ASHFORD COMMUNITY CHURCH

NEWSLETTER: 9th December 2018

       FROM THE PASTOR’S PEN

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ

We now enter the second week of advent – the time of preparing ourselves for remembering and celebrating the coming of Jesus to earth.

Our focus over these weeks is on some of the central characters of the Christmas story. Last week we looked at Mary, the mother of Jesus. And, like Mary, I pray that you might have a wonderful encounter with God during this season – and more so: that you will be the one through whom many others have a real encounter with God as they see God shining and working through you.

Now, this week, I pray you seek this encounter in whichever way God wants to meet with you. With Mary the encounter was through a visitation from an angel – pretty cool! With others it might be just an overwhelming emotional reaction to prayer or a song or a verse from the Bible.

But maybe it will be like Joseph – Jesus’ earthly father – who we are looking at this week – with him it was through spiritual dreams. Yes! Let’s ask God to give us dreams in which we hear clearly from Him this Christmas time. For as the prophet Joel said in chapter 2 verse 28:

“I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”

And, as we shall see at our Carol Service next week, an encounter with God ALWAYS changes our lives – and for the better.

God bless you all

Peter

 

TODAY:  ALL AGE SERVICE – JOSEPH – AND TRUST. The second in our Christmas Series.

NEXT SUNDAY: CAROLS BY CANDLELIGHT AT 4PM

There will not be a morning service next week but please come along to our Carol Service at 4pm and bring your friends and family. We will be having a traditional Carol Service followed by light refreshments and it will be a great opportunity to invite people to join us.

THANK YOU: Thank you to everyone who has been out delivering Christmas cards to our neighbours this week. Please pray that these will be looked at and not discarded and that some of our neighbours will be encouraged to come along to our services over this Christmas period.

CHRISTMAS CARDS: Once again this year we are suggesting that, rather than sending individual Christmas cards to everyone in the fellowship, we all write one card for the church family at ACC and then, if you feel it is appropriate for you, to place some money into the collection box for the Charity or Charities that we agree to support this Christmas. Of course, there may well be particular people in the fellowship who you wish to send individual cards to and that is fine but this is a way to make things easier for many of you and to also help others less fortunate than ourselves as well. A board will be available in the church to pin your cards to. If you have a preference for any charity that you would like us to donate to please let one of the Elders know to help us decide which we will support this year.

CHURCH WEBSITE, APP & CALENDAR: Please remember to check the website and use the app to ensure you stay up to date with everything going on in the church. Also, don’t forget you can put prayer requests on the app which, after approval, will then be sent out to everyone with email addresses and who have submitted their GDPR forms.

AUDIO SERMONS: We now have a number of audio messages on the website from both the Spiritual Disciplines and the Fruits of the Spirit series. Please take the opportunity to listen to any that you missed. From now on these will be added weekly where appropriate. Peter’s sermon notes are also available under the “Sermons” tab on the website.

LADIES FELLOWSHIP: The next meeting will be on Friday 14th December and we will be meeting at Gill’s. All ladies welcome.

FOODBANK: Please remember the Food Bank when you go shopping. Items particularly needed at the moment are teabags, coffee (200g jars), tinned meat (eg spam, corned beef, chicken curry etc.), sugar (small size bags), tinned fruit, jam & marmalade.

 

WHATS ON THIS WEEK

Tues 11th         10:00 – 14:00   “Open Arms”

19:00 – 20:30    Worship Practice

Weds 12th       09:30 -10:30     Weightwatchers in the main hall

19:30 – 21:00     Home Groups

Thurs 13th       19::30 – 22:00    East Kent Choir in the main hall

Fri 14th            09:30 – 10:30    Revival Prayer

11:00 – 12:00      English for Nepalese

14:00 – 15:00     U3A Singers in the main hall

19:30 – 21:30     Friday Youth Night

Sat 15th          09:00 – 10:00    Park run in Victoria Park

Sun 16th          16:00 – 18:00     Carols by Candlelight