Interior design has never been my strong point. I don’t really think of myself as an ‘artistic’ person in the sense of pictures, spatial awareness or the ability to convey meaning through visual stimuli. My strong point is words. I see and think in words. I adore words.

But over the past four years as we have been involved in the purchase and renovation and refurbishment of St Mark’s as it changed into Goldthorpe Pentecostal Community Church, I have found visual things coming to the fore. Mark’s idea when we first looked round the building was to have a ‘photo gallery’ in the corridor, charting the progress of the restoration work. That took a lot of time and effort and you can read about that here.

I was very familiar with working with other people’s ideas and translating them into reality; that’s part of an administrator’s job all the time. I was quite unprepared to be struck by the need for photographs of Goldthorpe when we embarked on our prayer walks last January so that we had a visual record of what we were doing in the church building.As I shared that vision with the leadership of the church, they were very supportive and so the visual record in the main hall was created.

Then came a more unexpected idea because it was not quite as ‘concrete’ as the previous ones. I wanted a visual record of the people in the church and the ministries they serve. This would take the form of a ‘notice board’ (except instead of notices, it would have photos of people.) Originally, I envisaged the photos simply being hung on the walls, rather like the photos which were already there.

But that idea soon blossomed. During a brief stay in Derbyshire in November, we wandered into an art exhibition, mainly to get out of the rain. There, we were captivated by a picture of light shining forth. The artist was there and she was overjoyed to find someone interested in her art. I asked her what had inspired the painting and she said it came out of a period when a friend of hers was in darkness and she was doing her best to help her and that was represented by light shining forth. For me, the painting perfectly represented John 1:5 TNIV – ‘The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.’

We bought the painting and as I considered where we would put it, another verse came to mind: ‘You are the light of the world.’ (Matt 5:14-16 TNIV) Suddenly I saw the two things connected: this painting representing Christ’s light shining in our world, even when our world seems very dark, and the team ministries our church is involved in being ministries of light, as we are His light, called to reflect His light into our communities. As Garry put it, we are here ‘with God in the community, with God for the community.’

That is the back story of the notice board. I find it mildly ironic that I, who love words above everything, should have become so fond of visual aids. I am also well aware that for most people, what they see in a church building may seem rather random and unplanned. When reading Eugene Peterson’s ‘The Pastor’, I learned of his church’s transition from a basement building to a new build church. The chapter ‘Bezalel’ tells the tale of a God-inspired architect and a people who wanted everything that could be seen and touched in their new building to reflect the spiritual truths they were assimilating as a congregation. I smiled when I read that chapter, for I think that is often how it is. What we see is not random or unplanned. There is often a story behind it. This is the story behind the new notice board.

Don’t forget the New Year’s Day party on Wednesday, starting at 4 p.m. This is always a great time of food, fun and fellowship (and silly party games) and all are welcome. It’s a great opportunity to bring along friends and family who don’t normally come to church as there are lots of people here in a very informal atmosphere. Mark is renowned for coming up with silly games which involve everyone, so come along and start the New Year in style!

On Saturday (4th January), the coffee morning will be on from 10 a.m. until 12 noon as usual. After that, the church will be open for prayer until 4 p.m. as we seek God for direction, guidance and blessing in this new year. After that, we will be setting up for the special celebration service which starts at 6 p.m. Come along to say thank you to Mark and Diane for their faithful and anointed leadership over the past eight and a half years and to officially welcome and recognise Garry and Julie in their new roles of leadership. Refreshments will be served after the meeting.

Sunday meetings will be at the usual times of 10:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. throughout January, with the family service being held on 5th January in the evening.

Midweek meetings resume the following week, with youth meetings on Monday evenings and Mums ‘n’ Toddlers on Friday mornings. The prayer meeting/ Bible study will be on Thursday evenings, starting at 7:30 p.m. (starting 9th January.)

I don’t know the author of this prayer for the New Year, but thought it would be good to start 2014 with such a prayer:
What shall I ask for the coming year?
What shall my watchword be?
What shouldst thou do for me, dear Lord?
What can I do for thee?

Lord, I ask for a year of hope
Looking for thee to come
And hastening on that year of years
That brings us home to you.

This evening’s service looked at the many answers to prayer we have received this year, a year when as a church we have focussed on particular topics each month. People gave thanks for the answers we have seen which were then pinned to the prayer board:

* thanks for new ministries (Stephen leading worship, Stacey’s involvement in Sunday School, the development of Julie & Garry’s ministries)
* thanks for healings (Tony’s strength and health returning after major surgery in January, Lorraine’s renewed health after being so ill at the start of the year, Jenson’s successful operation and so on)
* thanks for the success of various church outreaches, including the food bank, numbers (and queues!) at the Mums ‘n’ Toddlers & youth groups
* thanks for what God is doing in other local churches in Goldthorpe and in Barnsley
* thanks for the faithfulness of the leadership in serving and preaching God’s word in power and under the anointing of God’s Spirit
* thanks for friends and family attending the carol service last week
* thanks for the opportunities we have had to share the gospel with friends and acquaintances throughout the year

Garry then spoke from Matt 6:5-9 TNIV on the subject of prayer. Prayer is all about being real with God. We don’t have to put on a show, use a special prayer voice, adopt particular postures or poses, for what counts is the heart attitude (as 1 Sam 16:7 TNIV reminds us.)

When we pray, we need to remember that we are praying to God the Lord and King, but God who is also our Father. There is no inability that limits God; He will not do certain things because of His character, but He is not limited by ability as earthly parents are! Jesus urged us to pray large prayers (John 16:23-24 TNIV) and to expect much from God. James reminds us that sometimes we do not have because we do not ask God, so we need to develop our faith by asking and believing. God is always able to help us and is not limited in any way; He is a loving Father who longs to give good gifts. (James 1:17 TNIV, Luke 11:11-13 TNIV) Sometimes, however, God says ‘no’ and as we mature in faith, we will not respond with a temper tantrum (as toddlers do!) but will understand that He only says ‘no’ for our ultimate benefit and good.

God wants us to pray for ourselves and for others, especially so that we get to know His heart more and more. As the New Year approaches, so the need for ongoing prayer remains. The church will be open on Saturday 4th January from 12 noon until 4 p.m. for prayer as we embrace changes in leadership and look to see God pour out His Spirit on us. You are welcome to call in for as long or short a time as you can spare, but it is always good to set time aside to seek God’s heart.

We also had a birthday to celebrate:

Dave spoke from Phil 2:5-ll TNIV this morning on the most basic of Christian creeds: ‘Jesus Christ is Lord.’ Jesus asked Peter ‘Who do you say I am?’ (Luke 9:20 TNIV), and this question is one every disciple needs to answer.

Jesus is God, but He laid aside His majesty and humbled Himself to become man. He was born in a manger in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth (a town from which no good came!), and lived as a carpenter for many years. At the age of thirty, He became an itinerant preacher who ultimately was betrayed by those He trusted and abandoned by those He loved. Ultimately, the Nicene creed says of this man ‘We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father;through him all things were made.’
‘Your Majesty’, Aaron Shust

The word ‘Lord’ is ‘kyrios’ in Greek and denotes one supreme in authority. One way this was manifested in Jesus’s life was His ability to forgive sins. He had God’s authority to forgive sins since He was in very nature God. Those who try to ascribe to Him simply ‘good teaching’ are mistaken: as C. S. Lewis wrote, ‘A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great moral teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.’ (C. S. Lewis, ‘Mere Christianity’)

Jesus’s Lordship is also seen in His victory over death. His resurrection transformed the disciples from timid, fearful followers into bold proclaimers of truth and His resurrection could not be disproved, though many tried. (see also 1 Cor 15:6 TNIV). Christians believe that Jesus Christ is Lord – our master, owner, ruler and boss! Jesus is the one in charge of all history and in charge of our lives. One day, He will return and every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord. We eagerly await that new day with no more crying, shame, pain, fear or death, but until then are just as eager to own Him as Lord in the now!

As any follower of this blog will know, painting is not one of my pleasures. When we first decorated the building, I was happy to resolutely stay in the kitchen cooking food for all the troops who were much more adept than I with a paintbrush or roller. However, in putting up the new notice board with photos (more of which anon), it became obvious that the foyer needed re-decorating and most people seemed to be otherwise occupied this weekend, so I volunteered to do the job. Others running a quiet coffee morning yesterday were greatly amused to see how much of the paint ended up on me and willingly volunteered to take photos as ‘evidence for the blog.’ There are times when one’s words come back to haunt, it seems…!

The notice board became a project in itself and one which is not yet fully complete. It started with a vague idea that photos of the different teams serving the community from our church could be displayed in the foyer area to contrast with the photos of Goldthorpe in the main area. As usual with most of the vague ideas we have, the actual implementation of the idea so far has involved considerably more effort than originally envisaged: a signwriter, a firm selling plastic (can’t wait to tell you that story when the notice board is complete; it deserves its own post!), wood batons that needed painting, engineering skills from Garry to get the sign on the wall (the plastic remains for next week’s job list!), a picture bought during a trip to Derbyshire, Stacey’s photographic skills and equipment (I’ve finally found a profession which carries more stuff than I did as a teacher!) and, of course, everyone’s photophobia which made finding six photographs (out of about eighty taken!) quite a task. All of that awaits you, hopefully before the New Year!

To the non-Christian, the Nativity story must seem frankly bizarre: a historical narrative of a baby’s birth which was largely unnoticed by historians at the time but which prompted special stars, angelic visits and the slaughter of many male infants. All this simply for a baby boy, born in inauspicious conditions (but not the first to be born in less than ideal circumstances and certainly not the last), and then celebrated year after year in a variety of styles which (let’s face it) have nothing to do with the actual birth. What’s it all about?!

In order to understand the importance of this birth, however, we have to realise who this baby was: not just an ordinary baby born to doting parents but ‘a holy embryo’, in the words of Michael Card, born to ‘a mother made by her own child.’ The mystery of this birth is called the Incarnation – how God became flesh, how God took on human form in order to ‘be made like us so we could be like Him.’ Ever since the Fall, when Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, mankind had been struggling to regain that intimate relationship with God which sin had marred, and frankly, despite every best effort, the gulf was still too wide to be bridged from our side. God’s initiative in the Incarnation, however, made a way possible for that gap to be bridged.

The Christmas story is impossible to comprehend without grasping that Jesus’s birth is far more than the celebration of new life. It is the celebration of the arrival of the Saviour – as His very name reveals – and looks forward to His sacrificial death which atones for our sins (indicated even in the myrrh brought by the wise men.) Our response needs to be to fall down on our knees in worship.

‘He sent His holy Son and so
Became a holy embryo
That is the mystery,
More than you can see.
Give up on your pondering
And fall down on your knees.'(‘To the Mystery’, Michael Card)
‘To the Mystery’, Michael Card