This week our sermon we continued our ‘We Are’ series with: “We are a gifted church” from 1 Corinthians 12:1-11. You can listen to the sermon here. The main hope for the message is that 1) we’d take a step back and see what the purpose for the Spiritual Gifts are: Spiritual Gifts are given to every Christian for the common good of the church, 2) We take a step forward in pursuing the practice of those gifts by: pursuing: God, love, faith, opportunity, and order.

There was a great anecdote from Dr Grudem that I said I would share in the blog, here it is:

‘If you desire to cultivate the spiritual gifts then, firstly, you must be convinced that the Bible teaches the gifts are for today and that they are important; otherwise you won’t have faith to exercise them or pray for them. Likewise, you must be confident that the gifts are given to all Christians rather than just a few specially deserving people.

Once I came to these two conclusions, I was in a place to begin to cultivate the gifts in my own life. As soon as I was convinced that the Scriptures taught the gifts of the Spirit are for today, I began to pursue them diligently. The most important thing I’ve done in pursuing the gifts has been to pray very specifically for the gifts I felt the Lord wanted to give me… Probably the second most valuable thing I have done in my pursuit of spiritual gifts is that I have attempted to use them on a regular basis. More often than not this involves some risk, and specifically the risk of looking foolish. Almost as soon as I began to ask God to give me the gift of healing, I began to pray for sick people. Most of the sick people I prayed for at first did not get healed. When I first began to give words of knowledge in public, I also had some embarrassing moments. But there is no other way to grow in anything apart from constant practice and risking.’

As I said in the message, we are already a gifted church in so many ways, but let’s continually be those who “earnestly desire the Spiritual Gifts”!

1Pet. 4:10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

We are locked and loaded for Tara this Sunday!

This Sunday evening, we will have our Church Family Meeting, which we call “Envision”. To give us updates on how things have been going (ministries and finances) and to give you a vision for what our year is going to look like!

Timing:

4pm-5pm: Church Family Pizza Dinner

5pm-6:30pm: Envision Meeting outside.

5pm-6:30pm: Kids Movie in the hall

Can’t wait!

On Sunday we began a new series: WE ARE. In these next 5 weeks we are going to look at some key things that make us, “us”! We kicked it off with - We are a grace filled church. In this message we saw that: We are to be a grace-filled people because we are children of a gracious God! I unpacked that God in His very essence and core is a Grace-filled God and for those of us who know Him and love Him and seek to follow Him, we are called to imitate Him (Ephesians 5:1).

Practically, to do this, we must have grace-filled minds before we can live grace-filled lives and so I commended that we regularly review all the grace God has show to us:

1. Renew your mind with who God is: GRACIOUS

2. Renew your mind with His saving grace, sustaining grace, empowering grace, forgiving grace, and future grace!

But then we need to go forth and live Grace filled lives! And I commended three primary areas to allow God’s grace to mould us

1. Our worship: Gladness is the appropriate response to grace

2. Our words: to be a people dripping with gratitude, thanksgiving, and encouragement

3. Our attitude: that our very being and demeanour would be marked by a graciousness like God.

May grace from God, give us the grace, to be grace-filled people! AMEN!

Want to know more about joining our church family?

Our Term 1 Starting Point course is coming up, please register to let us know you are coming so that we can have the materials ready for you. Register at www.sgparra.org.au/startingpoint

Starting Point is our pre-membership course the enables you to study our doctrine, practices, and distinctives so that you can prayerfully determine whether God is leading you to join us.

It will be a 7 week course on Sunday’s before church,

Starting Date: Sunday 7th Feb

Time: 8:45am (don’t worry coffee + donuts will be provided!)

Commitment: It is a 7 week course that works best if you attend each week. We will end our time together with a dinner, if possible. After that, there is no pressure to join our church

From Maddie Spring:

Hi ladies,

With the new year well and truly here and the beginning of the school term, I thought I would give you a heads up on coffee morning for this year. It was so great to hang out with those who could make coffee morning last year (until COVID hit!) and to have a space where we could invite friends along to be with other Christian women.

Moving forward, we are going to keep doing one week at a house and the next week at a park. We will keep the day and time the same Friday 10am-12pm. Hopefully with the place sorted ahead of time it will be easier to invite people along.

A copy of the program will be uploaded onto the Whatsapp. The first week will be at our house. If you aren’t yet in the Whatsapp group just let me know and I will add you in.

So excited to see you there if you can make it. just bring something along to share for morning tea. Does not need to be extravagant by any means!!

In Christ,
Maddison Spring

From Henry:

The Music Team is coming together for its Annual Music Team Open Night on Tuesday 2 February 2021, 7:30pm at 5 Gore Street Parramatta (COVID restrictions permitting)

It's such an important night to open our year, as we are encouraged in the biblical purposes of singing, as we hear the vision for the music team, as we go through the responsibilities of being on team, and as we invite people to recommit to serve again in 2021.

And being an open night, it is open to anyone. If you are not on the music team but are interested in exploring the possibility of serving in this way, this night is for you too!

Hope to see you there! What a privilege it is to serve Jesus alongside you all!

Henry

I’m excited to announce that this Sunday we will begin a new series entitled, “WE ARE”. The hope of this series to touch on a number of key things I believe we need to ensure we focus on as we begin our year as a church, things that I want to mark us and shape us!

AND

I have scheduled our first BAPTISMS for 2021 in! Woo hoo! If you are not yet baptised as a believer…now is the time to take this step of obedience to Christ, come and talk to me about it!

For all current and future SG Kids workers please save Tuesday 23rd March for our twice yearly training night! This is an essential meeting for our largest serving team in the church! Please book in your baby sitters now if you need them and be prepared for an awesome night as myself and Abi lead you through SG Kids 2021!

Location: TBD

Time: 7:30pm

Date: 23rd March

Due to the recent restrictions being eased we can now safely go ahead with our Life Groups as per normal!

Starting this week we are back on for the year!

Here is the Term 1 Calendar:

In the evening, we will have our Church Family Meeting, which we call “Envision”. To give us updates on how things have been going (ministries and finances) and to give you a vision for what our year is going to look like!

We are still trying to figure out the venue for this event but once we know, we will let you know!

The plan MOST LIKELY will be:

4pm-5pm: Church Family Pizza Dinner

5pm-6:30pm: Envision Meeting

5pm-6:30pm: Kids Movie

Can’t wait!

Time: TBD

Where: TBD