Bulletin Announcements – 29 June 2014
Children Ministry Announcement: Sunday school: holiday program for today, 6 and 13 July. Term 3 will start 20 July. Play Group: term 3 will start 15 July.
trathfield 9am Ladies Fellowship Bible Study: Sunday 6th July 10.45am to 12.15pm at the home of Alice Cheng in Strathfield. The study will be from chapter 2 – “A Throwaway Woman”.
Welcome Home Lunch for the Lepelaars: Rolf, Bonnie, Jasmine and Samuel (our missionaries in Cambodia) are back in Sydney on home assignment for a few months. To welcome them home, a lunch is being held at the Strathfield Church Hall on Sunday 6th July at 12:30pm. Come and hear them share about the ministry in Cambodia. Please do bring a plate of food to share for lunch.
Diaconate Announcement: At the Annual General Meeting of the church on 5 October 2014, election of deacons for the next Diaconate term will take place (5 deacons per language group). Please reflect on 1 Timothy 3:1-13 and prayerfully consider whether you are moved to serve, or nominate someone amongst your congregation to serve in our church as deacon. If you do, please first contact a member of Deacon Nomination Committee (see the names below), and ask for the nomination form & related information. The closing date for nominations is 29August 2014. Please be prayerful and prompt. Deacon Nomination Committees: Cantonese: Kit Ling, Winnie Chan, Jack Lai, Maurice Cheng; Mandarin: Ching Ping Chan, David Chen, Ley Bie Tio, Yue Zhang; English: Lydia Tan, Les Lee, Anthony Choong, Cerise Yeung.
Search for Success – Thursday August 7th – Francis Chan and John Lennox. “Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter” – please see www.sfs14.com for more details.
Ariel writes – a weekly Scriptural devotion:
But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.” (Ruth 1:16 NIV)
What a beautiful statement of loyalty and faith! Firstly, we see that Ruth had an irresistible urge to be with Naomi her mother-in-law. Secondly, this directly led to her being drawn to God. But hang on – why?! Naomi was cursed, wasn’t she? Her husband died and then her two sons died as well. Naomi was bitter too. She believed God was against her and this made her sour (v13, 20-21). So you have this bitter old mother-in-law (Naomi) who’s cursed by her God and you want to stick by her side and follow that same God? Ruth, what on earth were you thinking?! Well, we don’t know what Ruth was thinking but in some way God used Naomi, her bitter old mother-in-law, to reveal himself to her. And that’s kind of encouraging cause some days I feel a bit like Naomi and it’s good to know that even on those days God can still use me.
from Pastor Ariel