Archive for the ‘General News’ Category

‘Rocky’s Plaice’ Holiday Club at Duncan Road Church, Southampton.

This years fun theme was based in a fish and chip cafe. The Bible theme explored the story of Peter the fisherman (hence the link!). Each day we looked at how Peter’s encounters with Jesus changed his life, and then how he and his friends started to change the world!
In total over 40 children enthusiastically attended each day and the week finished with a Family Fun Evening, when many of the children brought along their families.
Please ‘pray in’ the ‘Good News’ that these children have heard and learnt about. Please pray also for the literature and gospels that the children have taken home.

They say that ‘variety is the spice of life’, which means of course life is more interesting when it changes often and you have many different experiences. This past few weeks have given Gordon incredibly wide ranging opportunities to share the Good News of Jesus Christ, i.e. Schools (Junior & Senior), Scout Groups, Senior Citizen homes and teas, Youth Events, Men’s Events, Training Events and of course regular Church life! Please pray for the message that was presented in all those diverse and varied situations. Thank you!

‘Rocky’s Plaice’ Holiday Club. Swanfield Chapel. Chichester. Feb 2011

Brilliant February half-term Holiday Club at Swanfield Chapel, Chichester.

On average 62 children enthusiastically coming along each day with 3 children coming to ‘Quit Row’ to learn more about following Jesus.
On Saturday we had 65 parents & children at the Family Fun Night.

We are planning a day to visit all the sites for the visit of GSUS LIVE (www.gsuslive.co.uk) on Thursday 17th February 2011.

The proposed timetable will be:

Please pray that all this goes smoothly, we may have a few ligistical problems this time round.

According to The Telegraph (online – Friday 21 January 2011 – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/6956365/More-than-230-schools-have-ditched-Christian-assemblies.html )

More than 230 schools have ditched Christian assemblies
Almost 100,000 pupils are being taught in schools which have dropped Christian assemblies in favour of Islamic or multi-faith worship.

Praise God that Gordon still has many opportunities to take both junior and senior school assemblies and to share from a Christian perspective. It has been good this week to talk to hundreds of young people and share with them how the message and the person of Jesus is still relevant for their lives.

Over the years we have had a number opportunities to encourage, promote and support young people in mission. It is a great thrill to know of many young people who have gone on to serve God in short term and longer term missions.

‘First Serve’ (www.first-serve.org.uk ) is a discipleship and mission programme for 18-25 year olds. It’s a gap programme designed to give participants a taste of service in the UK and overseas. ‘First Serve’ is sponsored by ‘Echoes of Service’ (www.echoes.org.uk) , ‘GLO’ (www.glo-europe.org ), and ‘Interlink’ (www.interlink.org.uk).
Gordon is very much looking forward to being involved with this exciting project.

A new season of the monthly inter-Church youth event ‘BodyBuilders’ restarted in October. Although numbers are not as large as they once were, this is still a good opportunity to impact young lives. An email from one young person who used to attend ‘BodyBuilders’ as a teenager included this encouragement:
“I was talking to my Dad about you just the other day. I was telling him how instrumental you were in my youth! It would seem an appropriate time to tell you! In all honestly I am very thankful for all the work you did over the years. I can safely say that without the work God was doing through you I and many others would have suffered the same fate many other young Christians do. So many young people lose their way because they don’t have any Christian friends and they don’t have anywhere to go to keep them on track. And instrumental to that is passionate people leading groups for young people to meet up. People like yourself and Penny. Thank you so much for putting so much energy, time and patience into your service. God has used, and I’m sure still is using you, in a massive way.”

Great to be part of the Churches Together (Fareham Western Wards) Carols Service @ Locks Heath Shopping Centre.
As well as witnessing through singing Carols, I was asked to give two short ‘sound bites’ to the shoppers who were passing by or who stopped to listen. Another opportunity to share something of the real message of Christmas.

‘SCHOOLS’ are visited most weeks for Assemblies. It is great, in the run up to Christmas, to have an extra emphasis on schools work and to share the real meaning of Christmas with thousands of secondary and junior school pupils.

How sad that for many of these children this will be their only opportunity to hear a clear presentation of the Christmas message.

‘THE NET’ is a monthly outreach to men. It is the responsibility of local men to reach local men and ‘The Net’ is a resource that local men can tap in to and bring their friends, work colleagues or family members along to.

We had twenty five men come along to our first event and it was brilliant to see new ‘guests’ being brought along. We are looking forward to running a mixed bag of events this winter.
Our next event is a ‘Curry Night’ with special guest John Akua who will share his experience of Jesus Christ.