Prayer is vitally important in the life of a Christian.

When we pray, we are opening our hearts to God and He is able to work in us and through us which helps us to grow in our relationship with God.

And God calls us to pray …‘in every situation’ (Phil 4:6), ‘without ceasing’ (1 Thess 5:17) and without giving up (Luke 18:1). Your heavenly Father wants you to talk to Him – regularly, continually and persistently.

If you have joined us for church over the past couple of weeks you would have heard about prayer buddies!

Prayer buddies is an idea we are trialling this term where, if you would like to participate, you select a random person or family and pray for them over the whole term. You can contact your prayer buddy to let them know you are praying for them and to ask what they might like you to pray for.

How good is this! Each of us praying for 10 weeks for one another as a church family – all generations across all services joyfully praying for each other.
This opportunity presents us with a powerful way of loving one another that is not a lot of work but can yield big rewards. And if this trial is successful and continues, over the course of time we will have prayed for many different people who are part of our church family. So good!

There are so many benefits we can gain from participating in prayer buddies.

Having a prayer buddy encourages you to pray!

It gives you the opportunity to serve and support another member of your church family and also to be supported in prayer yourself.

It is a powerful way to bear one another’s burdens (Gal 6:2-5), to build one another up (1 Thess 5:11) and encourage each other (Heb 10:24-25).

It will help to build relationships.

And it will help us gain confidence in our own prayer life.

If you haven’t already, can I encourage you to join in the prayer buddy ministry this term.

Sandee Batelic

Do you ever feel overlooked, invisible?
I am just one person in a world of eight billion people. There’s nothing special about me to make me stand out. In a large group (or maybe even a small one) you probably wouldn’t even see me.

What role can one single person play in God’s great plan?
Does God truly have a purpose for each one of us?
Can one, small, insignificant person make much of a difference in the kingdom of God?

The Bible says yes, one person can make a difference!

We all know the stories of Moses, Noah, David and Jonah. We know the impact their lives had.
We need to read the story of creation, Noah’s Ark, and Paul’s conversion experience. They contain powerful lessons for strengthening our faith.

But what about the lesser-known people? People like Ehud, Jethro, Rhoda or Dorcas? Or the woman who saved the entire kingdom of Judah when she stole a child and hid him for six years?
There are many people in the Bible who are mentioned only once, some are not even named!
Often overlooked they have valuable lessons to teach us about faith, courage, and God’s power in the lives of ordinary people.
These lesser-known characters are all vitally important. In fact, some of them played a pivotal role in God’s plan.
All of God’s Word is important. If He took the time to write about the seemingly minor characters, there is a reason – they are all a part of the big story of God.
They teach us invaluable lessons like the importance of forgiveness, never giving up, and how one brave person can make a difference in a whole kingdom.
But more than that, these obscure Bible characters show us God sees every little thing we do, and He cares.
In the eyes of the Lord, every one of us has an important job to do.
When you feel overlooked, invisible or unimportant, remember God has a plan for your life and you never know how He might use you!

Sandee Batelic

One great way to ensure that the next generation hears about the GLORIOUS deeds of the LORD, is through SRE (Special Religious Education or “teaching Scripture”).

Every Thursday afternoon during term time, a team of loving and dedicated servants from our church invest in the kids next door at Jamberoo Public School by teaching them about God through SRE. It’s a fantastic opportunity to walk alongside these young ones, pointing them to WHO God is, WHAT he’s done, and WHY that matters for us.

Given that the school is quite small, we teach the students in stage groups

• Kindy is taught by Elise & Paula
• Year 1-2 has been taught by Jodie, and is being taken over by Lesley
• Year 3-4 is taught by Rach
• Year 5-6 is taught by Deb

My role is to coordinate the team, liaise with the school, oversee the admin and to fill in when one of the other teachers can’t make it (which turns out to be pretty often!)

We’d really love for you to pray for us each week as we teach these energetic young ones about God from the Bible. The team has asked if you can please pray:

• That we would have love and compassion for the students
• We would have creativity to convey the love of Christ in language and actions that will touch their hearts and minds. 
• God would help us pitch the lesson at a level the children can understand.
• That the Holy Spirit would go ahead of us each week.
• For the recruitment and training of more SRE teachers from our church to take over some of the classes in 2025

If you’d like to know more about SRE or would like to talk about how you can support us, please get in contact!

Matt Bartlett

Church is my Spiritual Home.

A home where I am nurtured, loved, grown as a Christian & encouraged to serve my fellow family members. I have experienced this in abundance here at Jamberoo Anglican and I thank you for this.

In a family we all have something to contribute. Don’t hold back, find your gift and use it. Serve and be served. Be an active family member. This has been so evident in our church over the last few months of Graham’s illness.

Thank you so much for all the practical things people are doing for me.
Things like meals, taking shower screens off so Graham can be showered, dashing to hospital late at night because I needed something. Others are feeding me. Many of you are praying for me. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12 ^“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”

We here at Jamberoo Anglican are truly “one body”.
Each and every part doing its bit to help our body function in a spiritually healthy way. We are family.
Many members, different ages, different jobs, but all working together & supporting each other as one body.

Family members move on. Graham has moved on to his eternal home. We are sad. We are bereft. But know we will see him again when we too leave this earthly life and join all the saints in Heaven who have gone before us.

Jodie and Mandy are moving on, taking Jesus’ command in Mark 16:15 “Go into all the world and preach the gospel” literally.
We will miss them greatly, their leadership, their friendship, their love of us and the gospel but we know God is sending them out and when God sends, you go.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
In the name of Christ. AMEN.

LESLEY ERRINGTON

Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care? Precious Saviour, still our refuge—take it to the Lord in prayer!

These words come from the famous hymn, ‘What a friend we have in Jesus,’ and they bring us great hope as we feel the burden of life.

The words come from Jesus’ famous ‘comfortable’ words from Matthew chapter 11, verse 28 where he says:

Matt. 11:28    Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

These words bring hope to the hopeless and help us in our helplessness, for they speak to all of us who find it impossibly hard to deal with our sins and failures.

But originally, Jesus was speaking to the lost sheep of Israel, who were overcome with the burdens of keeping hundreds of rules, regulations and traditions.

They carried the burden of keeping the law… but today we carry the burden of performance anxiety.

By nature, we all feel we need to perform well to impress God, so that we will survive judgement day.

It’s a burden that will crush us, and so Jesus offers ‘rest’.

He offers rest that is about peace with God, and we get this ‘rest’ as a gift from Jesus.

As we follow Jesus, we find rest for our souls that brings us relief from the burden of our sins.

And this is the greatest relief we could ask for from the heavy burden of guilt and sin.

JODIE McNEILL