Monday Morning Mail, 21st Jan 2013

Loving God | Loving Each Other | Loving our Community

Good Morning!

I know quite a few of you haven't been able to make it out for the last few weeks – we're looking forwards to seeing you back once it has cleared!

Yesterday morning, I spoke on 2 Corinthians 8:9 "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich."

I reminded us that there is a pattern we see time and again in the Bible – that we are poor / lonely / sinners / dead / cut off from God / excluded, and that God is rich / in perfect community / righteous / alive, but that Jesus became poor for us, so that through his poverty we might become rich. Paul reminds us in Ephesians 2 that by nature we were without hope and without God in the world, but now because of Jesus we have been seated with him in the heavenly realms.

But we don't see that just yet, because God leaves us in this world for a while to join in with the same pattern that Jesus did. Just as God sent Jesus into the world, so Jesus sends us out into the world, to give up our rights and become poor (though we know that in Christ we possess everything), so that more people can become truly rich in Christ.

Going out into the world, into our communities, to bring people into the kingdom of God is what I want us to be our top priority as a church this year. Later in the year we're going to be thinking about how to help each other do that better through homegroups and so on.

One way that would be really good to do that would be to employ a Children's Outreach Worker to go into Walter Halls Primary School and to co-ordinate and enable our outreach to primary-aged children and their families in Mapperley. The problem is that we can't afford it. As a church, we are spending roughly £5,000 per year more than we are taking in, and employing a new Children's Outreach Worker will cost roughly £10,000 per year, so we would need to raise our income by £15,000 to break even this year. If we raise the rest of the money, we can probably get £5,000 in grants from the Diocese. Now that's still quite a bit to raise, especially in these difficult financial times, so please pray that if this is the right thing to do, then God would move people's hearts to give to it.

If 2 people increased their giving by £100 per month, and 15 people increased their giving by £30 per month, and 25 people increased their giving by £7 per month, and 10 people gave a one-off donation of £10, then we'd have raised enough money to do it, but that's the sort of commitment it's going to take. If you'd like to change the amount you give, please get in touch with Jonathan at j.peto@live.co.uk

Jesus became poor for us, so that we could become rich. Let's join him in becoming poor for the sake of our community!

Events Coming Up

Sunday 27^th – after church, young adults Bring & Share Greek Lunch, followed by film!

Tuesday 29^th – 8pm Men's Group Pub Quiz in the Duke of Cambridge

Sunday 10^th Feb – Bring & Share lunch after church - please sign up on the sheet in church