Jesus spoke much about our hearts. He said that actions stem from the overflow of our hearts. (Matt 15:18-19) and reminded us that the greatet commandment involves loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. (Matt 22:37) We are told in Scripture to guard our hearts for life springs from that source (Prov 4:23). What we ponder and desire in our hearts and minds has tremendous influence on us.

So often we are led by our dreads and our desires. What we dread will vary from one person to another, but is usually something negative, something destructive. Dread can be a cold, paralysing force within which ties us up in knots, robbing us of peace and hope. Interestingly enough, all the calamaties which happened to Job – bereavement, loss of finances and goods, personal illness and so on – were summed up in the phrase ‘what I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.” (Job 3:25) Looking from the outside, we wonder at the dread and fears Job must have experienced even before tragedy hit; dread is not confined to the poor and needy.

The other fuel for our lives is our desires. What we imagine, long for and earnestly desire has the power to motivate and move us. It’s desire that keeps us saving for a coveted item or keeps us pursuing a particular goal. We can’t persevere in something that is of not interest to us.

Prov 10:24 tells us ‘what the wicked dread will overtake them; what the righteous desire will be granted.’ This may seem to us an over-simplified generalisation (we know plenty of wicked people who currently seem to be prospering and plenty of righteous people whose desires seem yet to be fulfilled), but the principle reminds us there are two ways of thinking. We can either fix our minds and hearts on right desires or we can live in numbing dread, pondering disaster after disaster until we are paranoid. There is no grace to be found in hypothetical dreads! As people, also, we realise we fall into one of two categories: ‘the wicked’ or ‘the righteous‘. Our thoughts and actions reflect who we are. Let’s be led by God and fix our hearts, minds and thoughts on Christ. (Col 3:1-2)

On Saturday 27th April we are holding our first Team Building Day between 12 and 3 p.m. Some may wonder what the point is of such a day and whether it’s worth turning up to such an event.

The church is described in many ways in the New Testament: as a bride, as a body, as a house, as God’s temple, as God’s family (see Eph 5:21-22, Rev 21:9, Rom 12:4-5, 1 Cor 12:12-27, Heb 3:6, Eph 2:19-22, Matt 12:49-50, 1 Tim 5:1). It’s clear that we’re not meant to be working in isolation but in community and it’s important that we know each other and understand and love each other. So often, misunderstandings and tensions arise because we don’t really know each other, so this is an opportunity to get to know each other in an informal way (bring your own lunch and let’s eat together to start with… so many conversations over the table are where relationships are strengthened as people chat about anything and everything!)

We’ll be exploring our differences and finding what we have in common as well as looking at our role in the body of Christ. Each of us is called to good works in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:10), but so often we feel either overworked or overlooked! We need to learn to recognise our strengths and weaknesses, our talents and gifts (and sometimes we’re not only blind to or ignorant of other people’s giftings, we’re not even that sure of what we can do! We hope to be able to identify these areas better so that we can work together to build each other up and to fulfil the Great Commission Jesus gave us of making disciples of all nations.

Paul says, ‘Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. ¹⁵ Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. ¹⁶ From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.‘ (Eph 4:14-16) We want each person at GPCC to feel loved, valued, appreciated and needed – because you are! We want each person to do the works God has prepared for them – for only then will we see the growth we believe God has for this church.

Come along to find out more, but most of all, be prepared to give up just a few hours this Saturday to explore what God has for each one of us working together as a team. The metaphor of team is just as apt for the church, for a team works together towards a common goal. Let’s work together as the body of Christ and see what God can do through the GPCC team!

We were involved in a number of activities to explore the Easter message.

Decorating biscuits to tell the Easter story:

Making an Easter garden which will tour the local churches before being displayed at the Dearne Community Arts’ Festival:

Making Easter prayer trees:

Making different Easter crafts, like Easter masks, Easter baskets, Easter crosses etc.

We also enjoyed making gratitude flowers, praying for our families through our prayer tree and taking part in a treasure hunt all about Easter!

Thanks to all who attended and to all who helped make this a very enjoyable holiday activity day!

Yesterday we hosted the ‘Churches Together’ Easter Fun Day, which looked at the message of Easter through stories, crafts and games.

Setting up beforehand:

We had help from many volunteers from different churches and from the Family Centre:

We enjoyed a lovely lunch of scrambled eggs on toast, fish finger butties and sandwiches, cakes and fruit as we remembered Jesus cooking breakfast for his disciples after the resurrection. Our thanks to the Salvation Army volunteers for their cooking!

I’ve just had to have a wall in my house replastered because cracks appeared in it after wood was burned in the fireplace next door during building renovations there. All the old plaster had to come off before new plaster could be applied, a dusty, messy process.

We diligently covered furniture and carpets, creating a dust-free zone through tarpaulins and dust sheets, but even so, the air was thick with plaster dust when we arrived back home and it took time to sweep up all the mess, wash down doors and restore the room to order.

Mess is a part of life. It’s a part we generally don’t like and usually try to avoid, but sometimes it’s inevitable. When the pressure’s on, we don’t always get it right. The mess that results – broken trust, shattered peace, fractured families – can be hard to clean up.

Nicky Gumbel reminds us that Peter knew all about mess. Despite his bluster and bravado, when Jesus was arrested, he followed only at a distance and was quick to deny he even knew Jesus (Luke 22:54-62). His faith apparently disintegrated under pressure.

If the story ended there, it would be a familiar one to us of failure and mess. But for Peter, yesterday’s mess was transformed to today’s message. (Nicky Gumbel) The story doesn’t end with mess. Peter’s sorrow and repentance led him to a place of restoraton. The story of ‘Peter and the Big Breakfast‘ (based on John 21:1-13, which we will be looking at today at the fun day) tells us Peter was ‘ashamed, sad, confused’ as he pondered his denial, Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection. None of it seemed to make much sense to him  But as he went fishing (unsuccessfully), he met Jesus again on the beach and all was changed. Peter found forgiveness, affirmation and was given a new job: ‘feed my lambs… feed my sheep.’

From fisherman to fisher of men… from failure to fearless follower… from messed-up Christian to a man with a message and a mission, Peter reminds us that mess doesn’t get the last word with Jesus. When we mess up, there’s still hope.

A catalyst is a substance that causes or accelerates a chemical reaction without itself being affected or changed. One example of this is the catalytic convertor in a car which contains the catalyst platinum which changes carbon monoxide (which is toxic) into carbon dioxide (which is not.)

In life, circumstances may act as catalysts to our lives, causing change to occur. The way we react to these circumstances will, however, be determined by our choices.

In the TV series ‘Breaking Bad’, Walter White, a mild-mannered chemistry teacher approaching fifty, married with a teenage son with cerebral palsy and a new baby on the way, is already facing change as an older parent when a terminal cancer diagnosis rocks his world. Faced with increasingly expensive treatments for his cancer and frustrated by his feelings of irrelevance and dissatisfaction that his knowledge of chemistry has not led to the fame and fortune he dreamed of when younger, Walt takes to a life of crime, becoming a leading manufacturer of the drug crystal meth.

The series charts his descent from a decent, ordinary family man into a drug baron not averse to deceit and murder with absorbing and chilling skill. We see how the cancer may have been a catalyst for Walt, but the choices he makes – ostensibly from ‘good’ motives, to provide financial security for his family after his death – are the things which determine his fate.

I have long been fascinated by motivation and how the same events – a cancer diagnosis, the loss of a loved one, life-changing events such as paralysis – affect individuals and how different people’s responses are. Ultimately, life’s catalysts are not the determining factor in how we live. Our choices are. How we choose to respond to life’s catalysts is the really important factor in our lives, not what catalysts come our way. Jesus said, ‘the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts – murder, sexual immoralityk theft, false testimony and slander.’ (Matt 15:18-19) He reminded us that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. (Matt 7:18) Who we really are will determine our chocies, which will lead to action. The road to hell is certainly paved with good intentions, as Walt demonstrates. Every choice we make determines to some extent how our lives will turn out. There is a deep irony in the series in that his actions actually end up alienating and damaging his family, even though he acted initially to help them.

In the final episode of ‘Breaking Bad’, Walt finally admits that the motivation for his actions was his own selfishness as much as any altruistic motive. He enjoyed the thrill of wrongdoing; it made him feel alive again. We have to be careful not to justify or rationalise sinful choices, for sin deceives us and is an inexorable taskmaster (worse than Walt or his previous boss, the equally mild-mannered but utterly ruthless Gus Fring!) Sin is a slave driver indeed. In Christ, however, we have the power to make wise choices, to live in a totally new way which absorbs all of life’s catalysts and allows these to become transformational forces. This is why Paul can confidently say, ‘we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’ (Rom 8:28) We are predestined to be ‘conformed to the image of his Son’ (Rom 8:29) and every one of life’s catalysts can further this process of moulding us to be like Jesus – if we allow them to.