After church grab your own lunch and head to Arthur Phillip Park!
We can sit in groups of 20 max.
https://goo.gl/maps/8Go1H9Hsh8xpBtxy9
From Abigail:
“Hey everyone! How exciting that restrictions are starting to ease !! 👏🏽🥳 As things start back up again we want to run a kids leaders training night to help prepare us as we transition back into helping run kids on a Sunday morning. Please book it in your calendar -
Kids Leaders Training Night: Wednesday 22nd of July @ 7:30 PM on Zoom
Am so thankful for such a great group of leaders and can’t wait to be running kids on a Sunday with you all again real soon! 😊”
Just remember, these nights are crucial and so it is vital that we make it a priority to be there for it! Thanks guys!
This Sunday is our long awaited ‘Reunion Service’! We cannot wait to see you all in person again, to worship together, pray together, take the Lord’s Supper together, sit under preaching together, and…drink coffee together!
We will be following the Government guidelines, you know the routine by now!
Wash hands regularly
Mainting social distancing
Stay at home if unwell
Record keeping of those in attendance
SG Kids WILL be happening, outside! We need to be creative in this time and so, pack a parker and gloves and prepare your kids for the mayhem! Thankyou to Abi for all your re-organisation work!
Our seating will be spread out, you may only sit next to people in your household, so please sit accordingly.
We will be having our first communion together in 4 months, so prepare your hearts for that!
Please invite friends and guests, if we get too large we can open up the back doors and overflow into the courtyard. Here is a facebook event you can send to people to invite them: https://www.facebook.com/events/3108966822523204
I cannot wait!
On Sunday a small team had the joy of gathering to get us ready for our first in-person gathering! And we started a new series called: Re:launch! The aim of the series is to help us go forward with our mission as a church to proclaim the gospel to those who are far from God! You can listen to the sermon here.
The main point was: Jesus seeks the lost, and we get to join in the search. We saw Jesus’ heart for those who are lost and were called to have the same heart and love for those who are far from Christ. We were reminded about our simple mission strategy C4:
Connect, Communicate, Care, Call
Who are you going to seek this week?
Below is a brief video by the brilliant evangelist, Sam Chan, explaining 3 simple tips for reaching out to people in this season.
https://plus.citybibleforum.org/city/episode/episode-12-virtual-happy-hour
We pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face (1 Thess. 3:10).
As we go back to meeting in person there is probably a mixture of joy and dread! Joy at the thought of being with each other again under God’s word, in fellowship, etc. And dread of the effort, cost and sacrifice it takes to get up and out of the house on a sunday morning!
I found the following from a Sam Allberry article and thought it may be helpful for us all to remind ourselves and prepare ourselves for our weekly gathering! Read an except below:
There’s work God can only do when we’re present
The apostle Paul wrote to his Christian friends in Thessalonica,
We pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face (1 Thess. 3:10).
This is how much in-person, physical fellowship matters to Paul:
He prays for it. Do we pray to be able to be with our fellow-believers? Paul did.
He prays most earnestly. This is not a casual prayer request. He’s not checking a box. This is heartfelt. It is almost desperation. It weighs heavily on him.
He prays night and day. It’s not something Paul has a designated slot for every Tuesday for five minutes. He is constantly praying round the clock for this. Its never far from his mind.
Paul had papyrus. He could write. That wasn’t nothing. As we know, his writings are precious and life-changing. But for Paul this wasn’t enough. He wanted to be with them. Ministry could be done in-person that couldn’t be done remotely, even for an apostle. For him to have the opportunity to be with them, and to choose not to, would be unthinkable for him. It would be imbecilic.
2. There’s more joy
Paul was not alone in his longing. John wrote to his Christian friends,
Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete. (2 John 12)
Paper and ink weren’t that cheap. But this isn’t why John was reluctant to use it. Face to face would beat paper and ink because of the joy it would bring. When we’re apart from those God has bound us together with, a letter or email is better than nothing. A skype or Zoom meeting can be better than that. But nothing beats seeing someone physically face to face. John says it makes our joy complete –– for all of us. It is an effort, sure. It is less convenient. But it’ll do something for us that can’t be done if we don’t go. Time apart is easier. It is also deeply, often imperceptivity wearying. We were designed for physical time together with our church family. Without it a significant part of our Christian life atrophies and we gradually find ourselves depleted and debilitated without it. No one’s Christian life is improved by opting out of this sort of fellowship.
3. There’s more purpose
What’s the opposite of not going to church?
Let the writer to the Hebrews answer:
Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encourage one another (Heb 10:25).
The opposite of not meeting together as church is encouraging one another. That is what happens when we gather together. It is how God has designed it to be when we’re all around. We’ll lack encouragement if we’re not there.
And so will other people. It doesn’t just say “be encouraged” as if the encouragement was simply something for us to each sit back and receive. We’re to encourage one another. God has designed your physical presence to encourage other believers in their faith. If we choose to opt out, we miss encouragement and everyone else does too. That’s how much you matter. There is a sacred purpose to being at church Sunday by Sunday: to make sure we find and receive ways of being encouraged, and to make sure we identify and take opportunities to encourage other people.
There are people who sadly can’t come to church. For many of us lockdown was a novelty, if a somewhat wearying one. But for some it is what normal life has always been like. For the rest of us, though, as we emerge from the restrictions of Covid-19, let’s not go from being people who can’t go to church to people who won’t go to church. There’s too much to miss out on.”
Saturday 25th July @ my house in Northmead. 7:30 til late. See you there if you want to come! Read through: Chapters 1-3 of Masculine Mandate.
I am pleased to announce that we will be advertising and inviting new people to join our Term 3 Starting Point course! It will begin August 4th at my place again. Please be praying and thinking through who you could possibly invite to this. I know it is a hard sell given that we aren’t even meeting in person yet, however, I want us to step out in faith and trust that God will draw people to us, and so you never know until you ask!
Next Sunday is our long awaited ‘Reunion Service’! We cannot wait to see you all in person again, to worship together, pray together, take the Lord’s Supper together, sit under preaching together, and…drink coffee together!
We will be following the Government guidelines, you know the routine by now!
Wash hands regularly
Mainting social distancing
Stay at home if unwell
SG Kids WILL be happening, outside! We need to be creative in this time and so, pack a parker and gloves and prepare your kids for the mayhem! Thankyou to Abi for all your re-organisation work!
Please invite friends and guests, if we get too large we can open up the back doors and overflow into the courtyard. Here is a facebook event you can send to people to invite them: https://www.facebook.com/events/3108966822523204
I cannot wait!
Hey Church!
By God’s grace we are slowly getting closer to our reunion Sunday on July 26th! In order to help us prepare for that, a small team is heading to Tara this Sunday to figure out the best way of organising ourselves and making it COVID safe going forward. We will be recording our service live from Tara and there will be no Zoom. I encourage you, if possible to gather with some friends from church and watch the service together!
To access the service this week head to our FB page, www.facebook.com/sgparra to follow the livestream of the service at 10am. This is why we are so eager to gather again:
Psa. 84:1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD of hosts!
2 My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
11 For a day in your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
There will be no LG’s meeting during the School Holidays but we would love to invite a number of you to join us for a time of worship and prayer by the fire. Unless restrictions change we can only have 20 visitors, so please RSVP if you plan on coming just so that we know!
When: 15th July
Where: Spring’s House
Time: 7:30-9:30
What: Worship and Prayer (in a covid-safe way)