I now come to the end of my placement with you, and give thanks and praise to God, with joy, for all I have learnt. Life-long learning about the gospel is the core of our growth as disciples, and we should discern the needs for that growth in one another whenever we can. The prayer, the tasks, the discussion and debate that I have experienced has always been underpinned by the hospitality and encouragement that is part of loving our neighbour. I give thanks for this partnership in the gospel.  I have been strengthened in my faith from my contact with you.
Let’s seek opportunities to discern the needs in others (and ourselves!) for growth in discipleship everyday. These opportunities might be in our families, in friends, in strangers. Let’s pray with joy, discuss and debate!

How do we talk about the Lord Jesus?
 
I had a quick browse on Amazon – this Christmas (yup it’s coming!) you could buy your loved one:
A “Jesus is my homeboy” T-shirt?!
An “All I need is a little bit of coffee and a whole lot of Jesus” mug?
A “Jesus is my airbag” car bumper sticker?!
Or “Jesus is my bestie” on a necklace…
 
Wow. What a world we live in!

How does that compare to the Apostle Paul and how he talks about the Lord?
 
In his letters, Paul writes ‘Jesus’ 198 times. That’s a lot!
But what I find fascinating is how out of those 198 times only 15 times is it just Jesus.
 
The other 183 times Paul says the Lord Jesus or Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus or he puts it altogether The Lord Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
Paul has this holy reverence for Christ Jesus, this awe and respect that flows out in how he talks about the Lord Jesus. That’s why Paul calls Jesus Lord, that’s why it’s Jesus Christ with that more awe-inspiring title.

And yes, we can have a close and beautiful, personal relationship with the Living Lord Jesus, and yes, He is our Brother and our Friend but:
He is still the Lord of All Creation.
He is still the Saviour of the World.
He is still the Second person of the Trinity.
 
Does the way I talk about Him and to Him reflect that?
Looking at my own heart, has that awe and reverence slipped out of my relationship with our Lord and Saviour?

There are still lots of spaces left to attend the APCM meeting in the church building.  We would like as many people as possible in the building rather than watching it on zoom.
Tickets for this will not close until 3pm on Sunday so it isn't too late to book.
You can book on Churchsuite, the website or by clicking on the link APCM booking page

This Saturday, 3rd October, is Bookshop Day.  Books Alive would love you to celebrate it by coming into the shop to buy the best book ever, which is of course the Bible!  They will be reducing all Bibles in stock by 10% and some will have even bigger reductions, up to 50%.

​A Call to be Something 
‘Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer’  Romans 12:12
We all long to be something in life don’t we? To make a difference – hopefully for good, in some way or another. Well, here’s a call that we can all obey – a call to be....
 

1. Be Joyful in hope. Our ultimate hope is in the return of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory. That’s a hope that certainly won’t disappoint the true believer. ‘Set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Christ is revealed at His coming’ (1 Peter 1:13). Be joyful in that hope – ponder it often.

 

1. Be Patient in affliction. ‘When will this end?’ we often cry in times of difficulty and affliction. The call here is to be patient in such times. To endure hardships in all it’s manifestations.

 

1. Be Faithful in prayer. Don’t give up praying! Faithfully pray in both worship and intercession. Always keep on praying.

 
Three ‘calls to action’ in one short ‘Thought for the day’. These are all good and blessed things to aim to be in this life.
Peace to all of you who are in Christ
 Phil
 

Galatians 6:1
“Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.”

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a thought for the day about fear- namely, that we should not be afraid of spreading the Gospel. As part of that I said I’d be talking to some atheist friends about Jesus. I know that several of the congregation at BH prayed for me in that mission. I wanted to let you know that two of those friends have asked to know more about Jesus, and how their lives can be changed, and I’m meeting with them again. Praise the Lord!
But of course, as Paul warns us, we must watch ourselves lest we think we can convert others through our own strength. It’s not through me that these friends might be restored from sin, it’s through God’s Grace. Let’s pray for each-other that we might restore others gently, through our faith in God’s transforming power. 

Reminder that the APCM is on Sunday.  Full details and an extra report from the  JHMT can be found at the link below.

Josiah
 
‘He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord’ 2 Chronicles 34:2
 My daughter gave birth to a lovely little boy a few weeks ago. They named him ‘Josiah’.
 
​By the time this ‘Thought’ is published in the Daily Bulletin, we will be seeing him for the first time –  I can’t wait!
 
Josiah in the Bible was one of the kings of Judah. He was a good king, and is famous for his national ‘reforms’ that got Judah back on track with God. He was only 8 years old when he became king and unlike many of his predecessors, ‘he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or the left’ (2 Chron 34:2). Actually David was his Great(x15ish) grandfather, and had lived some 400 years before Josiah. Josiah’s father and grandfather had been particularly evil characters. So, what caused Josiah to ‘Begin to seek God’ at the age of 16 (v3)?
 
I began to seek God in my early 20s, though God had been seeking me long before that. How about you? Did you seek God in your youth, like Josiah? Are you ‘seeking the God of your fathers now?
 
It was when Josiah discovered the ‘Book of the Law’ that he began his earnest reforms. It’s the same today, it’s when we ‘discover’ the bible – God’s Book, that our Christian lives really take off.
 
I hope and pray that my little grandson discovers ‘Gods Book’ and that he follows the ways of his father and grandfather, in seeking and serving the Lord. Nothing would give me greater joy than that.

Next Thursday is the start of World Mission Awareness Month.  Please click on the link below to find out all about it
World Mission Awareness Month

You are rich in Christ, rich indeed
 
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” 2 Corinthians 8:9
 
A beloved verse by many, and you can see why. It’s packed with so much meaning, rich theological truth and assurance. A particular danger we all face during this lockdown period is the danger of ingratitude. We wish we could do more, see more people, be more free. And materially we may despise what we have, or what we may not have. And emotionally and spiritual we may become discontent thinking God is not doing much in and through us. But regardless of how we feel or what our current situation is, we can remind ourselves of our status in Christ; you are richly blessed. And this isn’t about money. This is about all of us once being destitute, lost, far out of the blessing of God, but now: spiritual trillionaires. ‘With every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms we have been blessed in Christ’ (Eph. 1:3). It doesn’t change, because He doesn’t change. So today take a moment out of the day and be thankful; thankful for everything you have, but most importantly that you are alive in Christ both now and for eternity to come. Out of His poverty, you have become rich.

​Stop the World, I want to get off
 
‘Perplexed, but not in despair’ 2 Corinthians 4:8
 
Do you despair at the state of our nation and world? Are there times when you feel like Abraham’s nephew Lot, who ‘Was distressed by the depraved conduct’ of those around him? And was ‘tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard’ (2 Peter 2:7,8).
 
We live amongst lawless people. Our culture is now utterly godless in so many ways. Do you feel ‘distressed’ and ‘tormented’ in your soul? I know that I do – every day, just like Lot, living in ancient Sodom.
 
As God rescued Lot, so He will rescue us (v7). Note that Lot was a ‘righteous’ man (v7), who had a ‘righteous’ soul. We, as believers are righteous. Made righteous by God through the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. God will rescue us – we can depend on that. At the day of judgement – of which the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was but a shadow and type. He also rescues us now. Yes, our souls are ‘tormented’ by the world around us, but they are soothed by the balm of Christ’s presence, mercy, grace, and by the hope of His return in glory. So, let’s be what Peter calls us to be and ‘live holy and godly lives, and make every effort to be spotless and blameless and at peace with God’ (2 Peter 3:11-15).

A few years ago, my beloved home island, Guernsey, purchased some brand spanking new buses. They were painted in Guernsey green and looked perfect on a holiday postcard (if you like taking pictures of buses).
 
But there was a problem. 
 
There was a law that all vehicles had to be no wider than 2.31m (it’s 2.9m in the UK)… but when the States of Guernsey spent over a million pounds on their new fleet of buses they discovered they were 2.49cm… AHHH the buses are illegal.
 
So what do you do… in that situation there is only really one choice… change the law! And that is what they did.
 
But why do I bring up this story (which by the way shouldn’t stop you from going to Guernsey and appreciating their roomy buses).
 
Listen to the words of Paul in 1 Timothy 4:16
 
‘Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save yourself and your hearers’
 
When Christians fall away from faith it is very rarely because they simply stop trusting Jesus or they can no longer believe in the resurrection. Normally, it is because they allow their hearts to run after over things. A behaviour or action that was once unthinkable becomes normal. And faced with that situation what happens… they change the legal limit of vehicles on the road… they change their belief to suit their behaviour.
 
So today watch your life closely, today determine to decide to follow Christ in every decision big and small. And if we say that today then today we will keep our life and doctrine (belief), which will save us and be a witness to others. 
 
Then do the same thing tomorrow!

Kevin and Jen Cable are one of the recipients of the Harvest Appeal.  An edited version of their video was shown during the evening service last Sunday.  If you missed it or would like to see an unedited version please find it below.  
The other recipients of the Harvest Appeal are Festive who will be featured in this Sunday services.
If you would like to support the BH Harvest full details are on last Sunday's BH news or contact the church office.

​Then Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him Hebron as his inheritance. So Hebron has belonged to Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite ever since, because he followed the Lord, the God of Israel, wholeheartedly. (Joshua 14:13,14)
Caleb trusted God to keep his promises. He trusted him over the years as he saw generations of his family born and growing up away from the land that God has said would be theirs. Year by year he continued to live out his life in faithful obedience. His life was rooted in God’s promise and yet he didn’t use that as a reason to procrastinate. He didn’t put off living for God until he was in better circumstances or until the promise was fulfilled. He received his earthly inheritance from God at eighty five years old. What a wonderful testament to God’s love and faithfulness and a great vindication of Caleb’s decision to trust him when others wouldn’t. The writer of ‘Hebrews’, looking back on the faithlessness of God’s people as they chose not to listen to Caleb’s reassurances calls on Christians to avoid their mistake.
See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today’, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. (Hebrews 3:12,13)
Putting our trust in God isn’t something we should put off until later. We will not be better equipped to trust him once we are established in our own homes, once the children are all at school, once we reach retirement age or when things at church are more as we’d like them to be. God is faithful… all the time. Let us put our trust in him today.

We are now seeking to fill a vacant foundation governor position at Aldrington Cof E Primary School. Aldrington is 'our' church school and it's a huge privilege to have such a good and overtly Christian school here at BH. If you'd be interested in being a governor there, do speak to Phil Moon or one of our wardens (Geoff Payne and Mark Whiffin)

2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
I heard on the news today about how people continue to feel anxious about all the uncertainties of their new way of living. Disruption can be painful- and a wise scientist once said there’s ‘no transformation without stress’, if you like that sort of thing. But the point is that as Christians, surely we’re open to being ‘disrupted’ and disrupting others! We welcome the dynamic workings of the Spirit in our lives. In our discipleship we never stand still, but continually seek to live by, and to spread the Gospel. The movement of the Spirit is always disruptive, it challenges us, challenges the status quo. We have an image of that in Jesus Christ, he disrupted everything, the very meaning of what it is to be human.
Through disrupting our errors of thinking in not following the Gospel, and not being afraid to challenge others to change their ways if needed, we are liberated through Jesus Christ. Who can you disrupt today! How will the Holy Spirit work through you to liberate others today?

This is a really important meeting for Bishop Hannington, Holy Cross and Goldstone churches, and it takes place on Sunday 4th October at 17.00 in the BH church building. We'll also broadcast the meeting (details to be finalised) so that people who can't get to BH will still be able to join in. Numbers will of course be limited due to social distancing, so we'll also let you know how you can book in due course.

The Annual Report and Accounts are available on , either the church website under What’s happening/APCM and for those that don’t have the internet a hard copy will able available from the back of church.  A copy of the new Electoral Roll (our church membership) is on display at the back of church, and reports from groups will be available on 20th September.

The APCM is also our opportunity to agree to the 2 churchwardens for the coming year and to vote for 3 members of the Parochial Church Council and 5 for the Deanery Synod, who will also sit on the PCC. Nomination forms will be available on 13th September either at the morning service in church, or from the Church Office.
​
We continue our search for the right people to be churchwardens from the date of the APCM, so please continue to pray about this, and also would you consider standing for the PCC/Deanery Synod? These are significant roles within the church family and important that we should fill these with good people for the next season in our life together as a church.