Bulletin Announcements – 22 May 2016
- Baptism Service will be held today 12:30pm at WSCCC Strathfield (Chapel). Please come along and support those who will be making a public declaration of their faith in Jesus. English: Zachary Cai, Jessica He, Jessica Liew, Allen Lin; Cantonese: Annie Lau, Kee Lee, Simon Thi, Shirley Yeung; Mandarin: Joanna Chen, Sarah Du, Ya Dong Lin, Yan Qiu Liu, Xi Bai Miao, Alison Wang, Kathy Wei.
- WSCCC Combined Service – “United in Love” Date: Sunday 29th May 2016, 9.30am-12pm Location: Trinity Grammar School, 119 Prospect Rd, Summer Hill. Speakers: Rev Dominic Ku and Rev Dr Sam Chan, Children’s program available.
- Ladies Fellowship Evangelistic Event – Calling all women!!……Are you looking for a relaxed and informal way to invite your female friends to church? Have you noticed the amount of colouring books showing up in every shop corner? Come to this event and see how colouring scripture can lead to gospel opportunities! Save this date: Saturday 25th June from 1pm-3:30pm. More details to follow. Contact: Betty Wong. Email: wai.betty@gmail.com
- The Diaconate has decided to change the Church Combined Prayer Meeting currently held on every Wednesday evening to the first Wednesday evening of every ‘even’ month. This would mean that starting from June; this Church Combined Prayer Meeting will be held on 1 June, 3 August, 5 October and 7 December (all at 8:00pm). There will be two sessions in this Combined Prayer Meeting, the first session will mainly focus on worshipping and praying together for some common ministry of the church and it will be conducted in two languages including English and Chinese (either Cantonese or Mandarin). For the second part, we will be splitting into language groups so that people could pray in their own language. The church ministry needs your prayer support and we encourage you to come and join together in this Prayer Meeting.
- Bonnie & Rolf Lepelaar – After 20 years of serving in Cambodia, they will be finishing their service and coming back to Sydney for their final home assignment on July 2. During this transition period they will be resettling the family and setting up home again. This will be a huge change for the family so please pray that God will grant them good farewells and a smooth transition. They would like to borrow a car for about 1 month from when they arrive whilst organising to buy a car. If anyone is able to loan them a car for the month, please kindly let one of the GMC team or Pastoral team know.
Ariel writes – a weekly Scriptural devotion:
“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Romans 6:1-2 NIV)
Paul argues that we shouldn’t “go no sinning” any longer since we “died to sin”. Then he shows how the act of baptism is a reminder of this as we join in Jesus’ death and resurrection, thereby dying ourselves to sin and then being raised to “new life” (Romans 6:3-4). This however poses a HUGE problem for us. If this is the case why do I still sin? Also, why does Paul then devote an entire section describing his own seemingly hopeless sinful case? (Romans 7:7-25) The answer is simple. We’ve misunderstood what Paul means by “go on sinning”. The Christians in Rome had been saved out of emperor worship, idol worship, eating food sacrificed to idols, sexual immorality, homosexuality, and self-righteous worship. These are the kind of sins Paul would have had in mind. Also notice, “go on sinning” means a continuing act of sinful disobedience. It is unrepentant sin. Of course we’re not to go on sinning this way, no matter what sin it is. Nevertheless, thanks be to God who can and does rescue us from all sins through Jesus Christ!
from pastor Ariel