Valentines Sunday's Church Service

The second of my catch-up posts ...

The Valentines Day Church service naturally focused on love, and the service kicked off with a fun sign language style song, based on John 3 v 16 "For God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not die but have eternal life." We sang this verse over and over to music, complete with actions, sort of like the song 'Wide, Wide as the Ocean'. Seren loved it! :o)

We then sang this fabulous hymn ...


His Love Endures Forever

Once the children had gone through to the hall for KatCh, the Reverend spoke to us about 'The Great Commission'.

He was reflecting on Valentines Day and the theme of love, talking about our Church's missionaries, and talking about choosing a new leader for our Church. He combined all these things in the word Heart - God's heart/love for the world, God sending missionaries out to be God's heart in the world, and choosing a new leader to be the heart of our Church.

So we focused on the very heart of the gospel, the love of Jesus, and the world being saved by Jesus' love. As the Reverend said, we are all 'perishers', focusing on our own lives and forgetting God can only end in death, but by focusing on Jesus, by living for Him, we can become 'flourishers', and can live a better life here on Earth, and have eternal life with Him in heaven - the greatest gift EVER.

We then moved on to God's heart for the world, and his Great Commission (Matthew 28 v 16-20). One of the things the Reverend said which really made me think was that God doesn't just love the people of the world, He loves the physical world too, the world which He created, and He wants us to look after it. I had never really made the connection between being 'green' and religion before.

The Great Commission focuses on our role as Christians, that in reward for God being with us always, we should spread His word, and teach people about the gospel, about how they can be saved and have eternal life, and pass on Jesus' teachings about how to live life.

Our Church has missionaries in Brazil, Argentina, Albania and North Eastern India, so we are doing our bit for God's Great Commission, and once a month, the Church gives an update on how everyone is getting on, which is fascinating, and it is so wonderful to see the difference our Church is making. The Reverend talked a little about his time in Mizoram, North Eastern India, as a missionary, which he will share more about in future.

We also need to look to our own town, to sharing the gospel in our own town, being missionaries in our own town, and we need to look to our Church, to making sure that our new leader is after God's heart. Someone who has a heart for God's world, our town, God's word, and God's spirit.

We are all part of God's team here on Earth, charged with our own little parts of the Great Commission, and I guess that by writing this little blog, which according to my site counter, has currently been viewed 737 times, I am helping to spread the gospel and share God's heart too!

I would leave you with this week's Text of the Week, but as I already used it earlier in this post, John 3 v 16, I'll just bid you adieu until my next post about this week's Church service.