At Cherry Tree Court this morning, Dave spoke from Matt 13:44-46, looking at two short parables describing the treasure that we find in God and in His kingdom. The farmer found something valuable by accident; the gemmologist something valuable through searching, but either way, finding Christ is the most wonderful thing which can happen to us. Nothing else compares to the treasure we find in Jesus. Paul reminds us (Phil 3:8) that everything else is to be counted loss; he is a model for us to copy because his entire focus was on the joy of knowing Jesus.

Finding treasure may be easy, but possessing it is costly. The gemmologist had to sell everything he had to get the pearl of great value; everything else was secondary compared to this jewel. We have to learn to distinguish between the excellent and the good, between the best and second best, for we must lose our lives and give up everything to follow Jesus. The price of salvation was paid by Jesus, but there is a cost to discipleship which must be counted. However, the joy of knowing Jesus makes this cost no hardship to us in comparison to the surpassing greatness of knowing Him as Lord.

If we want to develop this closeness and know the best treasure, we have to:

1. rid our lives of competing distractions
2. spend time alone with God in prayer and in reading the Word, for we cannot know someone without spending time with them
3. confess our sins and make a clean break with sin.

How much we value our relationship with God will determine whether we find the best treasure or not.

Yesterday afternoon saw the community room experiencing a different kind of decorating! After all the activity painting walls and putting up notice boards, preparations for a September wedding were carried out as part of a hen party.

Making pompoms which will be adorning the room (the bride-to-be is the ‘Alice’ character, based on the theme of the hen party):

The pompoms with Alice’s bride and groom flamingos:

Making bunting from hearts:

Two very kind and selfless friends devoted the entire afternoon to creating a backdrop which will be used against the stage partition:

I’m not sure which kind of decorating is the most strenuous, but thanks go to all who have helped decorate in any kind of way!

The school summer holidays have seen a flurry of activity in the church building as work continues. The community room is almost complete now (blinds still have to be put back up, the fire exit stained and the notice boards completed and adorned), but a tremendous amount of work has been done in three weeks to decorate this huge room. (You only appreciate its size when the scaffolding is out and you’re painting it!) Today it will see ‘business as usual’ in the morning with the coffee morning on from 10 a.m. until 12 noon, with an extra session of decoration (but this time, making decorations for a wedding reception to be held there in September) in the afternoon.

The corridor is still not complete, with all 10 doors (yes, 10…) still requiring to be glossed next week, and the alcove painting to be finished (another 2 doors there…), but much preparation and initial painting have been completed there.

In addition, our portable baptistery has arrived, a new external notice board has been fitted and new notice boards for inside the building are being sorted, not to mention a host of other small jobs (new door handles, the ladies’ toilets painted and new handles on the kitchen hatch in place), so not bad for 3 weeks’ work!

Tomorrow’s morning service is at Cherry Tree Court (at 10.30 a.m.) with the evening service at Market Street at 6 p.m. Come along and see for yourself!

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.