Church News for January 2025

Our Lamb Has Conquered, Let us Follow Him

Church Newsletter

Happy New Year!  We are looking forward to welcoming Br James Woolford as our part-time minister until Easter.  As mentioned previously, he will still have responsibility for Baildon and so we have agreed to hold our monthly Holy Communion services at 11 a.m. on the SECOND SUNDAY of the month.  

We will be hearing more about Project 32 in the coming months, and the  article below seems to really fit in with our current thinking:

2025 is a year of Jubilee in the Roman Catholic Church, a year that takes place every 25 years. It’s a special year of forgiveness and reconciliation, in which people are invited to come back into right relationship with God, with one another, and with all of creation.  This acts as a challenge for all of us:

How can we spend more time talking and listening to God through reading the Bible and prayer?

How can we grow our love for our family and friends?

How can we make more impact at work, by demonstrating an attractive faith to colleagues?

When Joshua led God’s people to the banks of the Jordan, ready to cross over into the Promised Land, he said: ‘you have never been this way before’ (Joshua 3:4). At the beginning of a New Year, when we don’t know what the future holds, how can we grow in our relationship with God?

Keep our focus on God: The people were told to follow the Ark, symbolising God’s presence, as they crossed the river. Let’s keep our focus on God and His Word throughout this year and keep in step with where He is leading us.

Consecrate ourselves: Joshua said, ‘Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.’ (3:5). God has exciting opportunities ahead for us in this coming year! Let us dedicate our lives afresh to Him, as we let go of known sin and keep our eyes open on seeing God at work in all of our lives.

Will 2025 be a good year for us? ‘In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.’ Abraham Lincoln.

God bless,  Sue

Please remember that our new session of Bible Study will be starting on Tuesday, 21st January at 7 p.m. and every first and third Tuesday of the month after this date.  Please let Sue know if you would like to be sent a link for this. 

Christmas Quiz Answers:

Christmas Quiz solutions

  • The year 2000 was a leap year. But 1900 was not. Every 4 years is a leap year.
  • Whamageddon is a game played during the 24 days before Christmas in which players try to go from 1 December to the end of Christmas Eve (24 December) without hearing “Last Christmas” by Wham!.
  • Sir Alan Bates has been very active in trying to address the Post Office scandal.
  • A giant tortoise.
  • Ian Lavender, who played Pike.
  • The photo taken by HRH Princess of Wales had been not very successfully altered.
  • He was wearing American style jeans.
  • The cat fell asleep on the Coronation throne.
  • Portugal.
  • Swiss Army knife.
  • JRR Tolkein. The word “keen” may have been a misspelling of his surname.
  • Near Coventry from Nuneaton down to Royal Leamington Spa.
  • The rule that civil servants and others will normally observe discretion about making new announcements or decisions that could influence voters.
  • The news that the group Oasis are performing again.
  • Line judges at Wimbledon.

Food for thought?

A man had spent many years as a drunkard and a layabout. But through the Salvation Army, he turned to God, and his life gradually changed. He joined a local church, and became known for his honest, if unusual, prayers.

As the New Year dawned, he stood up in church and prayed: “Lord, we’re not what we want to be, we’re not what we ought to be, and we’re not what we’re going to be – but thanks to You, Jesus, we’re not what we used to be!”

Prayer for New Year 2025

Dear Lord,

We begin a New Year! We all have hopes, expectations, fears and uncertainties, as we move into 2025 – already a quarter of the way through this new century!

We can’t know what will happen in the world, in our country, in our lives during this year, but we come before You, thankful that if we put our trust in Jesus and what He achieved on the cross, we need not be afraid; we are safe and secure.

He takes all our hopes and fears and gives us His Peace and His Spirit in return, to sustain and equip us this New Year and always. Thank you, gracious Father. Thank you, Lord of all the years. In Jesus’ name, Amen.