We have had letters from both missionary couples we support in recent days. Reeba in India wrote about the tailoring programme she oversees, giving news of graduations and God’s faithfulness in providing sewing machines for every woman who completes the programme. Please pray for all the women who take part as they leave and endeavour to earn a living from the skills they have learned; pray for the new students and for plans to open a third programme in another area of India. Pray for the conversion of many women as they experience God’s love firsthand through this programme.

Steve and Katuska, who made a flying visit to England back in September, are now making plans for their furlough in 2016. Leaving the work behind in Mozambique brings with it many logistical problems, chiefly who will lead and direct the work at the seminary in Steve’s absence. They are very aware that there is no other OMS missionary working at the seminary and therefore finding someone to step in is quite a challenge. The boys’ education is also a concern as they move back to the UK, with continuity and challenge a difficult balancing act. Their letter includes ‘practical prayers’ (always the best kind!) for reliable electricity and water supplies, security and peace (the rumblings of violence, political unrest and kidnapping remain a constant nagging concern) and (perhaps hard for us to take in England!) ‘cooler days and nights’ as the hottest times of summer are very debilitating. Please pray also for the 44 students at the seminary and for their plans for furlough to become clearer.

Steve and Katuska with their three sons (Samuel, Ben and Joseph) on their flying visit in September:

Plans are ongoing for the Christmas Market in Goldthorpe which will be on Friday 11th December from 4-8  p.m. Santa’s Sleigh is apparently all ready and a good number of stalls booked, including some selling Christmas wreaths and jewellery as well as Mr & Mrs Pickwick’s Traditional Baked selling hot pork sandwiches. Face painting, Santa’s elves and tombolas will all be available as well as a range of rides (in the car park at the bottom of Market Street.)

• Rodeo reindeer
• Mega Jungle Christmas Trailer
• Coconut Shy
• Tin Can Alley
• Bungee Trampoline
• Six Bed Trampoline
• Mini Waltzer Ride
• Ball in the Bucket
• Santa’s Grotto

Inside the church, we will be having refreshments and home baking to keep us going and there will be the opportunity to win a Christmas Food Hamper. Donations to the hamper are still needed, so you can support the event even if you can’t make it on the day! Craft items and Christmas decorations will be available, along with sweet cones and other craft & coluring activities to keep children occupied. And if you really can’t face all that Christmas wrapping, bring your presents along and get them wrapped for 10p per present! All proceeds from this will go towards the Salvation Army Christmas Appeal to help local families in need.

At 6 p.m., members of local churches will join together in the car park for a ‘Churches Together Carol Service.‘ Come along to sing old favourites and newer carols and have a great time celebrating the fact that God has come to earth as a baby to save us all!

Recently we had a leak in our bathroom which caused minor damage and as a result we are looking for new shelving to go in the bathroom corner next to the bath. My husband, who designed the original shelving because of the awkward shape of the corner, wanted to simply replace the shelf with another of the same kind, but I was reluctant to do that because the conti board used previously had been affected by water. I wanted something tougher and more waterproof (and something which, if I am honest, looked a lot nicer.)

Thus began a seemingly simple task of finding another material for the shelf. We started looking at materials usually used for kitchen worktops since they have (in my opinion) a more elegant finish. Yet as I trawled through samples and traipsed round DIY shops, I discovered that the differences in shelving had far more to do with veneer than substance.

Veneer is a thin decorative covering of fine wood applied to a coarser wood or other material. Whether I chose conti board or laminate worktops, essentially the board itself was made of core CIA chipboard, with a backing of resin impregnated paper and water resistant seals. The ‘finish’ was vastly different, but the actual shelf material wasn’t. And that set me thinking…

Garry sees a shelf as something functional, so he doesn’t really care about what it looks like. As long as the shelf is strong enough to hold whatever is put on it, that’s what counts to an engineer. I, on the other hand, want the shelf to look pretty as well as be functional, and in a bathroom, that meant having a glossy finish that would be easily wiped down when cleaning.

I think I perhaps have the same thinking when it comes to living. Am I more concerned about what my life looks like on the outside (the veneer, the ‘glossy finish’) than I am about what it is made up of on the inside? Do appearances matter to me more than function? And ultimately, am I led astray by appearances so that I am deceived by the superficial, the pretty, the sparkling, regardless of the substance?

Mark 7:1-23 talks of the Pharisees who were offended because Jesus’s disciples apparently did not go through all the ceremonial forms of washing before eating. They were utterly taken up by appearances. Jesus reminded them ‘Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.‘ (Mark 7:15) He said ‘What comes out of a person is what defiles them‘ (Mark 7:20) He was far more concerned with the substance of a person than their veneer (see also Matt 23:1-39).

A veneer can be scratched and spoiled and then the real substance is evident. Our lives may look very spiritual, but when squeezed by life’s circumstances and trials, our true nature will be revealed. We need God’s Spirit to search our hearts and reveal to us what is going on under the surface; we need to be more than people who simply look good.

It was great to welcome our newest members to church tonight: babies born in November. Our prayers are with these two baby girls and their families.

We had another birthday to celebrate as well!

Mark spoke about the life of Terah at tonight’s meeting. Terah (Abraham’s father) is only mentioned in a few verses in Genesis and in one verse in Joshua and might seem quite an insignificant character compared to others in the Old Testament, but his life teaches us nonetheless a valuable spiritual lesson.

Gen 10 tells us the story of the flood and how God saved Noah and his family from destruction. By Gen 11, we see that things have once again deteriorated and one of Noah’s sons, Shem, lived in Ur of the Chaldeans which became a place of idol worship. From his line came Terah; in Gen 11:26-32, we read how Terah fathered Abraham and was called by God, even though he lived in inauspicious conditions! (see also Joshua 24:2) This demonstrates how God can use and call anyone and can transform and use anyone at all, including us!

Terah set off on a journey – an idol-worshipping man leaving his home with all his family to set off for a new life in Canaan. He travelled as far as Haran (probably about 950 miles, an epic journey in itself.) Haran was a welcome place of civilisation and being about halfway to Canaan was a good resting0place, but Terah decided to stay there and live and forgot about Canaan. He stopped, in esesence, halfway to the fulfilment of his dreams.

Gen 11:32 gives us this sobering truth: ‘Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.’ He stayed there; he settled there and he died there, never having known the blessings of actually reaching Canaan, his original destination. Where he settled was where he died.

Lessons from Terah’s Life

1. God can choose and use the most unexpected people to fulfil His plan. Terah was chosen to father Abraham, the start of the line of Israel, and was called to set off on a journey with God. God chooses us to be part of His plans.
2. God gives us destinations and dreams to achieve for Him, things that excite us and move us. What happens to those destinations and dreams, however? Do we give up on them? Do the rigours of the journey and life cause us to pause for a while and then we settle down… having only reached halfway? We may still be doing stuff for God, but we are not possessing all that God has for us and can be guilty of settling for second best. ‘Second best’ may well seem good and not evil, but it’s not Canaan! – it’s not the dream and vision God gave you.
3. Terah stopped half-way and settled and died. Are we going to stop half way to God’s ultimate plan for our lives because we have reached a place and time that’s comfortable and nice? The devil seeks to rob us of becoming the awesome person God wants us to be. We need to keep pressing on (see Phil 3:12-14). We weren’t called for mediocre service or to be mediocre Christians; we were called to do something that only we can do with God. There is no middle ground: we are either pressing on or settling spiritually in a place where we will die. The call is to return to our first love and vision and to keep on pressing on.

Ps 128 is a psalm of blessing. To be blessed, the dictionary says, is to be divinely or supremely favoured; to be fortunate; to be blissfully happy or contented. It’s a good word! There are two Hebrew words translated ‘blessed’ in this psalm. The word used in Ps 128:1-2 (asre) describes the sense of happiness and wholeness that comes from living in good relationship with God. The word used in Ps 128:4-5 (barak) describes what God does as He shares His abundant life with us in a relationship of salvation. (Eugene Peterson, ‘The Journey’, P 104). Being blessed conveys a sense of overflowing praise, gratitude and thankfulness. Certainly, we have much to be thankful and grateful for (see Eph 1:3), and throughout the Bible, we see God’s desire to bless (see Gen 1:22, 28; Gen 9:1; Gen 12:2; Num 23:20.) The book of Ruth is a parable of God’s overflowing blessing; Boaz, the kinsman-redeemer who rescues Ruth from disgrace, gives her not only stalks of grain to glean but six measures of barley! (Ruth 2:16, 3:15) In the same way, God is not stingy in His blessings: ‘Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.’ (Luke 6:38)

Nonetheless, His blessings are for ‘all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to him.’ (Ps 128:1; see also Ps 1:1-3)  We need to offer God our whole-hearted obedience and surrender, for ‘there are ethical standards to follow, there are moral values to foster, there are spiritual disciplines to practise, there is social justice to pursue, there are personal relationships to develop,’  as Eugene Peterson reminds us. (‘The Journey’, P 106) Paul reminds the Ephesians that there is a new way of life to pursue (see Eph 4:17, 22-24), for we cannot cherry pick God’s laws, choosing the ones we want to obey and ignoring the rest. James offers us this sobering truth: ‘whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.’ (James 2:10)

Moses, at the end of a long and faithful life, addressed the Israelites before his death. He told them ‘I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.’ (Deut 30:15) He commanded them ‘to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess’ (Deut 30:16), going on to warn them ‘But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.’ (Deut 30:17-18) Joshua issued similar warnings (Josh 23:9-13). God’s desire is to bless us; we have to make the choice between life and death, blessings and curses, however.  God’s commands are not burdensome, but are fences to protect us and keep us safe rather than prison walls to hem us in and restrict us. God’s ways and God’s presence are where we experience happiness that lasts. If we want to live a long life, full of freedom and blessing, we need to fear the Lord and walk in obedience to Him. That’s the easy way. Any other path may look enticing and easy, but will inevitably lead to death and destruction. God gives us a choice; it’s up to us what we choose and how we choose to live. Choose life. Choose blessing. Choose obedience.