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Today’s service continued on in the theme set by Tim last week.

Jonny led our worship, assisted by Amanda, Roy and Tim.

Judith brought the word today using the message from John 1 43-51. she used this to bring forward a message of new beginnings. She opened with a prayer for the Holy Spirit to point us to Jesus and let us have a new walk with him. Verses 50 and 51 in New Living Translation offer us a vision of a stairway to heaven. Tim last week explained God was the author of creation. He made everything for us his children. God’s plan was for a new beginning. Unlike the other gospels, John doesn’t start with a helpless babe. Jesus is the Word of God. Jesus is that word the light in the darkness. Verse 14 sets the scene clearly. A new beginning with God connecting with man, full of love and faithfulness. Jesus came offer a way for everyone, Jesus identified himself and begins to call his disciples. He is identified as the Lord and the Son of God. Nathanael uses these messianic titles. Joseph in Genesis had the dream of angels ascending and descending . Jesus builds on this, he says he is the way, a new covenant for everyone. Jesus says he is going to be the sacrifice. The people he calls are just like us, regular people. We’re happy to have a saviour but not necessarily happy to have a leader. Do we change our ways, what’s our heart condition like?

This new beginning is Jesus saying come and see! This is the Word of God not our own thinking. These disciples were getting excited. The first disciples were from Bethsaida. Despite Jesus saying it was unbelieving and unrepentant he chose his first from there. Jesus finds his people in the most unexpected places, he uses people who are not likely material as well. We mustn’t be afraid , we may not be skilled theologians , yet we believe. The woman at the well ran back and asked people to come and see. Nathanael jumped to a judgement, he was religious and initially he was stereotyping. This Jesus was a builder, and he therefore was working with,  mixing and meeting a lot of unbelievers rubbing shoulders with him in the workplace. Jesus was a working man and had a regional accent from a place like Nazareth that did not have a good reputation. Nazarenes were unclean. God looks at the heart condition. It doesn’t matter where you come from. He offers a new beginning. Thankfully Nathanael was curious and he went to see. Jesus, when he saw him, knew his heart condition . He admired his honesty and integrity. Jesus welcomes the questioner. Jesus knew Nathanael wanted to know more. Jesus tells Nathanael he saw him under the fig tree. What does this mean? As soon as Jesus said it, Nathanael was captured. Under the fig tree was a common phrase to illustrate that you took yourself away to pray. When Jesus said this he was really saying “ I saw you in your time of prayer”. Nathanial knew only god knew this. Immediately Nathanial recognised Jesus. What’s our fig tree? We need to come to that place recognising Jesus as our leader.

Lamentations 3:23 shows every morning we have a fresh start . If we blew it today, we still get a fresh start. It is never too late. When we reflect on  Jacobs ladder, we know that despite everything, God promised he would not leave him in the wildness, Jacob awoke and realised God was in the hard place. Jesus identified himself to Nathanael as the gate and stairway to heaven. Jesus was inviting people with strange backgrounds and complex histories to follow him and to serve to carry his message. We can demonstrate Jesus we can invite people. If we’re in hard places, dry places, He’s promised to be living water, a light in the dark. Jesus says come and offers the new beginning for everyone. Jesus offers the new beginning, regardless of our mistakes. Come and see, is what he offers. Nathanael could have stuck to what he knew. But he didn’t. The glory cloud might be moving on for us offering us a new change, a new beginning. The challenge is not to limit God and to see the new beginning.

 

Happy New Year. We hope you have all had a restful break and had chance to ponder on “the reason for the season”.  Keeping Christ firmly in view at Christmas can be a real challenge at times,

Our first service of 2018 saw us taking communion, renewing our covenant or promise to God, to ourselves, to each other, the church and the wider world that is our community. The service was led by Ian assisted by Roy and Jonny. Our pastor, Tim Hyde, brought us the Word today.

Tim posed for us all the question “Where do we begin in this new year?”. His message was that we should start start at the beginning. He told that we’re going to explore the highlights of the Old Testament starting with Genesis chapter 1. Even though this might be familiar to us,  re-reading brings out new things for us all. Tim read the whole of chapter 1. He then reflected that it is estimated that  500,000 to 5 million sea life species are yet to be discovered.

If that is not amazing enough consider 6 million atoms on a full stop. How many other particles are there? If you don’t like spiders the next fact Tim shared might not amaze, there are 5.5 million spiders in every hectare and the web they produce is stronger than the equivalent width of steel. (5 million spiders on your football pitch!) The Bible starts and ends with new creation. It is not a science book. Over last 250 years there has been a constant battle with people questing the Bible and using science to defend or overthrow. Some questions may appeal more than others. Did Adam have a belly button is an interesting question. Tim reflected that he met so many people trying to argue Genesis is a scientific account. We struggle if we try to do this with literature that is thousands of years old. We end up with groups of people, evolutionists, creationists, people who interpret the bible literally. Problem of all of these is that it forgets the first principle when studying the Bible which is that it is made up of lots of different types of literature. The bible contains truth.Scientific truth has changed through the years. If we treated the Bible in the same way we’d constantly need to issue updates. The person who wrote the first words of Genesis didn’t even know atoms and molecules existed. It is not a science book. It looks at the why rather than the how. Creationists and evolutionists alike need to let God speak. Tim illustrated this by talking about the physical symptoms of how he felt when thinking about his wife rather the simple, more poetic but probably better understood statement that the message “I love you” would achieve.

We end up asking the wrong question. Creation is fundamental to understanding who we are and what we do. Only God has the power to create something new. Genesis 1 confirms God is the exclusive creator. God is all powerful. Reflect on the statement “Let there be..”. And the world is formed. However it happened it is all from God. God wills it and it happens . God goes on to sustain it. The balance is incredible. One tiny difference and nothing exists. God is creator and the source of everything. Hope for the future is only possible if you believe in a God who created from nothing and who can sustain the change. You don’t have to go far to see it. God’s creation of incredible beauty. Every part of God’s handiwork is there to remind us of his power. How leaves on trees work is just fascinating and something to marvel at. It is how God intended and the best is that he took pleasure in it. We see who we are. We can be creative in a different way. We are created in gods image in a relationship with every person still being unique. Even twins are different with differing personalities. He made us responsible for our own actions and choices. Genesis 1 shows how things were meant to be. There were no barriers between God and between people. Free open creation between humans and their God .

God hasn’t stopped he can still bring light to the darkest of places and order to chaos. God hasn’t changed. All human beings are still in God’s image.

Something to think about in this new year of 2018. Think about the simple fact that if God created everything out of nothing what could he do in your life this year.

In your life what could he do if he brought:
Light out of dark
Order out of chaos
Time and then the effect on your diary
Love from loneliness
Control  from powerlessness.

What could God do in your life this year? Remind yourself of these thought and questions the next time you see something beautiful.

Our last service of 2017 was a café style service led by Ian and assisted by Amanda and Roy. Judith provided some words to guide us and Esther offered a reflection on some of the work done by Young Church through 2017.

Judith led a less formal, more casual period of reflecting and sharing. We looked not only backwards with thanks for the events of 2017 in the church and in individual lives and families, but also forward to what the new year may have in store for us. Judith posed the question, “Did we have good or bad times?”  1 John 9-10 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. We need to remember that we do not do things in our own strength. Ian had already made that point as part of his own personal testimony and Judith reinforced this. God gives us grace and the original Greek word Charis is a dynamic, proactive verb. It is power, it is strength. God’s promise is that His grace is enough, his presence gets you through. Cath offered the thought that Grace can be remembered as God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.

God opposes the proud but rewards the humble.  We were asked to consider who we are in Christ. We carry his name, his purpose and his Spirit. So what season are we in and what are we facing?  Is it difficult? What challenges do we face? We need to consider where our faith is in relation to his Grace. We need to ensure that our confession actually reflects that we can do this in God’s power.

Esther shared the work that the children had done through the year on the giants of the Bible. Between her and Ben and Amy they told us of the work they had done around Joshua. Jonah, Abraham and Noah, all people of amazing faith but all had faced their own doubts and challenges. 

Esther also offered her thoughts on the giants of West View Baptist Church who had gone before us. She reflected on the choice of the final hymn for her mother’s funeral, “Turn your Eyes on Jesus” which was also the hymn that closed meetings of the Sisterhood that served across the town for so many years in the different churches that make up  our wider family. We closed this reflective part of the service on the thought “What does God want us to do?”

Matty shared some thoughts on the meaning of  Christmas and Amanda reflected on the work she had been called to in helping a new friend in her battles with addiction and starting a new life in Christ. She shared a recent example of being behind a well known (sometimes) homeless person in the town and how she’d been prompted to pay for the small amount of groceries he was buying. She made the point that it can be easy to be judgemental about such people but when you hear their life story it can be a real challenge to attitudes. She asked us all to pray for him and his partner in their daily struggles.

Our final worship song was Cornerstone and this  was particularly apt for Terry as this was played at his colleague Geoff’s funeral. Yet the contrast from that sad occasion to  watching one of our young church members dancing to the same tune, full of joy seemed so right.

Following our Nativity we took the opportunity to spruce up our carpets. 9 months of Filling Station with all the spills, drops and splashes combined with the cakes, biscuits and other cumbly goodies meant our nearly new carpet had taken a bit of  a battering. Big thanks to Michael Richardson and his company for all their work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tim’s theme today was to explore the idea of the Christingle, the symbolism behind each element of the Christingle, and getting the younger members of the congregation running around the church testing out their ideas. We updated our Christingles to use glow sticks rather than candles. It certainly gave it the unique West View angle on a traditional idea. The orange represents the world, the candle (or glowstick) represents Jesus Christ as the light of the world,  the red ribbon around the centre of orange represents the blood of Christ and four skewers with fruit (or sweets) represents the fruits of the earth and the four seasons. Many thanks to Josh for remembering that Terry couldn’t leave the sound and visuals desk and making him a Christingle so he would not be left out.