July 24 Monthly Message

Dear Church Family,

 

It’s been a while since I wrote one of these messages, and so there’s much to communicate with you.

 

Looking back over the past few months, there have been some amazing things to celebrate. We had a great church weekend, welcoming John and Anne Coles to come and speak to us. I recognise for some it was challenging and will have stretched us. In essence, that was part of the rationale of the weekend. There is always more to be experienced of God and how he wants to work in us and through us. And if we’re never stretched then we’ll never grow. My heart for us as a community of disciples is that we’ll continue to grow in our discipleship and our understanding of how Jesus wants to be active in our lives. When the core team reflected on the weekend, we remarked on how gentle John and Anne were with us, which is what we needed as we were challenged. 

 

Of particular note were the testimonies that came from the weekend. Stuart Bellingham talking about an encounter with the power of God, energising him in such a way that he felt propelled up the hills whilst cycling on the Saturday evening. And then we had Ellie Amir testifying to being healed of sciatica as people prayed for her to receive the gift of tongues. Not something she was seeking, but something that God did in his grace as she was prayed for. God is indeed good!

 

On the Wednesday we had the interview for our Children and School’s Minister Role. I’m pleased to say that we were able to appoint Megan Bishop, who is married to Jack and has a 6 month old called Caleb. Megan is currently Children and Youth Minister at Holy Trinity, Coventry and is someone I know from my time in Bristol. Please do be praying for Jack, Megan and Caleb as they prepare to move to Blandford, and especially for the provision of the right accommodation for them. If you know of any 2 or 3 bed properties that may be suitable and available at the beginning of Aug, please do let me know.

 

The Sunday after we had the amazing privilege of baptising 7 people as we celebrated Pentecost. I believe this is the first time that adult full-immersion baptisms have happened at BFPC? It was amazing to see people baptised who have come to faith through the mission and ministry of the church in the last few years. My prayer is that God would continue to do what he has been doing and that we would see more people come to faith as we are faithful to God’s calling on us as a church.

 

Post-Easter we have started out on a sermon series called “Surprise The World” – looking at adopting habits of discipleship that cause people to positively ask why we are different. This series will last for most of the year, not because we want to labour the point, but because we believe that what we’re trying to introduce is really important. You may remember that I outlined 4 strands of activity or focus at the start of this year one of which was “Discipleship”. This series in essence is the church taking “discipleship” seriously. First and foremost “church” is a gathering of disciples, where we come together to worship Jesus and to be equipped in our discipleship – to learn to look like him in our daily lives. I take this seriously, and see one of the main axioms of my ministry as equipping the saints – it’s not enough for me to be a minister – we’re all called to be ministers of the gospel to the communities we live in. And for us this looks like Blessing, Eating, Listening and Learning. These are things that will allow us to grow in discipleship.

 

I can’t however force anyone to engage with what we’re promoting from the front of church. I can only invite each of us to adopt what we’re recommending from the front. My encouragement to all of us is to give it a go. It is simple in it’s approach, but ultimately challenging in it’s application. But I do fundamentally believe that the more of us that give it a go, the more impact we will have as a church, and the more like Jesus we’ll look like. This is our calling. And it’s not something that we’ll move off from next year – it’s fundamentally biblical and so it will remain as a foundation for how BFPC does discipleship for the next few years.

 

Looking forward it’s exciting to be able to see Will get ordained as a Priest at Salisbury Cathedral. This is the next step in his journey to becoming a fully-fledged vicar and I can’t speak highly enough of him as a colleague and a friend. It has been such a privilege to see him grow over this last year, and he has really helped me in the leading of the church over the last year. A lot of what we’re focussing on now has Will’s fingerprints on it as much as mine! Please do join us at the Cathedral on June 29th at 4.30pm to see him getting ordained. And if you’d like to contribute towards his gift, please make a contribution at church or online and let Tina or Philip know.

 

Over the summer holidays we’ll condense our Sunday worship down to a single 10am Service, as we did last year, which will seek to minister to whole of the church, with elements of all-age, some hymns and worship songs, as well as a short sermon. The teaching theme over the summer will be “Stories Jesus Told” looking at some of the parables. We’ll celebrate communion on 11th & 25th Aug. Alongside this there will be social events each week that all are invited to come along to. We’ll publish more information about these once we’ve finalised the details.

 

I hope that the summer will give many of us a chance to stop and take a break, maybe to go away, maybe to spend quality time with family and friends. Maybe the summer months will also give us a chance to put into practice those things which we’ve been learning over these past few months… to Bless those around us through Encouragement, Acts of Kindness and Gifts, and to spend time with others by sharing a meal or going for coffee with them. Can I encourage you to take this opportunity to have a go at making these part of your discipleship?

 

At the end of July, Cat, my wife is going to stop her involvement with Little Peas and cease heading up the Sunday Explorers Team, following on from taking up paid employment just before Easter. With the immanent arrival of Megan as our Children and School’s Minister we hope to continue these things, but we will be prayerfully considering what we can resource and where the Lord is asking us to invest our time and energy.

 

It seems likely that we’re going to be running another Alpha Course in the autumn. We already have a number of people saying they want to come along. Can I encourage each of us to be praying for someone who we know who we’d like to invite… There’s no need to ask immediately. Start by laying a foundation of prayer. Ask God to open their hearts to him, and for an opportunity to invite them along, and lastly for the courage to take the opportunity when it arises. As I mentioned above, it was so encouraging to witness the baptisms a few weeks ago. Wouldn’t it be great to see more in the months ahead?

 

At the start of the summer a number of us are attending New Wine at the Bath and West Showground in Shepton Mallett, and we’d like to invite everyone to come and join us for the Saturday (28th July) – you can buy a day ticket here. The conference is an opportunity to worship with thousands of others, and to have some great teaching to equip you as a disciple of Jesus. Do come along if you can.

 

I hope you all have a great summer. Enjoy the weather if you can.

 

Blessings

 

Chris