Dear Church Family
A few days ago I awoke earlier than usual and so got up and spent longer in prayer. As I did so I felt the Lord speak to me with a simple message for our church, which was this: 'there's more to come'. As I prayed, I felt that word should be applied to many areas of our church life, so I wrote a blog about it and posted it on The Belfrey Blog. If you've not yet read it, you can read it by clicking here. It can also be applied to our individual lives. To our families. To our work places. The Lord has more for us. More love to share. More wisdom to guide. More strength to persevere. More provision to give. More freedom to enjoy. More healing to bestow. More souls to save. There's more. There's more to come. That word was very much on my mind as I came home last night after our Evening of Prayer, which focussed on invitation. We spent the first part of the evening giving the Lord our worship, recognising his great invitation to us to come and live in relationship with him. His arms are wide open. He does not reject us. Such is his grace. We then focussed on his call to us to invite others, and particularly prayed for our Invitation Sunday coming up very soon, on Sunday 23rd October. All 3 congregations meeting in St Michael le Belfrey Church will be guest services on that day and they'll be especially geared for those who don't normally come to church. Whilst we always, in our preparation, have in mind those who aren't yet followers of Jesus, that will particularly be the case on the 23rd. So do get inviting! We still have a good number of the invitation cards at the back of church so please pick a few up this Sunday and give them away this week. Do pray about who you might invite and ask the Lord to give you an opportunity to do so over the next few days. Some, of course will say 'no'. That's ok. What's most important is that we invite. If we don't invite then no guests will come. This Sunday (16th October) I'm speaking at the morning congregations (9am and XI) as we continue our journey through the gospel of Luke. In the evening we're welcoming Tim Chester to speak. Tim is a prolific author and bible teacher and it's an honour to have him with us. Do come to church expectant to meet with the Lord and be looking out for someone you can encourage - so you can be part of God's 'more' for them. 'Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen' (Ephesians 3:20-21). God bless. Matthew Comments are closed.
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