Coming up this weekend 30 November – 01 December

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This week we continue our series on Acts, ‘Launching the Church‘, as we learn about the Courageous Christianity that the Apostle Paul shows as he confronts violent and hostile enemies as he returns to Jerusalem. It will be a fresh reminder to us of the need to trust in Jesus and be bold in his name.

Each week during our services we have a question and answer segment. If you have any questions, let us know via your response slips or by emailing them to office@jamberooanglican.com. Here are this week’s questions:

1 Since God used natural disasters to punish people in the Bible, why doesn’t he still do that today?

2 Did the man who fell out of the window defeat death?

3 Did Paul disobey the Holy Spirit in Acts 21:4 when he chose to continue to Jerusalem?

4 Is Jesus just as powerful as God?

5 Why do we seem to talk about Jesus more than God?

6 If a Christian is convinced that God is giving them a personal revelation of his calling and gifts, then how should they respond to someone who disagrees?

7 How can you find out what God’s will is for your life?

On Saturday evening at 5pm we have our family service with a kids program, followed by dinner for everyone and a youth group for the teens. Our more classic Anglican-style service is on Sunday mornings at 9am, followed by morning tea and hot espresso. If you have been thinking about coming to church, come along this week! I would love to meet you and be in fellowship with you. See you there!

Grace and peace,
Jodie

Acts: Launching the Church 15: The Pastor’s Heart Acts 20:1-21:17 Jodie McNeill – 23 and 24 November 2019

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The Pastor’s Heart.

Paul was a _____ guy with a pastor’s heart.

Paul followed Jesus on a _______ trip to Jerusalem.

Paul learns of a Jewish ____ to kill him.

We witness how the early church ________.

At the heart of the gathering was the _________.

Paul brings the young man back from the ____.

As we hear God’s word, we ____ God more.

Paul was doing the Lord’s ____.

The pain of ministry can _____ a pastor’s heart.

Paul was an __________ of Christ.

When you turn to Jesus you must ______ from sin.

The _____ of God drives Paul’s mission.

Paul shared the _____________ truths.

Pastors must _____ themselves and others.

The greatest ____ was the expense of Christ’s sacrifice.

False teachers will spiritually ______ Christians.

They must watch and care through _____.

Paul ministered without ________ gain.

The Spirit said Paul would ______ in Jerusalem.

Paul must still make the painful _______ to Jerusalem.

Paul went to Jerusalem for the ____ of Jesus.

Serving Christ is supposed to be ____.

____ for pastors.

Download a PDF of the outline with pictures to colour in here Download

Church News for the week beginning 24th November

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OUR BIBLE TALK

This week in our series on Acts, ‘Launching the Church‘, we will see through chapters 20 & 21 the evidence of a Pastor’s heart in Paul as he continues to teach the word of the Lord.

MISSION OF THE MONTH

Our mission of the month is CMS. Donate and buy from the mission table to help support our CMS partners.

VISION GATHERING

Please plan to join us on Saturday 30th November at 8am to 11am for our final Vision Gathering for the year. We’ll be prayerfully planning for our ministries for 2020 and we’d love everyone to join us.

RAY SPROULE’S FUNERAL

A funeral service for Ray will be held this Monday 25th November at 11am at Jamberoo Anglican Church, followed by refreshments by the Ladies’ Guild.

CLEANING AND MOWING ROSTER

Are you able to help with mowing and cleaning? Please let us know via response slip or email.

BOOKSHOP FEEDBACK

We’d love to hear your feedback about the value of our bookshop to our church ministry. Let us know via response slip or email.

LADIES GUILD

The next Ladies Guild meeting will be on Saturday December 14th at 3pm. All the youth are also invited as it will be a planning meeting for our Christmas Eve service on the lawn.

INTER-CHURCH CAROLS

Be sure to save Tuesday 10th December in your diaries for our famous ‘Carols in the Park’ event in Reid Park at 6.30pm.

CHRISTMAS SERVICES

This year we will be having our first-in-a-long-time Christmas Eve service! Come join us at 6:00pm on our new church lawn for a night of carols and fellowship. Includes a free sausage sizzle! Our regular Christmas day service will be at 9am in the church.

GIVING UPDATE

Each week we need to receive $6300.00 in order to meet our commitments. In the last calendar month, our average weekly giving was $5616.00, leaving a gap of $684.00. Olimometer 2.52 Up to the end of the last calendar month we needed to have received $218,400. Compared to that total we received $195,239, leaving a gap of $23,161.Olimometer 2.52

Electronic giving is a great way to give! It helps us prayerfully plan our giving, and then the bank will help us keep that commitment, even when we may be unable to attend. To give by direct transfer then these are the details. Account name: Church of England Jamberoo. Account number: 10081274. BSB: 062562.


Weather Warning

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The weather is a warning for us all (CREDIT: Maher Najm via Flickr)

The drought is getting worse and the fire emergency is escalating: our weather is causing grief to us all, and some far more than others.

The Bible has recorded some events in history when God brought about severe weather incidents as a way of punishing people.

Yet, when Jesus was questioned about a natural disaster that happened during his life on earth, he quickly pointed out that God doesn’t bring about these kinds of events in order to punish specific sins in specific people.

Jesus said, “Do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than all the other people from Galilee?” Jesus asked. “Is that why they suffered? Not at all! And you will perish, too, unless you repent of your sins and turn to God.” (Luke 13:2-3)

This means that it’s wrong and insensitive to suggest that the current bushfire and drought emergency is a special punishment from God for any recent community actions.

For, whilst God is in control of everything in his creation, he does not use these kinds of disasters to specifically punish people for particular sins.

In fact, Jesus said that God “gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.” (Matthew 5:45).

However it is also true that every time tragedy or hardship affects us, we should stop and think about the coming judgement of every one of us.

This means that every tragedy is a wake-up call from God to make sure we’ve taken refuge in Jesus, who promises to protect us from judgement when we trust in him as our loving ruler and rescuer.

At this time of fire and drought we should pray for those who are suffering and use this moment to make sure we’ve each, personally made peace with God.

JODIE McNEILL

Coming up this weekend 23-24 November

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We continue our series on Acts this week, ‘Launching the Church’, and will see the evidence of a Pastor’s heart in Paul through chapters 20 & 21 as he continues to teach the word of the Lord. His willingness to sacrifice himself for the Lord is evident as he continues to encourage his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Each week at our services we have a question and answer segment. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them during the week by emailing them to office@jamberooanglican.com or via a response slip at church.

Here are the questions that we’ll be looking at this weekend:

1 Was it Jesus or one of the angels who spoke to Paul in the dream?
2 Is the Devil the boss of Hell or is he just like every other non-Christian living there?
3 How can ‘the elect’ truly follow God if they don’t have a genuine choice?
4 When a person dies who isn’t a Christian, what happens to them on Judgement Day?
5 If someone confesses and truly believes that Jesus is Lord but doesn’t show it in their life, then will they be saved?
6 Is it is a sin to find it hard to trust and forgive a Christian who keeps sinning and going the wrong things even after they have repented?
7 When Hebrews 6:4 says “it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were enlightened” does it mean it’s impossible to re-convert a believer who has fallen away?

We would love to see you at our Saturday evening service at 5pm, which has a kids program, followed by dinner & a youth group for the teens, or our Sunday morning service at 9am where afterwards we can share morning tea and good conversations over hot espresso!

Grace and peace,
Jodie

Acts: Launching the Church 14: Corinth and Ephesus Acts 18:1-19:41 Jodie McNeill – 16 and 17 November 2019

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The sorry state of Aussie Christianity.

It is vital that more people know _____.

In his distress, Paul told the Athenians about _____.

Corinth is very sexually _______.

Ephesus is _________ like the New Age movement.

Paul _____ Aquila and Priscilla.

There’s ______ in the too-hard basket!

Jesus _________ Paul in a dream.

Many people in Corinth ______ to Jesus.

Jesus works as we _____ the word of God.

The word of God is the _____ of God!

The governor declares that Christianity is _____.

Priscilla and Aquilla _________ the theology of Apollos.

We plant and water, but God does the _______!

When you trust in Jesus, you get __________ at once!

We don’t just preach, we _________.

Unusual miracles _________ Paul’s ministry.

Jesus has ___ the fight with evil!

They _________ their past when they followed Christ.

As Christianity grew, paganism ______.

Again they confirm that Christianity is a _____ religion.

God’s powerful ____ will keep bringing people to Christ.

Download the PDF of this file hereDownload

Church News for the week beginning 17th November

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OUR BIBLE TALK

This weekend we continue our series on Acts, ‘Launching the Church’, and are looking through chapter 18 about how Paul in Corinth and Ephesus, through the Scriptures, showed that the Christ was Jesus!

MISSION OF THE MONTH

Our mission of the month is CMS. Donate and buy from the mission table to help support our CMS partners.

VISION GATHERING

Please plan to join us on Saturday 30th November at 8am to 11am for our final Vision Gathering for the year. We’ll be prayerfully planning for our ministries for 2020 and we’d love everyone to join us.

LADIES GUILD

The next Ladies Guild meeting will be on Saturday December 14th at 3pm. All the youth are also invited as it will be a planning meeting for our Christmas Eve service on the lawn.

INTER-CHURCH CAROLS

Be sure to save Tuesday 10th December in your diaries for our famous ‘Carols in the Park’ event in Reid Park at 6.30pm.

CHRISTMAS SERVICES

This year we will be having our first-in-a-long-time Christmas Eve service! Come join us at 6:30pm on our new church lawn for a night of carols and fellowship. Our regular Christmas day service will be at 9am in the church.

GIVING UPDATE

Each week we need to receive $6300.00 in order to meet our commitments. In the last calendar month, our average weekly giving was $5616.00, leaving a gap of $684.00. Olimometer 2.52 Up to the end of the last calendar month we needed to have received $218,400. Compared to that total we received $195,239, leaving a gap of $23,161.Olimometer 2.52

Electronic giving is a great way to give! It helps us prayerfully plan our giving, and then the bank will help us keep that commitment, even when we may be unable to attend. To give by direct transfer then these are the details. Account name: Church of England Jamberoo. Account number: 10081274. BSB: 062562.

Everyday Miracles

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When we woke on Tuesday morning, we were bracing for a fire disaster in the almost-unprecedented ‘catastrophic’ fire conditions in Jamberoo and our surrounds.

Before I joined my RFS compatriots at our local station to stand by for a fire call, I shared on Facebook a prayer for our troubled country which was written by Archbishop Glenn Davies.

The prayer said, “Father we pray, in your mercy, restrain the forces of nature from creating catastrophic damage; in your mercy protect human life.”

As we patrolled the roads and lanes of our valley in our RFS tanker, scanning the horizons for any sign of smoke, we listened to the weather forecast climb from severe to extreme.

I kept praying, and you know what? Nothing happened.

Even though the trees bent over from the high winds, and the temperature rose to high 30’s, and the humidity fell to single figures, there were no fires, no damage, and most importantly, no loss of life.

God powerfully answered our prayers, and we have so much to rejoice for.

At times like this where we are spared from disaster we can be tempted to think that nothing spectacular happened: after all, it’s just another day without a terrible fire.

But as we asked, God has answered.

Yet, as we give thanks to God for powerfully and mercifully sparing the Illawarra from fire destruction, there are many thousands of people suffering as we speak from the effects of fire in our land.

Knowing how wonderfully God answered prayer on Tuesday in our valley we can confidently pray that God will protect property and lives in the coming days and weeks.

And above all, that whatever happens, we might find comfort in the Lord who is powerful, merciful and gracious.

JODIE McNEILL

Coming up this weekend 16-17 November

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This weekend we continue our series on Acts, ‘Launching the Church’, and are looking through chapter 18 about how Paul in Corinth and Ephesus, through the Scriptures, showed that the Christ was Jesus!

Each week at our services we have a question and answer segment, and this week’s questions are:

  1. How does the devil have the power to tell the future?
  2. Is it unwise or sinful to celebrate Halloween?
  3. Aren’t all unmarried Christians living with the gift of singleness, at least for that period of time?
  4. Is the gift of marriage something to be desired, given it leads to a divided devotion to God?
  5. Why does singleness seem to be rarely encouraged for Christians?
  6. Should we encourage Christians into singleness if they are in a relationship with a non-Christian?
  7. If babies cry through their baptism does that mean that they don’t want to be baptised?

So come along to our Saturday service at 5pm, where we have a kids program and dinner afterwards, followed by a youth group for the teens, or to our more classic Anglican style service on Sunday at 9am, and we can chat over morning tea and espresso after.

Grace and peace,
Jodie

Acts: Launching the Church 13: Paul in Athens – Acts 17:16-34 – 9 and 10 November 2019

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How religious is Australia?

Most Aussies don’t think that ________ matters.

Paul is deeply ________ at their idolatry.

Idolatry should stir you up for _______.

The marketplace is anywhere people ______.

Paul tailored his message to his ________.

The pursuit of ________ is the dominant Aussie religion.

The ______ mentality is also an Aussie attitude.

The ancient philosophers couldn’t ____ God.

The ____________ changes everything.

We have a fascination with ___ ideas.

Paul works within their religious _________.

God ___________ everything.

God doesn’t ____ anything from us.

God made all people so we would ____ him.

Even atheists can discover things about ________.

All people must ______ and follow God.

Judgement day is coming ____.

Jesus’ resurrection makes sense of __________.

Aussies would be better off with _____.

Download a copy of the PDF of this outline with drawings to colour in here: Download