Our next Prayer & Praise night will be on this coming Sunday 26 May.
When: 7PM, Sunday 26 May
Where: Iron St Hall (27 Iron St, North Parramatta)
We will be spending our time in worship through song and in corporate prayer. All are welcome to this event - wherever you may be in your prayer life! We look forward to seeing you there!
As many of you may know, Elvanto is a helpful platform that we use as a church to store our service rosters, members’ details, etc.
This is just a friendly reminder to please review your Elvanto profile to make sure all your details are correct and up to date.
Here’s how:
Open up your Elvanto app or log in on a web browser (sgparra.elvanto.com.au/).
Select “Profile” from the drop down menu (see screenshot below).
Edit your profile as required.
If you’d like to edit the profile of a family member:
Open the “Me” drop down menu. (see screenshot below)
Select “Family”. (see screenshot below)
Select the family member’s profile you’d like to edit.
Edit profile as required.
If family members are not showing on your profile or if you are having any trouble with Elvanto, please don’t hesitate to reach out on the Elvanto help chatroom (link to chat room available on your Elvanto home page)!
Thank you for taking the time to make sure your Elvanto profile is up to date!
As announced on Sunday, the next round of the Alpha Course has been postponed and will now begin THIS WEEK! Alpha is a great place for unbelieving friends and family to come and ask questions and explore the Christian faith without fear of judgement.
The course will begin this Thursday 23 May and run each Thursday night for 5 weeks.
Please be praying for our first session together - that the Lord will bring people along to the Zoom session and give them soft hearts to hear the Gospel!
It’s also not to late to invite people along!
For more info or to sign up, you can head to: sgparra.org.au/alpha.
Walk up will be on this Sunday! We would love for you to join us!
Time: 2-3PM
Location: Doyle Reserve (12 Buller St, North Parramatta NSW 2151)
Please speak to Richard Song (richard@sgparra.org.au) if you are interested.
As mentioned in the notices on Sunday, we will be introducing monthly “Giving Cards” from this week. In an automated, digital world, these cards will serve as a tangible reminder of one of the ways we can worship God: through our financial giving.
These cards are completely anonymous and will not be kept for record - their purpose is purely to serve as a physical reminder of our worship through giving.
SG Parra Men’s Breakfast: WHAT’S BEST NEXT
When our time is compressed, we're feeling stressed, how do we manage it all for the glory of God?
SG men, we're committed to growing in greater understanding of the LORD, godliness and sacrificial love through Christ. As such, we want to grow in our spiritual maturity in the LORD through the application of the Gospel in every aspect of our lives.
Let's see this happen as we gather together for food, fellowship and the Word at our next Men's Breakfast.
Our next Men's Breakfast will be on:
8:30-10:30am, Saturday 15 June
at the Iron Street Hall (27 Iron St. North Parramatta)
During our time together, we'll explore how God's Word helps us know what's best next. This is a particularly important topic for us, as so much is, or is seemingly, demanded of our attention, time and effort; and, we need God's perspective on how we're to manage all of the competing demands in a God honouring way.
Having worked in the demanding financial world, now working in a bio-vocational capacity (working at SGWahroonga and in finance), and trying to raise a family in the fear of the LORD, Andrew Leung understands the challenge of responding to the question: What's Best Next? He will be unpacking this important and universally experienced question for our lives, grounding it on the bedrock of Scripture.
I would strongly encourage you to attend, so that we might spur each other on in faithfulness and strength in the LORD, so please RSVP to Joel at joel@sgparra.org.au.
Also, if you'd be able and willing to contribute $10 for the breakfast, that'd be appreciated.
G2G will be on next week: Friday 28 May, 6-8PM! It will be held at 27 Iron Street, North Parramatta.
This is not a Parent Participation week. There will also be a pizza dinner provided for the youth!
We look forward to seeing you there!
Our next Baby Dedications are coming up on Sunday 23 June. If you would like to dedicate your child/ren on this day, please contact Rebs at admin@sgparra.org.au. This is also a great time to invite family and friends to church. For the rest of us, it’s a great time to welcome new faces and exude the love of Christ to all who come through our doors.
If you have any questions at all about baby dedications, please don’t hesitate to speak with Riley on a Sunday or contact him at riley@sgparra.org.au.
There will be no groups this week as our monthly Prayer & Praise night will be replacing groups.
Life group will resume on the 29th of May.
“ When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Acts 2:1-4
This Sunday is ‘Pentecost Sunday’, or ‘Whitsunday’, it is a day in the church calendar that marks the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Church, the dawning of the New Age, the New Covenant Era, the era of the Holy Spirit.
It was prophesied in Joel 2 that God would “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;” (Joel 2:28).
John the Baptist said, ““I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11).
Jesus promised in John 14 that he would send the Helper. And then, after he died and rose again, he gathered with the disciples and proclaimed: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. “ (Acts 1:8-9).
He left them to fulfill the great commission and build the church…so they went to Jerusalem, waited 10 days in prayer, and then…
SUDDENLY…the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them like never before.
Oh that God would do something similar in our church, in our lives, in our city and in our nation!
This Sunday we are going to break our usual series in Romans to focus on Pentecost, preaching from Acts 2.
We will respond in prayer and song.
We are a continuationist church, which means, we believe that God still moves with dynamic power in the life of believers to fill them with His Spirit for holiness, love, joy and power for mission. Let us never lose this!
I want us to celebrate Pentecost Sunday each year, adding it to our calendar like Easter and Christmas…what a special day!
As a follow up, on May 26th, Sunday, 7pm, we will have our next ‘Prayer and Praise Night”