I wonder if you are still remembering the motto text for the year that we introduced in January? I wonder if anyone can recite it word for word after seeing it on your fridge door every day this year... (prizes available...!!)
The motto text is from 1 Peter 2:5 (that’s a clue!) and it is all about the process that each of us who love the Lord Jesus is going through as we allow God to mould us and shape us according to His image and not only are we being worked on as individuals, God has also placed us alongside each other so that our growth will be mutually beneficial! The side effect of this is of course that we can support each other and hold each other and strengthen each other in the hard times when we are struggling with faith or health or circumstances. God is a Master Builder and so we know that we can trust Him with our whole being as we seek to move forward and grow for Him.
The other section of the motto text is about our offering of acceptable sacrifices to God through Jesus but also through the process of building and realising the holiness that God has given to us through Jesus. What are the acceptable sacrifices that I am offering to God? How exactly am I honouring God whether in church or in the street?
Friends, each of us has so much potential, so much to give to the building up of the church, so much locked inside that when it is unleashed will see the Kingdom of God come in great measure! I pray for each of you every day, that God will release the potential in you and that He will remove the barriers and boundaries that life has set in place around you...
Perhaps in the morning we need to jump out of bed and proclaim (much to the surprise of anyone nearby...) “I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME!!” (Phil 4:13)
What is it that is holding back the proclamation of God’s word and seizing the promises He has written down for us in the bible (His own holy word!), it can be nothing but ourselves, the hardest obstacle to overcome is the one that is within...
We are coming to the second section of the Freedom in Christ course, and it’s one that we were totally overwhelmed with as group leaders when we had our training the other night...
What a reminder that we are daily choosing which way to live! Are we walking in the Spirit or in the flesh? As Christians this is still a choice that we are facing every day as the temptations come to our door. The choice of gossiping and putting someone down with our choice of attitude and language or choosing to use the words of Paul to the church in Philippi (4:8) “...whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.” This is a choice for us to make, and it is far too easy to make the wrong one! (I know that from experience!)
Kicking off the day with God, committing your day to Him and asking for a filling of the Holy Spirit will give you the boost you need to make a difference and to grow in deeper dependence on God. You need to acknowledge His presence and to listen to His counsel and to act on His guidance rather than the ways of the flesh.
The bible is the gateway to giving that foundation of pure, holy, spiritual words to stand on throughout the day instead of turning to the words of the flesh that wound and hurt others around us.
Are we building up? Are we turning our eyes on Jesus and letting the things of earth dim in comparison?
God is in the process of building you up, and part of that process is building us up together, we each have a part to play in this and need to be on our guard because we could easily be the one who is “the weakest link”, the one who is the weak point, and we know that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link!
Remember you don’t need to be physically strong, the values of the kingdom of God are such that it is the one who pours themself out more fully on God that will be the strongest in God’s eyes. Just because I may look strong on the outside don’t be fooled, God is looking on the heart and He knows my weaknesses and failings...
On the subject of building with living stones, we have the Harby church weekend coming quickly at the end of June and we are looking forward to the teaching and ministry of Kevin and Michelle Shaw, a couple currently working for the Assemblies of God with 2 churches in Matlock and a background in the Baptist tradition, they are coming highly recommended and with a lot of experience gathered from around the world to speak to us as a church and to help us to become the spiritual house that God desires! Please pray for them as they prepare for this visit, that they would hear the voice of God and come with just the right words to encourage, bless and build up every single one of us.
Another great way to build the body is through fellowship and we all had a great time at Tatton Park on Saturday and we need to say a huge thank you to Ann and Sandra for arranging everything and making it possible and making it a fantastic day out for people of all ages and abilities, more of those please...
This month saw the last regular visit of Joseph Bailie on a Wednesday night for the moment and I’m sure you want to join with me as I extend my thanks to Joseph for his teaching, but more than that for his heart for Trinity and everyone of us, he is praying God’s blessing on us, encouraging and supporting as best he can, and I am sure we will be able to arrange another visit from him soon!
Please commit to praying for each other and supporting each other every day, don’t be shy when it comes to meeting new people and opening your homes to each other, in this way we deepen our friendships and ensure that when we need help we have people in mind that we know we can rely on from within the family of God.
God bless you,
With love and blessings in our Lord Jesus Christ,

The year is quickly pressing on with March on our doorstep we are already a quarter of the way through the year! Perhaps when time is flying like this it reminds us of our Sovereign God who is outside of time, and we are thankful that He has already been at the end of time and so we can safely put our lives in His hands. Time of course is a mere human concept created by God to help us order our linear lives.
I wonder how you are getting on this year so far? Have you been facing challenges? Have you had some joys and some excitement? Have you been moved forward with God and finding a renewed sense of His presence and power?
We would love to hear your testimony, about your encouragements, your concerns, your blessing and your pain. How can we pray for you, support for you, care for you and lift you up? I know it doesn’t seem very British, but we value your sharing so that we can best pray for God’s involvement in your situation, so please feel free to get in touch.
I hope you have been enjoying our series in Mark’s gospel as much as I have. It has been a challenge and as the values of the Kingdom of God emerge and we are potentially shocked that the Jesus represented in the pages of the bible isn’t always the Jesus we think of it causes us to rethink how God is wanting us to engage with society.
On Sunday we heard about Jesus rejecting the physical needs of the crowd to prioritise their need of God which would meet a deeper need in them. We need to open our hearts to give our deepest needs to God so that He can bring healing into our lives. We have just started leader training for the freedom in Christ Discipleship course and are already seeing God move among us, challenging hearts, minds, mindsets and seeking to bring freedom into areas of our lives that have remained bound and captive. I see this as a really positive step for us as a church and a confirmation that God is going to use this course to liberate and challenge us. The course itself is logical, straightforward and bible based and aims to give a strong foundation to our lives, security in our Saviour and encouragement to live for Christ! What more could we ask for?!
What a great opportunity to go through this course together as a church with 4 different sessions each week for young and old daytime and evening, there is a chance for every one of us to get along. Please make this a priority to attend as we are putting a lot of energy and resources behind it to make it a success.
We were asking the members last week to consider a concept that has been on the hearts of some members for some time, and seems to be just now having the possibility of becoming reality. This idea we are calling “The Caretaker’s House” and is an initiative that could reach into the community around Becket School and offer help and support and training to young moms and single parent families and those who are struggling with life issues. How can we, the church, get involved? We are called to be radical, to be Jesus’ hands and feet, to take the love, the grace, the mercy of Jesus into inhospitable areas to bring healing to the broken, freedom to the captives. Can you see yourself being part of this? Please speak to Karen or myself to find out more and watch this space to see how this idea develops!
We are blessed to be making progress at the ‘Open Mike’ nights, with the biggest turn out yet this past weekend and with an opportunity for everyone to come to the Quiz and Curry it gave us a chance to engage with EVERY person that was there, it even led to some significant conversations about God, please pray for seeds that were sown to flourish!
We are also thankful to God as we see new people walk through our doors and becoming part of our church family, may I encourage you to get to know new people so that they feel part of us and our work for the kingdom of God here at Trinity!
I need to give a special mention to the HARBY COMMITTEE as well, they have already met twice to begin the planning for our weekend away in June and if you haven’t filled in your form you may want to do that quickly to help them finalise the numbers and the accommodation. Our thanks to them for all the time and effort they are putting in to make this weekend a special and memorable event for all of us.
We are blessed this year to have a couple coming to minister to us from Matlock, they are Kevin and Michelle Shaw who have been around the world a bit, with family in Sydney, Australia and embracing mission opportunities around the world, and have just returned from the Philippines where they have been offering support and training to pastors and the church out there. Kevin and Michellle have backgrounds in the Baptist church and church planting and are now pastors of the Dales Christian Centre in Matlock with a second congregation in Wirksworth. We are honoured to have them and they are committed to providing teaching and ministry to us over the weekend. They will be picking up our theme for 2012 from 1 Peter 2:5 living stones, being built into a spiritual house. Our prayer is that as we receive the teaching and the ministry that we will indeed be built up and strengthened and united in our vision and goals as a church.
Please pray for us this coming year, as we move forward in the Lord.

With love and blessings in our Lord Jesus Christ,

As I watch the snow flurries outside my window it reminds me that the winter has not past, that we are still having to endure the cold and discomfort, but remembering the purpose it serves in allowing the ground to rest, allowing that which is bad to diminish and die allowing us to see the wonder of new life springing out as the miracle that it is, God’s yearly re-creation springing into life.

I hope you can guess where I am going with this and the parallels it shows in our individual lives. At times as we face times of pain, uncertainty and loss, we are reminded to remain in the Lord (Jn 15.4), to call on Him (Ps. 105.1), to allow Him to be our refuge and our strength, our very present help in times of trouble (Ps 46.1).

God has promised to never leave us or forsake us (Heb 13:5), that promise is most essential in times of distress and struggle where we grasp onto the Lord with both hands. Unable to see a way forward we need to lean on Him, to trust Him and ask Him to guide us and to take us through to the other side.

We also want to move forward, to be able to put those past hurts behind us and to move on. God can also use times of pain to deal with issues in our lives, to root out our insecurities and to strengthen our faith. It is amazing that often those with the deepest, unshakeable faith have been through the worst places, the greatest pain the hardest circumstances, yet trusting in God they have found help, support, strength and purpose for the road ahead. God uses every circumstance in our lives to guide and direct us, to draw us back to Himself and to move us on.
This year we are in the book of Mark and this past month we have been looking at new wine and new wineskins (Mk 2:22), this may be a new concept to you and it maybe that you weren’t quite sure of the illustration or the application. Please let me give you what I have come to understand of this. Each of us when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour are made new and receive the Holy Spirit, but over time we can come to be stuck in our ways, we can become hard, even brittle, like an old wineskin that takes on a form that it cannot change. The picture of the new wineskin I believe is God reminding us that He is in the business of making things new, even us, He wants us to remain supple and flexible, ready to extend and grow. God alone can remove the old and make us new, just look at Ezekiel where God says “I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Eze 36:26) – This is the same concept, God restoring that growth potential in His people. The question is, are we willing to allow God to restore us? Are we willing to allow God to take us out of our rut, our comfortable place and allow our will to conform to the shape of His – the new wineskin- God has an abundance to fill us with, He longs to fill us with the new wine, this filling is the Holy Spirit, it is the life and freedom of the kingdom of God allowing us to achieve our full spiritual potential for God. It is pressing on towards the goal, it is pressing in to see what God has for us, it is actively seeking the face of God (Ps 27:8), it is us working out our motto text for the coming year, it is preparing our hearts and our lives to be “living stones... built into a spiritual house”, this is us becoming “a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Pe. 2:5)

My deep heart longing and my daily prayer for each one of you is that you would seek after God first, that you would ask God for areas that need to be worked on, the hard, brittle areas, and that you would be seeking God to re-create these areas to make them supple and open to bend according to His revealed will, what He is saying both to us as individuals and together as a fellowship.
What is the purpose of this you may ask? Why do I need to bother? I am happy just the way I am... The purpose of this openness to the transforming power of God is for you as an individual, for us as a fellowship and for the world as this new wine pours out of us into the lives of others.

Think what this renewal could mean to you, deepen your walk with God, deepen your reliance and your expectations of God to work in you and through you.

For the fellowship it is part of sharing God’s love throughout each and every person, removing feelings of isolation and loneliness, and knowing our place both in God is secure and our place within the church. Please make every effort to reach out and include others, those on the edge as well as those in the centre!

I also want to encourage you to spend time with God to ask if the picture that Helen shared about a deep wound has any significance in your life. Please ask the Lord to show you areas that are hurts that remain in you, and bring them to the prayer ministry team, to myself or Alan or anyone you trust to help you through this. Only in exposing, and treating these deep hurts can we begin to achieve unity in purpose and vision otherwise these hurts create a blockage and a hindrance to us becoming one, the issue is perhaps one of trust.

We need to trust one another, I need to trust that what you say is in my best interest and you need to trust that what I share is to build you up and encourage you. Without trust our sharing seems to be conspiring and judging and causes even more hurt. So let’s get these things sorted out. God is on the move, let’s move forward with Him!

With love and blessings in our Lord Jesus Christ,