Church Anniversary and GB Enrolment Service
Call to Worship
Rev 4:11 NIV) "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being."
Song: All things Bright and Beautiful
(Bring Colour down if seniors present)
Prayers
Prayers of Thanksgiving and Confession
Lord, You are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. You are good to all; You have compassion on all You have made. And we praise You, O Lord; we, Your saints, praise You. Your Kingdom continues through all generations. You are faithful to all Your promises and loving toward all You have made. You uphold all those who fall and lift up all who are bowed down. Thank You for Your faithfulness to all generations. Amen.
Penitence:
Almighty God, long-suffering and of great goodness: we confess to you: We confess with our whole heart: our neglect and forgetfulness of your commandments. Our wrong-doing; speaking and thinking: the hurts we have done to others: and the good we have left undone. As well as the lies we often tell ourselves. O God; we have failed you and failed each other: forgive your people - and raise us to newness of life.
Short Silence –
Thanksgiving & Response
O God, you have forgiven much, and our hearts warm with your love. You have accepted us, who are altogether unacceptable. When we did not come to you, you came to us. O ever-forgiving God, thank you that we can rejoice in the certainty of your forgiveness.
Song: Jesus we enthrone you
The Lords Prayer
Notices and Offering
Birthdays
Interview: New Night Shelter
Hymn I will sing the Wondrous Story (Gwendolyn's birthday choice)
Girls Brigade Re-Dedication and enrolment service
The Aim of The Girls’ Brigade is to help girls to become followers of the Lord Jesus Christ and through self-control, reverence and a sense of responsibility to find true enrichment of life.
Do you continue in your desire to serve The Girls’ Brigade, accepting its Aim and principles, conforming to its rules and being faithful in your tasks?
Chaplain: May God grant you grace to be faithful in your future service. Enabling you, by His grace and strength, to continue in service at all times.
Chaplain: Members of the Senior, Junior and Explorer Sections of 1st Leytonstone Company of the Girls’ Brigade: On this special centenary year of the work of the Girls Brigade in Leytonstone - Will you, the girls of the present company - do your utmost to continue in loyalty to The Girls’ Brigade, to keep its rules, to obey the Officers, and attend Church regularly?
Girls: I will
Chaplain: Remember that the honour and heritage of The Girls’ Brigade is in your keeping. May God help you to be faithful?
Let us Pray: Lord thank you for these girls - for their lives and service, for their energy and personality. Bless each girls, bless their captain mad officers. May your rich blessing be upon each of them as they uphold this work and this service in the name of Christ - whom they pledge to seek, serve and follow.
Membership cards are presented. - Jacqueline.
Confirm - Present cheque & certificate - Naomi ??
Prayer for the Girls Brigade: Please stand. (Then sit!)
Girls Brigade to sing¨ Seek, serve and follow
Bible Reading: Psalm 8 - Anna Riley
Song: I'm Special
Talk: You’re a diamond in the rough!
Listen to this for a moment:
Lyrics: Kansas- Dust in the wind
I close my eyes, only for a moment
and the moment is gone
All my dreams, pass before my eyes a curiosity
(Chorus)
Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind
Same old song. just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see
(Chorus)
Dust in the wind all we are is dust in the wind. oh
Now don't hang on nothing last forever but the earth and sky
it slips away and all your money won't another minute buy
(Chorus)
Dust in the wind (bis) everything is dust in the wind, everything is dust in the wind
uuuh oooh uuh ooh
How does that make you feel - everything is dust in the wind? What we do is just a drop of water in a huge ocean, our best dreams, ideas and plans - are of nothing in the great scheme of things.
This year, as I flew back from my holiday in Sunny Spain, I looked out of the window as we were coming home. I could see Spain and France with a heavens eye view. Everything was so small, people were not visible, whole communities were distinguishable only by the fact that there were buildings and road through the fields, leading to a certain area. And this went on for miles and miles, hundreds of communities, millions of people, milometer, after kilometre of land. And the thought went through my mind - "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?"
Let's be real for a moment here - One day I am going to die and disappear, and the Universe is going to go on without me. "I close my eyes, only for a moment, then my moment's gone... All I am is dust in the wind... All we are is dust in the wind..."
Depressing? Hopefully not - for these thoughts are deeply routed in scripture. Anna read to us from Psalm 8 earlier - here we see the Psalmist reflecting on the same thoughts - look at the world, the beauty around me, and look at me - what am I, who am I, why should you care about me God? We are simply Dust In The Wind.
King David some 3000 years ago stared into the night sky, and thought similar thoughts, but his certainty of faith lifted his soul heavenward.
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,” “what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”
This week in church we commence a series of home groups looking at the book "The purpose Driven Life". In this book the author Rick Warren says that the first and hardest part about understanding our purpose in life is realizing that life is NOT simply all about us! Life is all about God. It’s His-story.
Colossians 1:16 says: “Everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible,—everything got started in God and finds its purpose in him.”
God doesn’t exist for our purposes; far from it, it appears that we exist for His purposes. He started this party before you and I ever got here; it will continue after we've gone; and it was never primarily for our glory in the first place.
To paraphrase King David: When I look around me and see the vastness and beauty of creation, and realise that you made all this - I become aware of how small I am! Who am I that you should have even invited me to the party, a spec of dust yet you care for me?
And yet that's the miracle. The miracle is that the One being that the whole Universe actually IS about—actually cares for you and me.
Human life is no cosmic accident, but a work of grace.
When the atoms that are "you" could just as easily have been green grass or a ham sandwich, God took that dust, pressed it in the heat of His hands, and made of it the most infinitely precious diamond in all creation—a human being!
We Are Diamonds in God’s Hands
That's what David understood when he said of humanity, “Yet you made Man a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet.”
God’s desire is that you and I share in taking care of His creation—to act as His citizens and ambassadors on this earth, to serve as caretakers of all He has made. Because we are the crowing glory of creation - we are indeed like diamonds in God's hands.
Lets think for a moment how we are like diamonds.
In the FIRST place, keep in mind that diamonds are forever.
Although the Psalmist recognised that life comes and goes, God has planted something of eternity into our very souls. I don't know how to define it, people have written vast amounts of books, travelled many miles, trying to fully understand this fact that God has placed eternity within us. Eccles 3: 11 Solomon says: " He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."
When we choose follow Christ we get involved in something everlasting. Not just the promise of eternal life - but eternal starts now- we get involved with a love that lasts for ever that, a love that nothing can separate us from, we become parts of as Kingdom that lasts forever, the likes of which we have not yet seen, The great divine plan for mankind that God has had in mind since the beginning of time, now involves you and I. Diamonds are indeed forever - and Eternity starts now.
SECONDLY, remember that diamonds don't have a luminescence of their own—and they don't need to. God created you and me for the purpose of reflecting into this world his beauty—the radiance of His character, the beauty of his transforming power; but that reflection happens only if you remain in the Light.
Sometimes we can almost exhaust ourselves trying to radiate love and beauty and goodness all on our own, when what we ought to be doing is checking to see if we are actively in touch with God. Psalm 89 says: “Blessed are those who walk in the light of your presence, O Lord… for you are their glory and strength.” So be a diamond and shine with the light of God's love and beauty.
Which brings to mind a THIRD thing about diamonds worth mentioning: diamonds need work before they shine. Any of you who have ever seen one “in the rough” knows that they are just blackish lumps at the start. They must be tumbled over and over again in an abrasive solution that polishes them clean and shiny. Then, with careful chisel strokes, the Jeweller makes cuts to give each stone just the right facets to reflect the light. That's true of human beings too. We don't have to love the tumbling or the chisel cuts which God subjects us to, but with each hard lesson in life, God is forming something beautiful within me. C.S. Lewis reminds us, it is crucial to remember that if God sometimes seems to allow pains you’d never choose for yourself, it is not to destroy you, but rather "to make you perfect."
The Miner
There is a legend which illustrates a FOURTH and final thing about diamonds that I hope you will take with you today: Diamonds don't come cheap; to get them, someone must be willing to pay a great price.
The story is told of a South African village which had once been known for a mine that produced some of the finest gems in the world. Over the years, however, the people of that town became so comfortable in their wealth that they all but abandoned the mine. In time, the village dwindled, and all but a few of its people became so poor that they took to rooting about in the dirt for grubs upon which to feed. The sense of joy and common purpose which had once marked the community gave way to an every-man-for-himself spirit. No one could even remember a time when things had been different.
One day a Stranger arrived. Walking among the villagers, he spoke of the glory that could still be theirs if they would return to the ancient way. Although some found themselves drawn to the Stranger, the leaders of the town saw him as a trouble-maker who misled people with stupid hopes in a played-out mine. Threatened by his influence and unable to stand his meddling any longer, the leaders gathered an angry mob, took hold of the Stranger, and threw him down one of the empty shafts.
Two days went by as the darkness of the macabre lynching settled over the town and then gradually passed. The incident might have been forgotten, but for the fact that on the morning of the third day, some women from the village ran into the town square claiming something outrageous. They said that while they were planting flowers near the old mine-shaft they had encountered someone who seemed to resemble the Stranger. "Nonsense," said the town leaders. "The Stranger's dead! It's nothing but an old miner’s-tale!" "Then perhaps you could explain these things He gave us" said one of the women, as out from her hands spilled a cascade of new diamonds.
I can’t say if that story is true. But this truth I do know. Once, long ago, a Stranger walked among our people, when we’d forgotten our purpose in life. He spoke of treasure beyond value, and showed himself willing to descend to the depths of this world to bring back diamonds. Jesus did that for you and me. And He can do that with you and me, if we will let him. He will show us what we are here for: To be the dust Christ takes in his hands and turns to diamonds—to be the ones who reflect the very glory of God, who offer the very riches of God—to an needy world.
Lord of heaven and earth, remind us again who and whose we really are. Help us to see that it is not bad to be dust as long as we are in your hands. Help us to believe that though we may feel at the mercy of the wind, we are of infinite worth to you. Then make us patient to endure your shaping, eager to reflect your glory, and open to receive into our hearts and reflect to others the One who came down to earth to redeem diamonds from the dark. For in Christ's name we pray. Amen
Intercession: Diamonds
Hymn: Meekness and Majesty
The Grace.
Heavenly Father we seek you this morning
Wonderful Jesus we serve you this morning
Gracious Holy spirit we follow you this morning - lead us from this place and keep us in your glorious presence. Amen