On Sunday 22nd November we will be celebrating our 128th Anniversary as a church. We have invited Norman & Margaret Moss of Partners in Harvest as our guest speakers and we will be having a Fellowship lunch together after the service. After lunch there will be opportunity for church members to ask Normal & Margaret any questions they may have about our proposal to become members of PIH. Please book the date in your diary now and be ready to book your lunch ticket over the next few weeks.Each year on our Anniversary Sunday we take a special Thanksgiving offering to devote to a special project or cause as a way of thanking God for His faithfulness to us over the years. Our church has been so richly blessed in the past as many thousands of people have worshipped and served together in George Lane and elsewhere. The blessings continue to grow as more are healed and saved right now.
In recent days we have sensed an even more urgent calling from God to reach our community for the Kingdom of God. This has been accompanied by prophecies, dreams and visions showing us that he is sending rivers of His presence, power and love which will flow out into our community. This is very exciting, but also very challenging as we must each change our thinking and increase our commitment if we are to see the many new disciples we believe God has promised us.
You may be aware that we have been praying for many months about building a new Church Centre near to our existing site. A small task force has drawn up an outline of our initial proposals as a first step to present to Redbridge Council in the near future. So far we have not spent any extra money on the project but we will need significant sums of money before we can move on to the next phase which will involve hiring professionals.
We have therefore decided to make our Anniversary a Gift Day for the new building project. We were encouraged recently in receiving a gift of £1300 from a non-member specifically for this purpose so we have opened a separate fund. We are now asking all church members and regular attenders to make a special gift, over and above your normal tithe, as ‘seed’ money for the project - a step of faith. We want to raise at least a further £20,000.
Please take time to pray about this and ask God how much he wants you to give. We will take the offering on 22nd November, but if you cannot give at that time, we encourage you to make a written pledge of both the amount and when you will give this and put this in the offering bag. As you consider this before the Lord, we suggest that you read 1 Corinthians 9:6-15. May the Lord continue to bless you more abundantly.