For those of you who knew Vernon, a service of thanksgiving for his life – all one hundred years of it! – will be held at Goldthorpe Pentecostal Community Church on Tuesday 11th January at 12 noon, followed by interment at Great Houghton cemetery at 1 p.m.

If you are able to attend the funeral, you would be most welcome. It is always good to rejoice at what God has done in the lives of His people and to support those who are mourning.

You could view this post in one of two ways. I was ill on Sunday, laid out by a sickness bug that seems to have been fairly prevalent in the area, so the fact that I am reporting on meetings I did not attend could be said to be pretty remarkable. Or you could view the reports I’m about to give from the safe vantage point of having heard the sermons first hand and think ‘that’s not a very good report!’ I hope you will be generous and accept the limitations of second-hand reporting…

In the morning, Mark preached about hope, the Biblical definition of which is much more substantial than our casual ‘I hope this will be a good year’. The psalmist, in Psalms 42 and 43, repeatedly says “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.” (Ps 42:5, 11; Ps 43:5) In both psalms, the psalmist faces difficulties and struggles; in Psalm 42 he faces personal sorrow, taunts from other people and knows what it is to feel downcast and troubled – yet hope in God sustains him. In Psalm 43, the psalmist feels rejected by God, in mourning, oppressed by the enemy – and yet his hope in God sustains him. That hope has to be our sustenance too; after all, we don’t live on bread alone (as I proved on Sunday, surviving quite adequately on water!)

In the evening, at the family service, Stephen spoke on communication, looking at the Lord’s prayer as the model for our prayers. In telephone communication, there is a need for a transmitter, a wire and a receiver, not to mention good signal strength. Perhaps the hardest part for us in prayer is learning to listen for God’s voice. God is always listening to us – we too need to be quick to listen, as James says (James 1:19)

Happy New Year!

As usual, we celebrated the advent of the New Year by having a party, complete with food, fun and games.

Getting ready:

A home-made cake:

Certificate to prove the cake was home-made!

More food:

Playing games! This one is ‘Musical chairs’ with a difference, in that you have to get a member of the opposite sex to sit on your knee when the music stops:



Charades (won by the men):



Watching the fun:

They’re not that intimidating, honestly!


Party frocks!

Exchanging gifts:

Acts 2 tells us that the early disciples devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. The New Year’s Day party is certainly one way of devoting ourselves to fellowship. For the rest, watch this space!

I have had the privilege of spending a few days in Brussels between Christmas and the New Year, city of chocolate and lace. But in the midst of that, in the famous Grand Place, there was a reminder that Christ came for the whole world and His arrival is celebrated throughout in the shape of a life-size Nativity scene.

At the end of every year, there is always a sense of looking back, of reviewing, of reflecting and then, with the dawn of a new year, a sense of looking forward and anticipating.

If we want to put this in technical terms, what we are doing here is called ‘anamnesis’ (remembering) and ‘prolepsis’ (anticipating). Both the looking back and the looking forward are essential for us to live rightly in the now.

Tim Hughes talks about the cross as ‘the greatest day in history’, and there is a sense in which history indeed is divided by that momentous event. We even date our years according to the coming of Christ into the world. Christ’s incarnation really is the dividing point; it’s that point when the Old Covenant meets the New Covenant, when we finally see how God’s plan is going to be worked out. The Old Testament saints lived in anticipation of that day; the New Testament saints and the rest of us live in reflection of that day.

Looking back over 2010, I am reminded of all God has done in Goldthorpe this year. We started out in the snow, not knowing if St Mark’s would ever be ours. By February, we were in the building, working away at transforming it, with a sense of shocked awe. The money kept being topped up, rather like the widow’s oil. New windows and blinds were put in. A new fire door put in. All paid for through the generosity of people and the provision of God. Amazing.

Then came the move from Beever Street to Market Street: only 3 streets geographically, maybe, but a real leap forward in faith and declaration of God’s power.

In July, we had the official Open Day and welcomed hundreds of people into the building: those from near and far who had prayed, worked, joined with us and just wanted to share in the joy.

Since then, the ‘normal’ life of the church has continued: births, weddings, and, on Christmas Eve, the death of a former member at 100 years old. (The date of the funeral is not known as I write, but I’ll keep you posted.) As we look back on 2010, we reflect anew on the faithfulness of God.

We look ahead to the New Year with confidence: not in our own abilities, not in our own talents, but with confidence in God’s continued faithfulness.

“Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’ ” (Lam 3:22-24)

Whatever we may face in 2011, may we do so with our heads held high because of the love and faithfulness of God on whom we rely.

The final sermon of 2010 at GPCC was preached by Dave from John 1:1-14 (for those of you with good memories, I’m fairly certain that the first sermon of 2010 was also preached by Dave, but more of that anon!), looking back at Christmas and lingering over what the coming of Christ into the world means to us.

The game ‘Chinese Whispers’ shows how easily it is for messages to get distorted: during the war, the message ‘send reinforcemets; we are going to advance’ apparently ended up as ‘send 3 and 4 pence; we are going to a dance.’ Perhaps because God’s message to mankind had got distorted over time, definitely because there was no other way in God’s eyes to bring about the salvation of the world, ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’

Jesus was, in the words of the carol, ‘very God, begotten, not created’, but He was also fully man. The Incarnation not only means we understand God better because He has revealed Himself, but it also means that we realise God understands us as well because He became one of us.

(1) Jesus felt what we feel.
Hebrews 5:7-8 tells us that Jesus learned obedience from what He suffered. He learned things the hard way – He knows what it is to be hungry and tired, lonely and rejected, unappreciated, misunderstood, beaten and ridiculed; He knows what it is like to face death and to stand at the graveside of a friend. He understands the everyday occurrences of life and what it is like to face the big things of life.

(2)He knows where we are going
Our Lord has lived the life we have lived. But He has also faced what we have not: He actually died so He knows what is on the other side of the grave. Because Jesus died, He faced the wrath of God on our behalf and endured the punishment we deserve, so that our deaths will yield life, not wrath.

(3) Jesus knows what we are really like and still loves us
Jesus ‘knew what was in a man.’ He understood our duplicity and there is no way we can hide from God what we are really like. That frees us enormously: there is no point in pretending or hiding, but we can be honest with God, for He loves the real us.

(4) Jesus knows what we need and provides it
* to the one who is lonely, He gives His presence
* to the one who has experienced moral failure, He gives His forgiveness
* to the one encountering depression, He seeks to give perspective and joy
* to the one who feels separated from God or others, He leads us to reconciliation
* to the one enduring great sorrow, He gives hope
* to the one facing major decisions, He gives wisdom
* to the one needing resources, He provides for their needs

(5) Jesus knows the temptations we meet and how to defeat them
No temptation will ever come upon us except what is common to man and God is faithful, providing a way out (1 Cor 10:13). God always provides a way out of temptation. Jesus will show us that way out.

(6) Jesus has faced our greatest fear and gained victory over it
Death is no longer the great ‘unknown’ to the believer. Death is a transition. It has lost its sting because the element of surprise and fear is gone.

Christ’s coming into the world shows us that God has experienced what we experience, without the taint of sin, and that He can speak the truth to us in a language and in a form we can understand. Nonetheless, John 1 reminds us that ‘He came unto His own… and His own did not receive Him’. It’s not a foregone conclusion that His coming makes any difference at all to people. The difference comes when we believe: “to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12)

As we view Christmas in the rear-view mirror, so to speak, and as the gifts we’ve received wear out, lose their value or diminish in their attraction, may we cherish the gift that only gets better each day of every year.

Postscript
I checked with Dave about his first sermon of the year… That was from John 20:19-31, looking at the difference the power of the Holy Spirit made to the disciples after the resurrection of Jesus. He ended the sermon with the words, “Whether we actually get St Mark’s or whether we don’t is entirely up to God, and, in the fullness of time, He will complete His plans for us. Whatever the outcome, we will give thanks to Him. And in this year of 2010 we will continue to serve God, not only with our programmes and plans, but most importantly with and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Because it is all of Him and all for Him and all through Him.”

Hindsight is such a wonderful thing, but I am more grateful for the faith with which Dave preached that opening sermon of the year. I am so thankful that we can see how God has worked all things together for good this year in the life of the church and that we have a Saviour who knows what we go through, can provide for all our needs and who gives us the Holy Spirit to equip us for all we have to face.