Chads News - 12th Sept 2024
18 July 2024 12:00
Dear Church Family,
I want to begin with a huge THANK YOU! For every way that you have as a church family showed such love and generosity to me as I turn 50. I have received so many cards, gifts and the very generous financial gift which was collected is a huge blessing. We absolutely loved celebrating with our church family on Sunday, both in the morning and the evening party. I have been grinning all week as I remember different aspects of the day and ways people have blessed us. Words here can hardly express the deep gratitude I feel to be part of such a generous, loving church.
The focus of our autumn is Good News and in this edition of Chads News there is plenty of activity which I believe is good news. There are training days, teaching events, and weekends away, there are opportunities to connect with others, there are ways you can be good news and ways you can let the good news go more deeply into your soul. One piece of good news which is making me smile today is the encouragement from Tuesday night and Wednesday lunch time prayer events. At both we had such an amazing time praying. On Weds we focussed on good news from Philippians 4. On Tues we prayed into a phrase from Nehemiah 13.2 ‘yet our God turned the curse into a blessing’. We prayed about the many ways God loves to turn things around, from decay to new life, from despair to hope, from hatred to love. God wants to do that in us and through us in so many ways.
The Book of Ruth is an amazing love story of God turning around a family in despair and poverty, into a new family of love, kindness, generosity and hope. We are looking forward to Matt Britton coming back to St Chads to perform it for us on October 19th. And as I think about God turning things around, I think back to the many thousands of ways he did that at NewWine last summer, the early bird discount for next summer runs until 30th September, get your booking in quick!
All that we share here in Chads News is fuelled by that desire to see God turning things around. There are dates and details here, there are different events for people at different stages in life. All of it points to the goal of us seeing God’s good news of new life, bring new life into our community.
with love,
Richard.