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St George's at 7
As we continue to discern God’s will and direction for our service, the CLT felt it was important to keep the congregation as a whole informed of what we believe that direction is at this point in time and to give you an opportunity to feed back.
We are greatly encouraged by all that God is already doing among us. We want to give thanks for that, to bless that and to see God doing much more.
Our guiding principles are first to seek God’s face, his presence and his glory with all our heart and soul. Our prayer is that all of God’s people share that passion. A practical effect is that we will be happy to try new things that could assist our journey deeper into God.
Second we are delighted when God intervenes in a miraculous way in our services so we will encourage the development and use of spiritual gifts to build up the people of God. That will flavour all aspects of our life together but one practical area is the use of Listening Prayer to seek God’s word for individuals coming for prayer.
Third we want our service to be marked by ‘Committed participation’. We believe that everyone should be able to contribute as they are able; that we should look to build community with a real sense of membership; that we should be nurturing disciples of Jesus able to serve God in our church and in the world.
Prayer
One practical result of this is in our approach to intercessory prayer. We want to have as many as possible actively engaged in prayer. That does not mean prayer in small groups every week, or large groups, or open prayer, or led prayer. Our intention would be to be open to pray at any time in the service as God leads and to use a wide variety of approaches but all with the intention to actively engage as many as possible in actively praying for the needs in our world. Our prayer is that what happens on Sunday is just one aspect of a vibrant prayer life throughout the lives of our congregation.
Opportunities for Service
Many of you are already serving God in our church life as well as outside and we want to bless you for that. If you feel you would like to be more engaged talk to one of us. There are always opportunities for service.
Stepping out in Faith
We want as a people of God to give thanks for what He has done throughout 2008. Our plan is to give over our 7pm service on January 4 to testimonies of what God has been doing and to giving Him thanks, praise and glory. If you have a story of how God has worked in your life over this last year, begin to think how you could share it briefly and let Mark know. However we also want God to do so much more in 2009, so we will be praying for that on January 4 but also calling for a week of prayer and fasting for the following week.
You can participate in the fast any way you feel called, for example give up specific foods or drinks for the week, give up TV, fast altogether for one day. How you fast is your choice but we would ask you to use the week to pray for:
• more of God’s presence and glory visibly displayed in our church;
• more of God’s healing power shown through healing of many inside and outside our church;
• more impact of God’s church here in Ashtead on our community.
Finally we would ask you to use that week to listen to God and feed back to us what you believe He is saying to help us to discern His perfect will for us.
From your Congregation Leadership Team: Peter, Rosemary, Vivienne, Pat, Ian, Jamie and Mark.
A transformed community for Christ – knowing Him…making Him known
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Mark Searle, 01/03/2009 |
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