For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
Eph 1:4-6 NIV
Help us Father God to share with others the message of your grace freely given and not restricted by any dogma that we may hold on to.
Amen
Welcome to our preacher this morning who is Mrs Maureen Jones After morning service tea hosts Bob and Evelyn
Organist:Joan McGowan
Sunday 8th January 11.00am Rev Chris Pritchard (Covenant Service)
Diary Dates
January
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Mon 9th Every Day with Jesus Bible study 1.30pm
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Wed 11th Midweek Communion at Regent Street 11.15am
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Sat 28th Ffrwd Coffee Morning at Regent Street 10.00am
The Uses of Election
Eph 1:3-6
Few realize how much injury the dogma that baptism is necessary for salvation, badly expounded, has entailed. As a consequence, they are less cautious. For, where the opinion has prevailed that all are lost who have not happened to be baptized with water, our condition is worse than that of God’s ancient people – as if the grace of God were now more restricted than under the Law!
John Calvin “The Institutes of the Christian Religion”
Please pray for the following:
Avril Williams
Sandra Johnson
Phyllis Davies
Everett Williams
All those who care for those in need.
We thank God for answered prayer and ask that he helps us to understand that all things do work together for good.
Religion is a problem
‘What are you going to talk about on Monday, dear?’ said my mother, peering over her paper at breakfast.
‘I’ve got around three and a half minutes to speak about religion, one world, the United Nations and world peace,’ I told her.
‘But Lionel, you can’t', she said, and she looked serious. ‘Just look at these papers, dear. Look at Northern Ireland and the Middle East and India. How can religion solve their problems when religion is the problem!’
I couldn’t contradict her. She was right, or almost. Religion isn’t all the problem, just a big bit of it, and it’s not right to tell pious fibs or pretend to protect God from the truth when really you’re only protecting yourself.
Over the years which I’ve spent at committee meetings I’ve asked myself, What is a religious organisation? Well, it isn’t paradise and its members aren’t the communion of saints. Religion is a messy, untidy place where we try to join together two realities which don’t fit easily and never will — this world and kingdom come, your prayer life and your sex life, retreats and rosaries with the rates bill, your see-through soul with the sauce and the sausages you had for breakfast. My father was a tailor who stitched different cloths together. I try to stitch different worlds together, but I’ll never be as successful. After all, how would you run an organisation when you ought to give all you have to the poor? How do you chair meetings when everyone has to do what is right and follow his conscience, yet all be bound by a majority vote? After a life-time as a minister you’ve impressed a few adolescents or some people who are vulnerable because they’re in hospital or in love. What sort of a business is that? That’s why we are tempted to cut corners and take refuge in politics or tribalism, but we don’t succeed in making them pious — they just make us nasty. What saves us, I think, is that we know the problems aren’t outside us but inside us, not just in others but in ourselves, so we can’t turn our enemies into devils very easily, and also because we are told that the Truth we serve is not partial. It is beyond all parties and all prejudice.
Even when they were in conflict the rabbis granted that the new Christian sects were as full of good works as eggs are full of meat. And Mother Julian, the medieval mystic in Norwich, remarked when she visited hell that it was completely empty, there wasn’t even a Jew there! And I am grateful, for it was very broad-minded of her at that time. You can learn the lesson in religious jokes. A minister goes to heaven and is introduced to the inmates. Behind a high wall he hears the sound of hymns. ‘Who are they?’ he asks. ‘Sh,’ they tell him, ‘don’t speak so loud. That lot believe they’re the only ones here, and we don’t like to disturb them.’
But you and I are not like that. We know we worship the same God. You just pray to Him in your way, and I’ll pray to Him in His.
Rabbi Lionel Blue “Bolts from the Blue”
