Last Sunday we had some photos taken which hopefully will form the basis of a new display in church showing off the different ministries our church is involved in. As you can imagine, however, there were a lot of silly photos taken as well! I’m sure the fun photos will actually reflect who we are far better than the ‘formal’ ones, so here is a snapshot of us all in various poses…

Not sure where Gary and Mark are flying to!

… or what weapons these are employing…

Demonstrating the play equipment:

Generations feeling the cold?

Definitely frightening expressions!

Avoiding the camera?

Mark as superman?

Bible bashing?

In the children’s room:

Watch this space for the official photos! Our thanks go to Stacey, our resident photographer, for all her help with such projects.

My late father-in-law had a saying that has become an oft-quoted phrase in our house concerning mobile transport: ‘It’s not all driving, you know!’ This word of wisdom was passed on to my husband when he started to learn to drive and he kept repeating this to our son when he first purchased a motor bike just over a year ago. Maintenance and regular checks are essential to keeping a vehicle on the road. The driving part may be pleasurable, but the unseen maintenance must be carried out if the driving is to continue.

In a similar vein, owning a building is not all about the comfort and security the building brings! I am grateful for the roof over my head, but there is always something to be done in a home. I have spent this week reluctantly decorating my living-room: it’s not a job I enjoy, especially moving all the ‘stuff’ in order to have access to the walls and skirting-boards and then moving it all back again into place. But it needs to be done. The fabric of a house constantly needs attention or ‘wear and tear’ can erode our comfort and security.

The church building also needs ongoing maintenance and development. We are in the process of having new boilers fitted in the children’s room which will serve one half of the building. The old boiler was fitted over twenty years ago and has reached the end of its life, so there has been messy work going on in the children’s room over the past week or so (with the prospect of more work in summer as new radiators will be fitted to the community room.) Then, this week, we have had sound reduction panels fitted to the ceiling in the community room to reduce the noise levels in that room.

Before

After

We are grateful that this work needed doing, for it is a testimony to the success of our outreach groups: the Mums ‘n’ Toddlers on a Friday morning and the youth group on a Monday evening are both well attended groups, with noisy children (whose piercing shouts were often painful to hear because of the high frequencies!) We are also grateful for God’s provision through the generosity of His people and the success of hiring out the community room. When we first moved into St Mark’s in February 2010, one of our major concerns was how we would afford the upkeep of the building and the ongoing maintenance and running costs. We were all aware that ‘it’s not all buying, you know!’ But just as we were convinced that God wanted us to buy the building, we were convinced that He would enable us to meet all the maintenance and running costs and this has proved to be the case.

The record of maintenance done in the building since opening in 2010 is staggering:
1) new windows in both main rooms
2) new blinds fitted
3) new boilers
4) new flooring in the toilets and kitchen
5) new kitchen units and cooker
6) re-plastering of many parts of the building
7) new radiators in the worship room
… and probably a host of other things I’ve forgotten!

God has provided for all of the above and continues to help us in every practical way imaginable. We are a very thankful people!

Speaking of prayers, don’t forget that Thursday is the final prayer walk of the year and Mark has asked us to bring our own written prayers to pray on the streets of Goldthorpe! Se spend some time today and tomorrow thinking and praying and let’s make the last prayer walk of the year our heartfelt thanks and pleas to God.

I don’t know the origins of this Advent prayer, but I thought it was worth sharing:

May God bless us with a restless discomfort
at easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships,
so that we may seek truth boldly
and love deep within our heart.

May God bless us with enough foolishness
to believe that we really can make a difference in this world,
so that we are able, with God’s grace
to do what others claim cannot be done.

Mark spoke on the subject of time last night, looking first of all at the vastly popular subject of time travel. We considered various films and programmes looking at this theme, from Dr Who:

to H.G. Wells’ ‘The Time Machine’ (which scared him enormously as a child!):

We considered some questions:

We even considered Mark’s own travel through time (when recently travelling to the USA, he travelled ‘back in time’ five hours and then forward in time on his return to the UK!)

God invented time for mankind, because He exists outside of time. In Genesis 1:3-5 TNIV, we see how God created light and named it day, with the darkness named night. In Ecclesiastes 3:1 TNIV, we read that there is a time for everything. There is purpose for all creation under heaven. Psalm 31:14-15 TNIV reminds us that our times are in God’s hands. Our lives were mapped out by God before the creation of the world. We cannot take control of time from God, for He is involved in every aspect of our lives.

Our response to this should be to use our time wisely, as advised in Ephesians 5:15-16 TNIV. We need to make the most of every opportunity, to ‘redeem the time’, working for God and serving Him. Life is ‘the time God gives you to determine how you spend eternity.‘ We should use our time in God’s honour and service.

Tonight’s family service looked at the theme of time and the quiz was all about time travel films!

Some of these were from long ago:

(It’s A Wonderful Life)

(Dr Who)

(Planet of the Apes)

(Groundhog Day)

(Back to the Future trilogy)

(Time and Relative Dimension in Space)

Thanks to Alan and Janet for the quiz:

There were some excellent prizes on offer: