Bulletin Announcements – 5 July 2015
- Faith Promise Giving 2015/16 – Let us give thanks for the return slips handed in so far. Over the next 3 weeks, you can place your Faith Promise Giving return slip into the offering bag. This will be added to the tally and a final amount will be published at the end of July.
- Children Ministry: Sunday school will have holiday program for 28 June, 5 and 12 July, designed for Year 4 children and younger. We encourage our Year 5 and 6 children to join their parents in our 9am English service. Term 3 will start on 14 July for Play Group and 19 July for Sunday school.
- Following the acceptance of Kian Holik as a local missionary of the church, we will hold a commissioning service to affirm and send him on his ministry of the gospel to students at Macquarie University. Please join us for this service at 1:30pm, Sunday July 19 at WSCCC Strathfield, followed by afternoon tea.
- Notice from Diaconate: With thanks to God for his blessing, we welcome Rev Dominic Ku as a minister of our church as of July 1. He has moved from Malaysia and joins the pastoral team with primary full-time oversight of the Strathfield Mandarin ministry. Please welcome him, get to know him and pray for him and his family as they settle into Sydney and our church.
- 2015-16 Budget: We thank God for his gracious provisions to our church in the past Financial Years. During the services this Sunday (or next Sunday for S9 Strathfield English), we will take the opportunity to briefly explain the Budget for the 2015-16 Financial Year of our church. The highlights of this budget will include increasing the General Fund offering to $1,153,916 ($21,772 per week) in order to support the ministry and the general operations of our church. Please pray that God may enable us to continue supporting the ministry with willing and cheerful hearts.
- City Bible Forum (Christmas in July) – come along for a night of fun, food, live music (Jake Nauta) and a talk by Sam Chan at the Hotel CBD (6:30pm) on the Thursday 16th July. The cost is $25 and please register by 1 July at org/christmasinjuly.
Ariel writes – a weekly Scriptural devotion:
When the angel of the Lord had spoken these things to all the Israelites, the people wept aloud, and they called that place Bokim. There they offered sacrifices to the Lord. (Judges 2:4-5 NIV)
Disobedience and unfaithfulness. Israel had conquered the land with God’s help but they hadn’t driven all the people out as God commanded. This was in direct disobedience to his will. Also, because these nations remained in the land their false gods became a snare to Israel. They started worshipping these idols and broke faith with God. Disobedience and unfaithfulness. And here we see them weep aloud and offer sacrifices to God as an act of repentance. If only the next generation had learnt this same lesson! Yet, the book of Judges shows us each generation after kept repeating the sin of idolatry again and again. However, let’s not overlook the wonderful example of this generation here. They wept over their sins and offered sacrifices to God; and shouldn’t we do the same? One wonders if we do this as genuinely as they did? Let’s not make light of our sins, they are a heavy affront to God. They dishonour and displease him greatly. Let us cry in confession to him. Let us weep and remember to approach God through Jesus’ sacrifice that paid for our sins.
from Pastor Ariel