Church Life - Articles
Article Title: Vision
Subject category: Devotion
Description: The church's vision.
Worship is the offering of ourselves to God to be followers of Jesus in the world.
Part of our worship includes meeting together to sing praise to our God, consider the teaching of the Bible and encounter the Holy Spirit.
The church has four purposes:
- We seek to create an environment where people feel they belong.
- We seek to provide opportunity for growth in faith.
- We seek to encourage people to discover their gifts.
- We seek to be a people who are good news in word and action to our communities.
We wish people to feel welcome, that they matter and feel at ease and that they are able to participate in the life of the church.
We do this through reading the Bible and seeking to understand what it means to be a disciple of Jesus in all parts of our lives: home, work and leisure.
Each person has unique gifts, passions, skills, personality and experience. We aim to enable people to discover their specific role as a disciple of Jesus.
Jesus's message was one of good news to the poor, healing of the sick, freedom from oppression and a calling of people to follow him.
Article Title: Thought for the Month – August 2010
Subject category: Continual
Description: Be still and know that I am God
The holiday season is upon us. Whether we travel to distant shores or simply have some space at home, holidays do offer space to take stock of life, possibly to reflect on what we would like to achieve.
It would be good to think that we can all make choices, but so often we don’t have choices. We are trapped by the need to earn money and, for many there is the regret at being captured by our consumer society and being overstretched.
Psalm 46 v 10 says ‘Be still and know that I am God’. It says this after reflecting that ‘God is our refuge and strength’ and is an ‘ever present help in trouble’. I have come to know that you don’t have to have life all together to ‘Be still’.
We can sometimes believe that God is only interested in us if we are good. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Whilst we might believe that God would stand over us, look down his nose and ask ‘what we want with him’, the reality is that God is only too pleased to see us, wants to embrace us and help us to put things right. This doesn’t mean life will be plain sailing, but that there is never a time when God won’t be with us.
How do I know this? Because, of what I read about Jesus in the Bible. In the story of Jesus I find the human face of God, of one who is interested in me and my life. There is a challenge in the life of Jesus, but there is also comfort. John’s gospel tells us that ‘God loved the world so much he gave us his only Son.’ (John 3:16) I trust you will find time, holiday or not, to find time to ‘Be still’.
Geoff Andrews, Minister, Perry Rise Baptist Church.
Article Title: Prayer and Reflection
Subject category: Reference and Information
Description: Resources for Prayer and Reflection.
Many people find the practice of spending regular time in prayer and reflection helpful. This will include a time of reading a section of the bible, reflecting upon it and prayer. There are number of websites which can help with this. Here are few: