues…

Filling in:

After the glosswork was finished in the community room, work began in the corridor:

  Getting rid of the fluff behind the radiators:

Sorting the alcove from the corridor:

Under-coating one of the doors:

In reminding us that service is the way to follow, Jesus turns our ideas of greatness upside-down. His very life speaks of this paradox, of how God takes the foolish and apparently insignificant things of the world and breathes His power and life into them. 1 Cor 1:18-25 shows us how different God’s ways and thoughts are to our own and this is demonstrated constantly in the Bible when we see the underdog triumphing through God’s power alone.

It defied logic to think that one young inexperienced shepherd could defeat a powerful warrior like Goliath, but amazing things are possible when God is with us! (1 Sam 17:1-58). It made no sense to think that Gideon ( ‘my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.’ (Judges 6:15)) could rout the Midianites with an army whittled down to 300 men (see Judges 6 & 7). But as Joshua said, ‘one of you routs a thousand because the Lord your God fights for you, just as he promised.’ (Joshua 23:10) The Bible is full of underdog stories, where the least experienced wins because God is fighting for them!

The most astonishing underdog story in the Bible is told in the Gospels: how ‘God brings about world-changing salvation when a young, unimportant Jewish girl gives birth to a baby of mysterious paternity’ in a stable in Bethlehem, far away from the pizzazz of the palace at Jerusalem (quote taken from ‘Faith-Mapping’ by Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cooper, P 143) The story of Jesus is the story of God moving in unexpected and mysterious ways, His wonders to perform (William Cowper), for Jesus was not a conqueror or a scholar, but a simple carpenter whose three-year teaching ministry ended in ignominious defeat on a cross on the hill called Golgotha… yet whose sacrifice ‘is the hinge of history, shaping everything before and since in relation to his execution.’ (ibid.) We have to lay down our desire to know and our human way of reasoning to embrace God’s ways and follow the example of our Servant King:

‘This is our God, the Servant King,

He calls us now to follow Him

To bring our lives as a daily offering

Of worship to the Servant King.

So let us learn how to serve

And in our lives enthrone Him

Each other’s needs to prefer

For it is Christ we’re serving.’ (‘The Servant King’, Graham Kendrick)

Last night’s family service looked at the whole question of servanthood, focussing on John 13:1-17. In this acted-out parable, Jesus demonstrated to his disciples what his teaching on servants really meant. He had taught that the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve (Mark 10:42-45), but still the disciples jostled for positions of authority and failed to understand the paradoxical nature of the kingdom of God, where the first shall be last and the greatest a servant (see also Matt 16:25, Matt 23:12, Acts 20:35).

In washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus, their Lord and Teacher, performed the task of the lowliest slave. Michael Card says ‘Jesus finally gives up on words. He has told them numerous parables about slaves, now he will portray the most humiliating of slave roles, the washing of feet.’  (Michael Card, ‘A Better Freedom’) The proverb tells us ‘actions speak louder than words’, and Jesus demonstrates this in His actions. Peter protests at first, but we must learn that whatever Jesus does or offers us is enough for us.

It’s a challenge to live a life of service to others, largely because we are selfish, tainted by sin, and also because we live in a ‘me-first milieu’, where it’s common to celebrate selfishness instead of seeing it as a monster far bigger than Goliath. But it is also the way to blessing and life, because this is what God created us for. ‘We weren’t made to serve ourselves, and doing so sends us into a spiral of misery.’ (‘Faith-Mapping’, Daniel Montgomery, Mike Cooper, P 155) Such selfless service can only be practised by those whose identities and purposes are secure in God (‘Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God.’ ) As we revel in God’s love and provision for us, we are set free from the bickering and self-importance which drives the world, and we can serve freely: ‘As people who have been given everything we need in Christ, we can look at the world around us with eyes open for the opportunity to share our abundance.’ (ibid., P 154) 1 Pet 4:10 reminds us that the gifts God has given us through His grace should be used to serve others; the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt 25) shows us that this is done by serving those in need.

‘In any ordinary place

On any ordinary day

A parable can live again

When one will kneel and one will yield.’ (‘The Basin & The Towel’, Michael Card)