Join Chris as he explores what James has to say on the relationship of faith and works to salvation, and shares inspiring stories of people past and present who live life out in faithfulness and service.

For the church family

• For Barry Roberts who has had his knee replacement operation.  We continue to pray for a swift and good recovery.
• For the family and friends of Ben Andrews, a local teenager, who was tragically killed this week in a car accident. The funeral is being held on Tuesday 15th May at 12.30pm and we pray for God’s love, peace and comfort at this very difficult time.
• For Jacob Britton (Jean & Martyn Sargent’s grandson) who has had surgery on his hip. It went very well and we pray for a rapid recovery and successful physiotherapy to aid his rehabilitation.
• For Chris Guests Nieces son, Simon who has returned to Camp Bastian for a tour of duty and for his young wife and son left behind.
• For Kim Moore as she continues to cope with ME.

Missionary Prayer Focus –Sally France working for Music for Life ( African’s children’s choir ) and based in Uganda

• Pray for Sally and the Music for Life team, for wisdom when selecting children for the choirs and guidance as they plan their training and touring schedules.
• Pray that the ongoing frustrations of all the paperwork, passports, visas etc for the choir children will not cause delay in the planned schedules.
• The organisation is struggling financially as donations are down. Pray for the provision of funding so that they will be able to continue to support all the children in their care.

Tearfund – Conflict in the Congo

• In Eastern DRC, in the region of North Kivu, the situation is deteriorating rapidly. After defecting from the Government army together with over 500 troops, ex CNDP rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda (known as “the Terminator”) took control of two towns near Goma earlier this week.
• Please pray for the safety and security of our staff and partners in Goma as dangerous times are ahead.
• Please pray for the safety of those who are displaced, and that their needs may be met quickly and that they would find strength through the hardships ahead.
• Pray for an end to the fighting – that a quick, peaceful resolution will occur so that people can return to their homes, families and livelihoods.

It would be great to read your prayers. Encourage others by sharing your prayers (and answered prayers) in the comments below.

Most of us might like to rewrite our personal history and airbrush out the bad or ugly parts of our story. The good news is that whilst we cannot change the past we can redeem it and the future can be changed. The events of the first Easter are at the pivotal point in human history. History itself is divided into before and after the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, B.C. and A.D. With the resurrection of Jesus, subsequent history was changed and more importantly, millions of lives have been positively changed, through personal faith in him, experiencing God’s unconditional love and forgiveness. The death and resurrection of Jesus paved the way for us back into a wonderful relationship with God as our heavenly Father and into living life to the full!

For the followers of Jesus, there was total surprise and initially disbelief, at his resurrection, though he had previously talked with them about it on quite a number of occasions. This Easter what will our response be? Their lives were never the same again!

For the church family

• For Barry Roberts who had his knee replacement operation last week.  He has been in a lot of pain and we pray for a swift and good recovery.
• For Liz MacCallum, coming to terms with the loss of her mum.
• For Caroline & Aaron Rigby on the birth of their baby daughter, Erin Lois.
• For Chris Guest’s Nieces son, Simon who has returned to Camp Bastian for a tour of duty and for his young wife and son left behind.
• For Rich & Hannah Crocombe. Rich has been made redundant and Hannah is quite poorly with headaches, backaches and feeling lethargic.
• For Kim Moore as she continues to cope with ME.

Missionary Prayer Focus –Sally France working for Music for Life ( African’s children’s choir ) and based in Uganda.

• Pray for Sally, for good health and for her protection, pray that the Lord would continue to equip her for all the work she does for him and that she would know encouragements along the way.
• Continue to pray for the ongoing situation in Kenya, pray that the Director of Children’s services will write the necessary letter of permission before the children get too old to go.
• Pray that there will be sufficient funding to do work on the new choir school buildings and grounds, including fencing around the garden.

Tearfund – Burkina Faso

• Deteriorating food conditions in parts of Burkina Faso are leaving people eating just one small meal a day. Some communities are even being abandoned as hunger forces residents to leave in search of food.
• Please pray for those affected by the food crisis. Pray for those having to leave their homes and livelihoods and facing an uncertain future. Pray that God will be a source of comfort and strength in the times ahead.
• Pray for Tearfund’s partners in the region. Thank God for their determination to help communities overcome poverty and hunger and work towards a better future.
• Give thanks for the work of Tearfund’s partners across West Africa. Pray that God will bless and increase their efforts to bring a meaningful difference to those most in need.

It would be great to read your prayers. Encourage others by sharing your prayers (and answered prayers) in the comments below.

For the church family

• For Barry Roberts operation next week, Wednesday 2nd May.
• For Liz MacCallum, coming to terms with the loss of her Mum.
• For Caroline Rigby who’s baby is due anytime.
• For Chris Guest’s Niece’s son, Simon who has returned to Camp Bastian for a tour of duty and for his young wife and son left behind.
• For Rich & Hannah Crocombe. Rich has been made redundant and Hannah is quite poorly with headaches, backaches and feeling lethargic.
• For Kim Moore as she continues to cope with ME.

Missionary Prayer Focus – Simon and Sarah Devaraj with Joshua, Hannah and Matthew working at the Bethesda project in India

• Pray for the whole family, for spiritual and physical protection and good health. Give thanks that the children are will and happy, Matthew at home and Joshua and Hannah at boarding school.
• Pray that good committed staff will be found for the new school year ( starts in June ). Staff needs are a manager to oversee the bus transport and more drivers, and administrator in the school office and teachers, especially English.
• Pray that the building of the new classrooms will go ahead smoothly with no delay.

Tearfund – HIV in Malawi

In Malawi, the isolation often felt by people living with HIV is getting tackled by churches through a Tearfund project. Our partner in Malawi, Eagles, is running  training workshops for pastors in the area, equipping them to meet the practical and social needs of those living with HIV and not just their spiritual needs.

• Pray that the work of Eagles will continue to flourish and be blessed with more churches and communities coming together with transformational results.
•  Pray for those suffering from the pain and discrimination of HIV. Pray that the local church will bring renewed hope and vigour throughout the country in Jesus’ name.
• Pray that the support group members will continue being compelled by love to stay together and encourage each other for positive living.
• Pray that they overcome self-rejection and believe in themselves as an important part of society who have the mandate to contribute to church and community development.

“Love is not a feeling it’s an act of the will” the words of a Don Francisco song, and a sentiment that echoes with Jesus’ command to love one another.

Jesus commands that we put our wills into action and love each other as family, care for each other, not only for the good of us all but so that other people see the love of God in action and recognise Christ as they look at the way we relate to each other.

• The fact that Jesus tells us to love one another means that loving and caring is a matter of choice.
• The reason Jesus gives us as to why we should obey this particular command is so that other people will see we belong to God and that we will demonstrate God’s love to the world.
• Just as Jesus knew his disciples would need each other following His betrayal, arrest and crucifixion, so we need each other to be able to face tough times, to build each other up and encourage one another.

Designed to bring the message of Easter to the mass market places of our culture, through being profiled in the media, Tara uses this genre to express her own passionate belief as a Christian that over those three days the world was changed and individual lives can be too!

Tara tells the story of Christ for the first time ever in a commercial pop video – and is probably the biggest budget Christian pop video ever as part of a £100,000+ campaign.The video was shot by leading pop promo team N.G. Bristow and Joachim Bergamin. It shows the Cross of Christ and depicts the Christian story in music and language to connect with music lovers. ‘In Three Days’ introduces people to Jesus, the resurrection and Christianity in a modern way combining Pop music and the central message of the Gospel.

We want to support this project. Just 79p is all it will cost to download the song and the more people that buy it, the more times the song and video will be broadcast on national radio & TV taking the message of Jesus Christ to millions of people across the country. So our support and that of our friends can make a real difference! There are also concrete plans to allow you to ‘sponsor a school’ RE lesson as part of this project and you can find the link at http://www.in3days.org/.

Don’t forget that once you have bought the song, you can share this video with friends on Twitter or Facebook.

• GROWING in understanding, faith and love for God
• CARING for one another as family
• LIVING-OUT lives of faithfulness and service
• REACHING-OUT with the compassion and message of Jesus

This statement encompasses the most important things that we believe we should be all about as church (hence the series title, ‘What we’re all about’). Each Sunday we’ll be focusing our teaching upon one of these, and Chris kicked off this week looking at GROWING.

Have you noticed in the Bible that we first meet a guy called Timothy when he was just a young believer – probably still living at home with his parents – and yet within a short time he’s accompanying Paul on missionary journeys and leading a church in Ephesus? He obviously matured pretty quickly as a Christian – but how did this come about? What were the key things that helped him to GROW?
Join Chris as he seeks to offer some answers to these questions (drawing inspiration along the way from an interview with Brook about tomatoes!), and how we might, as God’ children, reach our full potential in Christ and be all that God intends us to be.

For details of the event we present to you our Julilee celebration in rhyme!

This should be a night of fun

For young and old, yes EVERYONE
Bring your granny, bring a mate
We need you all to make it great.

There will be a lovely tea
For just £2 but kids are free
At 5 o’clock we’ll make a start
With game or two for young at heart.
Some skiffle music playing live
You may get the chance to jive

Then a little razzmatazz
Another group will play some jazz
A pudding break then to enjoy
For every jolly girl and boy
A little rock n roll played then
For groovy chicks and re-cycled men

The evening is designed for ease
So you can leave just when you please.
We aim to finish near to nine
Please feel free to bring some wine
Raid your wardrobe make us smile
Dress and hair in 50′s style

Tickets are on sale -please note
Get yours now, don’t miss the boat

In this week’s sermon, Chris unpacks Mark 14:53-65 offering some thoughts on the run-in to the crucifixion and what Mark is trying to tell his readers about Jesus.