Prayer focus for the coming months

 

Facilities

We’ve been blessed for many years with the use of St Mary’s School, and we hope this will be the case for some time to come, but the elders feel it is right to seek the Lord on the possibility of a permanent building, to enable us to further the work of New Connexions.

 

Some prayer points for this are:-

 

1. That the Lord would make it clear to us about whether we should be seeking to build or find a long term agreement with another organisation in the area?
2. Pray the Lord may provide a piece of land with the area we've been called to, according to His will and purpose.
3. To provide financial assistance for the work
4. To raise a team within our church who are dedicated to the future of the building work
5. Guidance on how the building could, not only glorify him, but to serve the local community.

 

Youth

A number within the Church have been challenged by our need to reach the youth of the area.

 

Some prayer points for this are:-

 

• A suitable venue may be found for us to meet.
• We have some male volunteers to help run this project but we also need some female leaders.
• In the running of this youth group there will be times and activities when we tell them about God and we would pray for clear inspiration on the content and leading of these ‘epilogue’ sessions.

• A sound programme and ideas will be needed, as we obviously can’t rely on the youngsters turning up and organising themselves!
• The Lord’s provision of equipment for this venture.

Please do pray for the work of New Connexions and use these prayer points in Housegroup, Prayer Meetings and personal prayer to specifically seek the Lord on these key points.

Because God loves us, He corrects us...

Here's the link to the Sermon: God loves us and corrects us

 Reading: Amos 3 

1. Who is God speaking to here?
2. Read through verses 3-6: what is the message in these 7 questions and answers?
3. Does God bring disasters? Discuss various the thoughts on this and draw a biblical conclusion.
4. Has God told us everything that will happen? (verse 7)
5. This passage is full of judgement, discuss
1. what had the people done?
2. was God's judgement fair, discuss why or why not?
6. How does this passage apply to our lives as a nation, a church and individuals today? or to put it another way - how ought this challenge us?  

God always hit's the bullseye!

Here's the link to the Sermon: God always hits the bulseye!

 Reading: Amos 1-2 

1.  If you were being interrogated by the "bible police", what could you tell them about Amos? i.e. who, when, what, where, why, how...
2. look at the pattern laid out in Amos' imagine what the original hearers of the message would have felt as the message unfolded?
3.  Describe the society in Amos' day; how does it compare to the UK today?
4. God will judge all nations and all people:
1. discuss what this means;
2. what responsibility do we have for shaping our society?
3. how does this impact us as individuals?
5. How does God judge believers compared to non believers? (Luke 12:48)
6. God cares about the attitude of our hearts, what wrong attitudes might we have and how can we encourage/challenge each other over these (in love!!)

 

An Active Faith

Here's the link to the Sermon: The Real Deal

 

Reading: James 1:22-25

 

1.    What is the difference between believing and doing?

2.    What is the consequence of professing faith but ignoring God’s word?

3.    The truth of the Bible is useless until it is obeyed (AW Tozer). Discuss this statement.

4.    What are the things our society believes are acceptable that God does not. How should we deal with these issues?

5.    Like many passages we discuss, this one is easy enough to talk about in general, however our verse for the year strikes at the very heart of our personal faith and our priorities – it challenges us with words like obedience, commitment and discipleship. In the sermon we mentioned a number of things, and there is an excerpt pasted below. Take a look at the excerpt, perhaps add other bullet points in, then discuss how important our individual attitude is when it comes to examining ourselves and why we should regularly examine our own lives:

So we need to be people who respond to God’s instructions. We need to examine our own lives. How? Well let’s be practical:

·        Is there a sin you need to confess? 

·        Do you need to stop ignoring a problem and admit it as such? God does not expect you to be perfect but He does want you to be honest.  We need to admit when we have fallen short of God’s standard. In what ways is God calling you to change your course? 

·        Is God pushing you to change a certain attitude or behaviour?

·        Does He want you to reach out to someone, to forgive something they’ve done wrong, or simply to give of yourself to show kindness?

·        Is God calling you to step out in faith?  Perhaps He is calling you to use your gifts more?

·        Maybe He wants you to mend a relationship?

·        Are you praying regularly with others in our church?

·        Perhaps He is calling you to make regular worship a priority…

The real test of a believer is how we respond to what God tells us to do.  The real test of faith is not what we say, but more what we do in response to what God says.