Dave went on to continue speaking from 1 and 2 Timothy, offering advice from Paul’s letters to Timothy on leadership to Garry and Julie.

1 Tim 3:1-5 TNIV talks about the criteria those in leadership require, namely being ‘above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money’, with the wife being ‘worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything.’ (1 Tim 3:11 TNIV). He emphasised the team ministry of preaching, teaching and hospitality demonstrated by Garry and Julie and went on to look at some of the duties they are called to do: first of all, prayer (1 Tim 2:1-2 TNIV), for both those in the flock and for those in charge of the country; secondly, to preach the Word of God faithfully, opposing all false doctrine and using God’s Word to correct, rebuke and encourage (2 Tim 4:2-3 TNIV) and finally to guard what has been entrusted to them, recognising that to be a pastor is not a job, but a calling which must be guarded against the distractions of the world. (1 Tim 6:20 TNIV)

Listening to the formal charge given by Dave on behalf of the church:
‘I now charge you to:
In the power of the Holy Spirit and under the anointing of God, work together and individually to guide and lead the flock entrusted to you.
Uphold the people of God and this church by your earnest prayers.
To preach and to teach the whole Word of God as given to us in Holy Scripture.
To work together with the other leaders, and with the whole of the church, to propagate the Christian gospel with the purpose that all may be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.’

Garry and Julie both accepted this charge and the congregation were then invited to stand and respond to their charge: ‘Will you as the people of God in Goldthorpe Pentecostal Community Church, accept Garry and Julie Turner as your Pastor and Shepherd, and will you promise before God to help, support and encourage them in every way, to regularly pray for them, and accept their guidance and direction?’

After this, the elders prayed for both Garry and Julie and anointed them with oil:

A presentation of flowers was then given to Julie:

Saturday 4th January 2014 was a significant day in the life of our church as we gave thanks for the leadership of Mark and Diane over the past eight and a half years and welcomed Garry and Julie to the pastorate.

First of all we reviewed highlights in these people’s church life through a Power Point charting the work done since the move to St Mark’s.
Celebration service

Dave said that often services like these are viewed as being ‘under new management’, but actually a change in leadership is not new management, for Christ remains the head of the church. Nonetheless, it is significant to recognise all that God has done through leaders and to commission new leaders. He went on to speak from 2 Tim 1:3-7 TNIV, commenting that Mark’s faith had been nurtured by his grandmother and mother and that his vision and wisdom had helped the church to grow both numerically and spiritually over the past eight-and-a-half years.

The move to the new building in 2010 had been the fulfilment of a word spoken to Mark some fifteen years previously, but this had been the right time for this vision to be fulfilled (see Hab 2:3 TNIV) and Mark’s practical skills and confidence in God had led the church to new ventures. Renamed Goldthorpe Pentecostal Community Church after this move, the church’s work in the community continues to grow, largely in part because of Mark and Diane’s hard work with children and young people and it is with great excitement that we look to see how God leads in future. Mark and Diane will continue to serve on the leadership team of the church and we are very grateful not only for their past work but for their ongoing contribution to church life.

Mark and Diane both shared testimonies. Diane thanked all church members for their love and support and spoke of how God never gives us more than we can bear, even though He often stretches our faith! The refurbishment of the building nearly four years ago turned out to be much more extensive than we had anticipated, but God helped us each step of the way and blessed us enormously. Mark thanked Diane for her unstinting support of his ministries and thanked the church for being a ‘working church’, reminding us once again that God works all things together for good. (Rom 8:28 TNIV)

Prayer and presentations were then made to Mark and Diane:

Here are some more party photos from Wednesday:

We played pass the parcel with forfeits. Here, Eileen had to sing ‘Away in a Manger’ whilst wearing a Christmas hat:

Karen had to be superman, underpants and all!

Members of the Salvation Army drew the pirates’ straw!

… whilst Mark got a mankini!

Musical chairs:

One of our church traditions which I really like is the New Year’s Day party. It is good to start the new year together with food, fun and fellowship. These are key ingredients to any family life (I agree with Jan Peterson’s view that eating together is a really important part of fellowship!) and it is a great opportunity to invite other people into church.

Here are some photos from the party:

The food part

The fellowship part

The fun part

I was surprised by how many people did not want their photos taken when we suggested the idea of having photos of the teams on the notice board area. Clearly, there are some shy people out there who feel self-conscious about photos!

But this does raise the more interesting point: why do this? Why have photos of people on this prominent area as you enter the church building? What is the point of this? Is it just to familiarise people with some of the faces they’re likely to encounter in church? Is it to promote the individuals concerned? Why do we do what we do? Are we just aping companies who have photographs of their personnel on display boards?

The reasoning behind the photos is not to glorify any one person but is to acknowledge the inescapable fact that church is ultimately not about buildings but about people. Peter tells us ‘you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.’ (1 Peter 2:5 TNIV) He goes on to say ‘you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.’ (1 Peter 2:9-10 TNIV) We are immensely grateful for the building God has given us and count it a privilege and honour to be able to look after its fabric. But we are even more thrilled that God is working with us as living stones and building us into His house.

We are also very aware that the teams represented in the picture show our church’s commitment to reaching out to the community, to being salt and light in this place of Goldthorpe. We are not interested in simply receiving God’s blessing and hoarding it; we want to overflow into our community, showing an alternative way of living. Paul says to the Philippians, ‘Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life.’ (Phil 2:15-16 TNIV) The whole theme of light and darkness – so relevant to our current studies on 1 John – is the theme running through the whole idea of the notice board. Jesus is the Light of the world (John 8:12 TNIV) and His light shines in the darkness – wherever there is no knowledge of Him, no submission to His Lordship, no understanding of His life, death and resurrection, there is darkness. But we also are the light of the world and have the privilege of serving Christ in our community: serving the poor and needy, the children, the shoppers, the parents with young children, the whole community. We don’t do this in isolation, however; we do this from our church community, through being the family of God. Hence there are no ‘lone ranger’ photographs on the board. We want to work together, for we are all members of Christ’s body.

The Message version of Philippians 2:15-16 says ‘Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message into the night.’ That’s our aim and goal and the notice board is simply a visual representation of that fact.

The idea for new things comes from God. He is the One who plants ideas, creative vision and artistic designs in people’s minds. But there is often a process of practical steps from the conception of an idea to its actual birth and that process often involves people, practical skills and persevering hard work!

Translating my ‘rough sketch’ of a notice board idea into reality took a lot of time, people and effort. The leadership are to be thanked for their support and willingness to be involved in such things. First of all, we contacted the signwriter who has worked on other signs for us and he agreed to make us a sign measuring 8′ by 4′ which had the text of John 1:5 TNIV at the top and the phrase ‘With God In The Community, With God For The Community’ on the bottom of the sign. That then had to be fixed to the wall, which took 3 men considerable time and effort! Garry made a frame for the sign, out of wood which needed to be painted black to match the picture frame. More time and effort!

Stacey spent a considerable amount of time one Sunday evening taking photographs of all the teams (having spent even longer getting all the lights and backdrops ready for this task!) From these, we chose a number of photos to go on the notice board and had prints of these taken and mounts bought.
The cleaning & food distribution team

The Parent & Toddler team

The Music Worship team

The Youth team

The Preaching team

The Coffee Morning team

Then came the saga of the acrylic sheet. Garry felt that a plastic sheet would ‘finish off’ the notice board and protect the photos and picture from dust and damage. Ordering a sheet (8′ x 4′, like the sign) was easy. Getting it delivered was not. The company used TNT as their courier service and we received an email saying this would arrive on a Monday. We had made it clear that the building was only open by prior arrangement and so Dave was to be contacted before delivery was attempted. On the Monday, the driver ran out of time to deliver. On the Tuesday, he phoned my home number, failed to get hold of me, turned up at church, failed to deliver and disappeared again. When Dave contacted the firm on the Wednesday at 8:30 a.m., he was assured that he would be contacted and given an estimated time of arrival. At 9:14 a.m. the firm rang back and told him delivery would be within the next half-hour, so he duly went to church to await its arrival. When it failed to arrive within the hour, he contacted TNT again, to be told that delivery had been attempted at 9:11 a.m…. before he was originally given any ETA! As he remarked wryly, Mark’s previous sermon on time travel seemed more apt than ever! Delivery finally came at 9:58 a.m. on the Thursday (two minutes within the ‘special two hour notice given to account for your inconvenience’), with the details about contacting Dave firmly written all over the package…

Once the sign was in place, the photos (with captions) were arranged in place using the famous ‘Golden Ratio’ (which I still don’t understand.)

Then came the task of drilling holes into the plastic (sorry, the cast acrylic sheet):

The protective covers had to be removed:

And finally… (with apologies for the reflection from the fluorescent lights!)