We welcomed back Keith and Laurel Barnes from Battle who have been visiting us for over 25 years!

Keith spoke on a favourite passage – Luke 24 v 13-35 – on the road to Emmaus. His talk was entitled, ‘Walking with Jesus’. Keith reminded us of the importance of walking.  When you walk, the body is refreshed!

Can you imagine the mixed emotions of the two travellers trying to process all that had happened in Jerusalem over that first Easter?  And then Jesus comes alongside them. He listened to their story and talked to them teaching then from the scriptures explaining why Jesus had to die, and yet they did not recognise Him! There eyes were only opened when Jesus broke bread in their home.

Keith stressed the need to nurture a sense of Jesus’ presence (interestingly, that follows on from what Jane was speaking about last week!)  Sometimes we need to be taken out of our comfort zone and the walk may take time and be difficult at times. But Jesus is not remote – He comes near and promises to be with us.  So, do our hearts burn within us like those two disciples? Ask God to reveal more of Himself to you to prepare you for what lies on your journey.

On this gloriously warm May afternoon it was a joy to welcome as our speaker one of our own members – Jane Leaver.

Through the open doorway we heard the sparrows joining in as we were singing, and Jane reminded us that her previous talk had been about various references to birds in the Bible, especially those who find rest “near God’s altar”. (Ps 84:3)

This afternoon, Jane took as her inspiration, the book entitled, “The Practice of the Presence of God” by Brother Lawrence.  He was a 17th century friar, exploring in his writings how we can walk closely with God every day, worshipping Him through the most mundane of tasks, and finding joy even in our dark moments.  Jane encouraged us to talk to God about our everyday circumstances, simply and directly, as we would to a friend.  God is interested in every aspect of our lives, and longs to share fellowship with us.  We can do this especially by cultivating a grateful heart – don’t hesitate to praise and thank Him as we recognise His blessings, or wonder at His creation.  Speak it out!  This does take practice, but we will be richly rewarded by a closer daily walk with our Lord.

And Jane’s choice for our closing song? “Hear these praises from a grateful heart”.

We welcomed back Connie Croly to our meeting.  Connie always has such wonderful stories to tell us from her experiences of serving in the Salvation Army.  She has such a heart for people too and inspires all of us to ‘stand up, stand up for Jesus!’

Connie’s thought were very much based around the Easter story and our response to the resurrection of our Lord. We serve a risen Saviour and God wants to use each one of us. He will give us the strength we need to fulfil His commission – to go into all the world (or that bit of the world where God has placed us), to share the good news and share His love. We were reminded to hold onto what is precious, that we are on the winning side and know that we are not alone – He is with us always!

So, let’s get closer to Him and ask God to give us a heart of compassion and care for others.

https://www.facebook.com/100064357162493/videos/1345740643323323

Gareth leads our April online Prayer Together with some thoughts about Easter.

14 members enjoyed the opportunity of coming together to share in a Communion service to commence our Easter reflections and celebrations.

Faith led us in a beautiful time of readings, poems and Easter songs:

Philippians 2 v 5-11
Song: 290 Jesus is Lord
Prayer
Poem: A Beautiful Thing
Song: 780 How deep the Father’s love for us
Isaiah 53 v 1-6
Song: 596 When I survey the wondrous cross
Isaiah 53 v 7-12
Song: There is a Redeemer
Poem: Greater Love
Matthew 26 v 26-30
Communion
Song: 1346 In Christ alone
Prayer
Sung vesper

We finished our time together with a cup of tea and hot cross buns! 

Happy Easter from everyone at Thursday Fellowship.

We welcomed back Dr Ruth Butlin who gave us an update on the work of The Leprosy Mission.  Ruth has just returned from a trip to India to attend the Mission’s 150th Anniversary.

The link below gives a very interesting account of Ruth’s journey with the Mission:

https://www.leprosymission.org/the-leprosy-missions-150th-anniversary/the-leprosy-missions-heroes/ruth-butlin-tlm-hero

Many communities in the Odisha State region of India are in desperate need. People with leprosy have been abandoned.  They endure terrible living conditions  – unsafe housing, lack of sanitation and unclean water where disease is rife.  Bodies are frail and malnourished.  Many are outcasts left heart-broken, robbed of all dignity, hope and despised by the outside world.

This is where The Leprosy Mission steps in with an aim to stop the spread of leprosy, now and for future generations. They passionately believe that God has called them for “such a time as this”, a time to revive health, revive futures and revive hope. 

Ruth told us about the appeal to revive this very poor region of India and we were all given a leaflet with details of how we could support this work if so desired.

Ruth’s heart is really with the Anandaban Hospital, having worked there, (See Ruth’s story above), especially after the devastating earthquake in 2015.  The rebuilding work was due to be completed this year but there is a little way to go, so the meeting agreed to channel our love offering of £160 to this project via Ruth.

We look forward to hearing further news of the work in the email updates Ruth sends out from time to time. Watch this space!

Another lovely afternoon as Lorna Sivyour, who has been coming to us for over 30 years, brought along her violin to play some beautiful classical pieces of music and to speak to us about creation and cleansing.

Lorna’s inspiration for creation was Michelangelo’s painting of the Creation of Adam where God reached out his finger to impart the gift of life. Her second thought about cleansing and forgiveness, came from the account of the woman caught in adultery where Jesus, writing with his finger in the sand, did not condemn the woman but told her accusers, John 8 v 7 (NIV)“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 

The first piece of music was Elgar’s Virelai followed by his very familiar Nimrod (Enigma Variations).

Lorna then reminded us of Romans 1 v 20 (NIV), “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” When we look around at all the beauty, how can one say that it has evolved? God’s handiwork is everywhere!

None of us our perfect.  We have all sinned. Yet God does not condemn us.  We are dearly loved and we are accepted just as we are.  We are VIPs (very important people) yet we are WIPs (Works in progress).

Lorna challenged us to keep our eyes on Jesus and to spend time in the Word.

The last piece Lorna played was Rimsky-Korsakov’s, Scheherazade. We then finished our time together singing one of Lorna’s favourite worship songs, Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord – You are the Everlasting God. Amen to that!

15 members were present for a wonderful afternoon of music, worship and reflection led by our visitor today, Rosemary Kemp.  It is always a joy to welcome Rosemary to our meeting and her thoughts were very much focused on ‘Music in worship’. 

Sue kicked-off our time with some verses to set the tone – Sing to Him, sing praise to Him; tell of all His wonderful acts. 1 Chronicles 16 v 9 – so says King David.

Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song. Psalm 95 v 1-2.

Rosemary was exposed to music from a very early age and started learning the piano at the age of three. To Rosemary, music is a language; a gift from God, with a responsibility to share it with others and a way of worshipping.

Sometimes, words are not enough and music can give you a way of expressing your emotions and feelings.

Rosemary delighted us with some familiar tunes, tunes so powerful and majestic that they don’t need words for meaning as they carry so much emotion. Rosemary called them, standalone pieces, e.g.

Jean Sibelius’s Finlandia – perhaps better known as “We rest on Thee, our Shield and our Defender.” (I have to confess that I was very moved by this.) and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. 

Music can be very enriching in a service of worship.  We can come alive and/or it has the power to make one feel at home and part of what is happening even if someone is new to the environment. Some people express themselves in dance and flag waving and even playing instruments so that everyone is catered for and can feel part of our coming together to worship God and to bring Him honour, praise and glory.

We were able to join in with some beautiful worship songs as our response to what we had heard and enjoyed:

SOF 544 There is a Redeemer – Melody Green
SOF 912 Lord, You have my heart – Martin Smith
SOF 89 Faithful One – Brian Doerksen
SOF 1850 Holy Spirit, Living Breath of God – Keith Getty & Stuart Townend
SOF 203 I believe in Jesus – Marc Nelson

Rosemary also delighted us with some unfamiliar pieces – 

Ludovico Einaudi’s Primavera which means spring was particularly lovely and very appropriate for this time of year. A Chopin waltz was a piece of music which sounded just like a conversation was taking place and the composer was asking us to “listen to me!” It had a language all of its own!

At the end, we had an opportunity to be still (which is of course our motto for the year), to rest in His presence, to meditate while Rosemary played Debussy’s Arabesque.

A very uplifting afternoon – thank you  Rosemary for blessing us!