Every year Easter can sneak up on us and pass us by without us really making the best use of this season. We can get distracted by bunnies, chocolate, public holidays, and totally miss the chance to focus our hearts and lives on the real meaning and significance of Easter. In order to help us walk through the journey to Calvary, Christian Churches for years have participated in Lent. Lent has been celebrated in many different ways, some good, some not so! But my hope is that we can capture this 40 day period as a chance to follow Jesus on the road to Calvary, focus in on our sin, his death, our salvation, and the hope of resurrection.

Lent begins Feb 26th and goes through to Maundy Thursday April 9 (the night before Good Friday).

To help us, I have found a few Lent Devotionals that will help you to walk through this seasons well.

• The Beauty of the Cross - Tim Chester - $10

• The Glory of the Cross - Tim Chester - $10

• To Seek and To Save - Sinclair Ferguson - $10

• The Wonder of Easter: Family Devotional - $10

Additionally, here is a good article from Chuck Colson:

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/why-bother-with-lent/

This Sunday is our first LG hosted lunch! It will be at the Song’s after church! All guests and visitors are welcome, all you have to bring is your appetite!

If you are new to our church and would like to join the music team (even if you aren’t yet a member yet!) you are invited to attend an information lunch for all prospective new team members at the Burnetts house after church on Sunday 8 March  (19/6A Ingleby Street, Oatlands) to go through the wonderful theology of singing, team expectations, a chance for you to ask questions and me to hear each of you play (don't worry not solo!). 

Please RSVP to Henry (henryjoshuaburnett@gmail.com)

Also, you are welcome to join our monthly rehearsal on Tuesday nights at the Girls House, 7:30-9:30pm!

This week is your first opportunity to hand in your Go Forward Fund 2020! If you need a new one please email me and I can send it to you :)

Band rehearsal is on again! Please be ready for March 3 at the girls house, 7:30pm-9:30pm.

Ladies Coffee morning will be at Caber Park Winston Hills this week, 10am-12pm, bring something to share.

Pastor Brendan from Sov Grace Wahroonga is coming to preach for us this Sunday! Brendan is a dear friend, a gifted pastor, and we are blessed to have him come and serve us! Get excited!

I am excited that we get the opportunity to be involved in so many fantastic projects in our first Go Forward Fund! This fund will be apart of building our church locally, caring regionally, and helping globally! Please take the time this week and then next to pray and think through how you’d like to give above and beyond your regular tithe and then fill out the form, cut it off and we will collect them Sunday March 1st.

Thank you for outstanding generosity !

Are you interested in serving as a worship leader at SG Parra? To explore this leadership role we are going to be running a Worship Leaders Bootcamp. The course will take you through Bob Kauflin’s book “Worship Matters” over 8 sessions starting in Term 2. Glen Jones (Australia’s Bob Kauflin ;) ) from the Wahroonga Church will be running the course. If you are interested please contact Riley (rs@sgparra.org.au) to get more information about how it will work and what is involved.

We are passionate about seeing the gospel go forward in our local schools, and there are three local high schools which need our prayer and financial support.

On the 22nd March, 9-11am, at Parramatta Christian Church, there is an SRE Supporters Event to raise awareness and finances for the work that goes on in these three schools.

I’ll be giving an update from the board on how the ministry is going.

In particular, we really need to raise up individual donors who can support monthly, even with small contributions. If you are interested you can go here to make a donation