The Lord is our strength

February 16th, 2024

Dear church family

At the beginning of the year, I had felt that 2024 is a threshold year into new opportunities for God's Kingdom. Izzy's reflections on January a couple of weeks back highlighted a number of new ministries and opportunities springing up just one month in to this year. Over the past few weeks we have seen people give their lives to the Lord and we have also celebrated 6 baptisms already this year which is wonderful.
At the same time, the winter has been a tough season for some in our church family and there have been various challenges people have faced. We have seen a lot of illness and there are still a number of our church family who are unwell. I wanted to encourage us with words from Psalm 28:7-8

The Lord is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.
My heart leaps for joy,
and with my song I praise him.
The Lord is the strength of his people,
a fortress of salvation for his anointed one.

As we seek to advance the Kingdom of God in a significant way in Ashford and beyond as a church family, we can only do so in the strength God gives, trusting in his protection and his help. My personal testimony is that as I serve God alongside you all, like David, my heart leaps for joy.

My prayer is that wherever God leads us and whatever ministry and mission looks like for us in the years ahead (which I am sure will be exciting and challenging in equal measure), our hearts will continue to be joyful and that we will be known as a church that finds great joy in serving the Lord; a church where even when we face struggles, ministry will not be burdensome, and where in all seasons we praise the Lord.

The Lord is our strength and our shield;
Our hearts trust in him, and he helps us.
Our heats leap for joy,
And with our songs we praise him.
The Lord is the strength of WBC,
A fortress of salvation for all those he has anointed in Christ.

With much love,

Mark

TARGET 10% A reminder that at our AGM in November we shared our hopes to be able to take on a children and families worker. In the face of higher inflation these past couple of years and higher interest rates this was a challenge to budget for but we said we would look at giving at the end of the first quarter and see if we can recruit later in the year. As this approaches, we are inviting our church family to pray, to review our giving, and to potentially take one of the following steps.

1. We are praying that our regular giving will increase by 10% at the beginning of this year. Maybe your income has changed and you are able to increase your giving, or there is an adjustment in spending habits God is calling you to make to enable you to adjust your giving.

2. We are praying that the amount of regular givers increases by 10%. Maybe you don't currently give regularly to the work of the church but you are feeling prompted to start. You can set up a standing order using the church bank details on the bottom of this update.
3. We are praying that there will be people in our church family who feel prompted to start tithing. Tithing is a biblical principle where 10% of income is set aside and given to the work of the local church. It is a sacrificial act of worship and of trusting in God to provide, seeking first the Kingdom of God in our finances.

We thank God for the wonderful way he has provided for everything we need as individuals and as a church family. We thank God for the gift of giving and generosity, that we can give freely as part of our worship. We continue to pray for those in our church family facing financial pressures – if this is you, know you are not alone and that you can always reach out to a member of the team in confidence.

SUNDAY GATHERING - 10:30AM Join us this Sunday as we continue our sermon series 'I AM - Who is Jesus?'. For those who are unable to attend in person please join us on YouTube: https://youtu.be/cT3mce8X6lg

LOVE WILLESBOROUGH MEETING - This Wednesday 21st February at 7:30pm. Last year we came up with three words all starting with the letter C to help us remember what our focus is for Love Willesborough, our community outreach umbrella...
Love Willesborough Meeting Feb 2024.png

...Community – All that we do under the banner of Love Willesborough is our way of reaching out (outside of our church building) to Willesborough and the surrounding areas

Compassion – Just as Jesus had compassion on the crowd in Mark 6: 34 compassion should flow through us from the experience we have had our Gods love for us and how that he instructs us to 'Be kind and compassionate to one another'. Not because we are obliged to have compassion but that we share Gods heart for his people.

Christ – Ultimately everything we do should point to Christ to quote Izzy 'Salvation is always the Goal'.

I would like to add one further C for this year 'Connection'. God created us for human connection. Unfortunately that connection is so often missing within our local communities. What I see in many of the projects we run is that Connection – relationship building at Family Food and Fun, The Well, Tots, Renew, CAP and so many more.

Brabourne Care Home - Feb 2024.png

BRABOURNE CARE CENTRE We want to be a church that reaches out to all ages and helps as many people as we can hear the good news of Jesus Christ in our community. This of course includes our elderly. Many of you may not know this but some of our wonderful members run a service in Brabourne Care Centre every third Monday of the month. This is a great opportunity to help share Jesus with those at the end of their lives so that they have an opportunity to receive eternal life. Please be praying for the members who run it and for those in the home hearing the message.

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PRESCHOOL ART SUPPLIES Our wonderful Preschool would appreciate art, craft & office supplies such as pens, pencils, paper. If you feel that you could contribute please drop items in at the church office - labelled for preschool. Thank you!

DEAF SPIRITUAL AWARENESS TRAINING
Would you like to have the confidence to communicate with the deaf community within our church context? At WBC we want our services to be accessible to all. With this in mind, we are privileged the be joined by Denise and David Flynn who are providing five sessions of Deaf Spiritual Awareness training. We would like as many of our church family to attend as possible, especially if you volunteer in any area of WBC life, including the Well Cafe and Welcome team.
The first session will be Thursday 22nd February at 7:15pm for a 7:30pm start. It would be great to see you there.