Hope House Church, Barnsley
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I’m looking forward to a very exciting 2012. Whatever happens this year we are in for an interesting time. The very year we celebrate the Queens Diamond jubilee could be the year we begin to see the end of the UK! Europe it seems could be falling apart and everything we know divided and transformed in front of us.
In 2011 HHC began meeting in Parkway Cinema right in the town centre. We just felt it was time to shake ourselves up a little, push ourselves out of our comfort zone and believe for more of God’s promise in our lives. We were immediately blessed when St. Georges church in Barnsley choose to join us and support the outreach. This year we are going one better. The two churches are officially partnering in the cinema initiative called Encounter. Together we will be sharing resources and committing together to make this an amazing 2012.
I don’t think for a moment that everything will be easy. Learning to work together and understand another perspective is never easy. That’s why so many churches do it ‘their own way’. Separation is so tempting and maybe in the short term even more effective, but guess what? When were are in unity God commands his blessing and after all we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other through eternity so we may as well smile and get on with it right now.
I long to be blessed by God. I long for my town to be blessed by God. I want Jesus to be famous in our town and His Church to be an influence for positive change and transformation in our community. So I begin this year excited, filled with trepidation, confident and concerned, but most of all assured that God has not finished with this town or this nation or our world and together we have our part to play bringing His blessing.
Right now there just feels to be a window of opportunity for the church and as they say, “seize the opportunity of a life time in the life time of the opportunity.”
In 2011 HHC began meeting in Parkway Cinema right in the town centre. We just felt it was time to shake ourselves up a little, push ourselves out of our comfort zone and believe for more of God’s promise in our lives. We were immediately blessed when St. Georges church in Barnsley choose to join us and support the outreach. This year we are going one better. The two churches are officially partnering in the cinema initiative called Encounter. Together we will be sharing resources and committing together to make this an amazing 2012.
I don’t think for a moment that everything will be easy. Learning to work together and understand another perspective is never easy. That’s why so many churches do it ‘their own way’. Separation is so tempting and maybe in the short term even more effective, but guess what? When were are in unity God commands his blessing and after all we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other through eternity so we may as well smile and get on with it right now.
I long to be blessed by God. I long for my town to be blessed by God. I want Jesus to be famous in our town and His Church to be an influence for positive change and transformation in our community. So I begin this year excited, filled with trepidation, confident and concerned, but most of all assured that God has not finished with this town or this nation or our world and together we have our part to play bringing His blessing.
Right now there just feels to be a window of opportunity for the church and as they say, “seize the opportunity of a life time in the life time of the opportunity.”
Paul Bedford
