Bulletin Announcements – 4 May 2014
CHRISTIANITY EXPLORED: Starts this morning after the service. If you have any questions about Christianity, please don’t hesitate to this class. Ask our ministers Keith Noldt and Andrew Bardsley, or any of our deacons. Pastor Andrew Bardsley will lead a course from today for those who are interested to find out more about Jesus and Christianity.
Term 2 starts today for Sunday school and we have welcomed back our Play Group children. We are happy to see you again! As a reminder, please come on time and pick up your children after the service to ensure their safety. Also please support their time learning about God by reducing the traffic around Sunday school area during the session.
Children and Youth Ministry volunteers – Safe Ministry Training will be conducted on 17 May, 9am-2pm with Andrew Bardsley in Upper Hall, Strathfield. Volunteers are required to attend. Contact Andrew Bardsley or Liza Mihardja for further information.
Ladies – Equip 14 (Why # Wise) is open for registration. Venue – Rose Hill Gardens, James Ruse Drive. You can register online http://www.equip.org.au/program/ or contact Solan for further information.
Watoto Children’s Choir: This African choir (from Uganda) is presenting a concert in Burwood in June, as part of a combined local churches’ outreach to the community (more info later). Would you consider hosting some of the children for 2 nights (as billets) in late June? If so, please contact Pastor Chadd Hafer.
Ariel writes – a weekly Scriptural devotion:
Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. (Isaiah 40:15 NIV)
One drop in a bucket makes no difference, if the bucket is empty it is hardly seen, if it is full it will not make it overflow. One drop is of no consequence, it is the same with dust on the scales. Even if weighed on electronic scales a fine layer of dust does not count, and scarcely is it seen. And this is what the nations are to God, the islands too. Consider this fact, not you and I as individuals but every person, every country, every continent together are counted as – just one drop! On a scale of things we are insignificant, the world is insignificant, in comparison to who God is. So what lesson should we take from this? Are we meant to feel small and frail? Are we meant to feel scared of God and his power? No, the very opposite! The very point that Isaiah makes here is that because God is so majestic, so powerful, so awesome, we are safe. We might be small but he is big and that is our comfort.
from Pastor Ariel