The essentials of Christian meetings have often been summarised as worship, prayer and the Word. In Acts 2 we read that “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” In our church, we remember the death and resurrection of Jesus through the breaking of bread each Sunday morning, but in the evening celebration meeting, we wanted to keep largely to the basics of what we ordinarily do. We’d certainly done ‘the fellowship’ aspect all throughout the day!!

So we began the meeting with songs that focussed our heart on the greatness of God and on all that He has done for us and all He is.

We prayed. And we listened to our elders each bringing us encouragement from the Word – about the way God has worked in our lives on this journey to the new building, about how God has multiplied all that we had to bring about the miraculous, about the need to give our whole lives over to God as our ‘reasonable or spiritual act of worship’ (Romans 12:1) and about the dedication of Solomon’s temple where the glory of God fell in such splendour that “the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the temple of God.” (2 Chronicles 5:14)

We also listened to ministry through songs, given by Stephen (ably assisted by other musicians and Ruth) and Esther. We do appreciate the ministry of both our own church members and those who travelled especially to be with us to serve in this way.

And, in true Goldthorpe style, we also sang a children’s song for the many children in the congregation. The yo-yo song, written by Garry for one of our family services last year, is definitely unique in its subject matter and style, but the lines ‘Know the truth/ Be set free/ Jesus gives stability’ are as relevant to adults as they are to children!

A great evening!