Easter shouts God’s love, forgiveness and acceptance of us. The cross nails home the depth of God’s identification with each one of us and the passion of God that we all come to know and love Him. We are planning some great opportunities for people you know to explore the truth and depth of the cross with a new-look Alpha for young people and another for adults, beginning in early May. We can all be part of supporting these and inviting people.
This Easter weekend we will see many of our young people enjoying Easter Camp and many of our adults out supporting camp in the areas of music, logistics, security, cooking, cleaning and as camp parents and leaders. Let’s pray this Easter Camp will be a wonderful fun time, full of personal encounters with God.
For those not going to Camp, come and join us on Good Friday for a Stations of the Cross experience and two resurrection-focussed services on Easter Sunday. More details in the newsletter.
On Sunday, April 3, we will be blessing a new carving we have commissioned for the entrance to the gym. This carving speaks of welcome to all people, from every culture and part of the world to this place and our central identity as a church around the cross of Jesus. We will be blessing this pou and the Tohu Aroha (signpost of love) carving that Grace church gave to us. The blessing will be at 6am on Sunday April 3 (daylight savings change over Sunday), followed by breakfast together. You are all very welcome to join us.
After the church prayer meeting I was encourage to hear of a prayer concern for our central city and especially the future of the Anglican Cathedral. If there are others willing to pray for this area and the decisions around the future of the city, please let me know. I’d like to link keen prayers together. My email address is ajamieson@swbc.org.nz
Please look at the names of those being nominated as Elders, we anticipate more names to be added over the next few days.
Finally, as Easter approaches my hope is that we can each take some time to climb inside the experience of Jesus, or one of those around Jesus, on the journey to the cross and empty tomb. Choose one small passage or encounter described in the Bible and ask the Holy Spirit to open your senses to this moment, then soak up what it must have been like. Ask God ‘what is here that you want to show me and say to me?’. It may seem an odd way to pray, but centuries of Christ followers have found this style of prayer richly rewarding….let’s engage this Easter!