Grab your calendars!

03 Sep Grab your calendars!

Happy Tuesday everyone!

I trust you all found a way to celebrate Father’s Day this weekend…or at least note the occasion with some quiet joy. My day was richly blessed…especially by being back among all of you, but then by Leonie & the girls in wonderful ways.

So…We’ve got a FULL schedule between now & 2025 and I don’t want you to miss a minute…and you may get sick of me banging these drums, but God is opening up some significant opportunities for us in and around our city…what did I say earlier? Grab your calendars & jot some things down!

1. This Sunday – 8^th September – Giving Beyond Ourselves for CSU AFES welcoming special guest preacher, Mark Woodhouse. The Australian Federation of Evangelical Students is a faithful partner in the gospel at our local CSU campus. They have ministries at campuses across Australia and we have been privileged for many years to work hand in hand with them here. Be ready for a treat, Mark is a gifted Bible teacher and the work he and Kate Bollinger (Lieschke) carry out among the many young people God sends to Wagga is phenomenal. Be here & be prayerfully joyfully generous.
2. Thursday 12^th September – Ladies Fellowship at 74 Plumpton Road – Psalm 15 & 24 – From about 10:00 a.m. until just after lunch. Talk to Sue about what to add to the table!
3. Sunday 15^th September is a Morning Tea Sunday & the wrap-up of our Jeremiah Series; Jeremiah 45…Fully Engaged in Daily Faithfulness.  THEN…
4. Sunday 22^nd September – we welcome Rev Brendan Handel of Olive Tree Media for a special day launching us toward a citywide multi-church evangelism event, UnEarthed: Uncovering stories of Faith in Australia.

This citywide multi-church evangelism event will be a FREE event for you, your families, and friends held at the Range Function Centre on Thursday 27^th February 2025

Please note that date! Thursday 27^th February 2025 – This is going to be HUGE for our city as many of the churches are finally working together to see Christ’s kingdom reach wider than any individual church can stretch. It’s going to include Karl Faase, Colin Buchanan (and his adult country repertoire) and special guests from the Faith Runs Deep documentary interview series. All-Australian stories of faith in Christ from the length & breadth of this sunburnt country…the Great Southland of the Holy Spirit.

You don’t want to miss Brendan being with us on the 22^nd nor the BIG EVENT in February 2025. Mark those dates down now.

5. ALSO on Sunday 22^nd September @ St Alban’s Anglican Church in Kooringal – 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. Brendan will be leading an Information Session (with afternoon tea) for Pastors & church leaders from around our city to help explain more fully the coming event & the follow-up process for 2025. It’d be great if as many of our Steering Team could be there as possible as well as anyone wanting to get stuck into the great work of inviting the wider city to experience the life-transforming gospel of Jesus Christ. We’re blessed because we get a first-look that morning in worship.
6. THEN…Sunday 29^th September is the Annual Wagga Intersport Lake to Lake Fun Run & Ride – I’d assume we’ll have a water station again as always, (many hands make light work!) but even if we’re not needed there, worship will be starting around 12:00 midday with a shared lunch. The roads are blocked off by about 8:30-9:00 a.m. so we are again being given a great chance to sit together and act like the early church sharing the love & word of Christ around food.

I told you we had a calendar that was bursting at the seams!

Every bit of this is special in its own way and every one of these days is another chance for you to say to someone you know, who does not yet know Jesus, “You should really come along to this.”

My daily Bible reading has me in Proverbs at the moment…Proverbs 3 to be precise. This should sound familiar…

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not depend on your own understanding.

In all your ways submit to him and he will direct your paths.” – Pr 3:5-6

That’s something many of us learned long ago…I’ve even got a few children’s songs of that verse that are fun & wisdom encouraging. But what hit me was what comes later…almost a “this leads to this” sense in my heart…

“You need not be afraid of Sudden disaster or the destruction that comes upon the wicked;

For the Lord is your security. He will keep your foot from being caught in a trap.” – Pr 3:25-26

Much as we noted Sunday, that to be a “doer of the word” is our daily expectation, when we are in full submission to the Lord, there is a sure security in him that cannot be found anywhere else. We’ve got so much to be thankful for & so much to share with the world around us that languishes in hopelessness…the church is the only means of the gospel reaching the city. Let’s set our hearts fully on that for the life ahead of us as his people.

Peace

John