LENT: FASTING?

MARCH 2013

PEEBLES BAPTIST CHURCH

MAGAZINE

see Lent as a way to prepare with joy and grace as we journey towards the hope of Christs resurrection. Greg Wasinski

Please visit: http://wasinski.com/?page_id=1522

I can see snow falling outside my window as I write this. The last week has felt bitterly cold, and despite the occasional day where the sun shines brightly, it still feels decidedly winter-like. Yet the approach of Easter, even if it does come unusually early this year, brings with it the promise of Spring, and new growth, and warmth, and all sorts of great stuff like that. The season of Lent sometimes feels equally cold and cheerless by comparison to the great celebration of Easter that it leads up to. But thats part of the point. It gives us a chance to reflect on where weve come from. Without the promise of Easter, our lives would be cold, and cheerless, and hopeless. Dont just ignore the cold - think about what God has done to break into our lives and keep his promises. Speaking of new growth, were hopefully going to be preparing for some very real, very literal growth on the church land soon. As we continue to think and pray about Gods vision for that land, and the idea of developing a community garden on it (the Kings Meadow!), we really want to hear your ideas and questions. If you havent already taken a paper leaf, grab one from Lindsey this Sunday and put down your thoughts. (You can write on as many leaves as you like!) A final word about prayer and fasting. You may be aware that were trying a variety of different ways to explore and encourage prayer this year, both individually and together as a body. We were looking at the spiritual discipline of Fasting last Sunday (catch it on the website if you missed it), and Lent seems like a great time to give that a go! So our prayer method for March is going to be linked to fasting. You can do this however you want, but heres a simple suggestion to try: fast for just one meal during the first week in March, two (consecutive) meals in the second week, and so on. Youll get hungry - thats the point! So turn that hunger to God...

If youd like to know more about what our friends in the other Peebles churches are doing, you can find some of their own magazines online:

Ian

Old Parish Church: topcopmag.wordpress.com St Peters: www.stpeterspeebles.org.uk/netmagazine.php St Josephs: www.stjosephschurch.org.uk/?Home%3A:Current_Newsletter The St Andrews Leckie magazine isnt online yet, but theyre working on it...

How many times are you sent away from church on a Sunday with homework? If you asked anyone at Peebles Baptist Church that question a few months ago, they might have said, never, or, very rarely and I dont think we would have been alone in this. Well, Ian, our pastor, seems to have made it his new years resolution to not allow us to not work at our relationship with GOD and rightly so. Part of this is being tackled by providing us with memory verses to remember and thus armour ourselves for our every day and every situation as a Christian. Memory verses?, I hear you say with puzzlement, surely they are a thing of the past!. Well, not ours, and it is amazing how much sense it makes to do it! Also, interspersed throughout some Sundays this year, we are following a series called BibL to get to grips with the basics of what the bible is all about. But, the real challenge to us all is to take part in the Essential 100 (E100) bible reading plan. E100 is a resource based around 100 essential bible readings (50 from the Old Testament and 50 from the New Testament). The aim is to provide an overall understanding of the bible message from Genesis to Revelation. Each study follows a five-step format: Pray Read Reflect Apply Pray. What makes E100 different as a church tool, is that it is largely a take-home project. Instead of Ian doing the hard work for us, we are taking the time to nourish our relationship with GOD by investigating his WORD for ourselves, pondering on it and praying in response. After all, a relationship doesnt really work if you ask someone else to stand in for you! We are not being sent off without any backing or encouragement there will be Sundays on which we all come together to focus on our journey through the E100 readings and to encourage each other to keep going. We would like to encourage you to join us in this journey if you have not already done so. The books are 4 only and are available on Sundays, just ask whoever is on the door. We only need to do two or three of the readings a week to work through the book in a year, and you can join in at any point. Hopefully, after the 100th reading, we will not just have a better understanding of the bibles message but also a living relationship with GOD. Lets grow as individuals and as a church. My prayer is that over the next few months the Bible and its timeless message will come alive for you as never before. But dont let these 100 readings be the end of your journey in the Bible. Let Essential 100 become the beginning of a lifetime adventure of meeting God daily in the Bible and Prayer. Now lets get started! Whitney T Kuniholm (author, Essential 100)

Church Diary

The Ladies group (Ladies who Lunch) and the mens group meet monthly. If you would like to put your name forward for the next event or if you would like more information on what is happening in March, please see Kim (for the Ladies group) and Frank Drummond (for the mens group). Diversity (a group for women of all ages), are going to the Place to Potter this month Thursday 21 March. Please give your name to Lindsey or Morag if you would like to come. Small groups meet every week on a Tuesday (Peebles South) and Wednesday (Peebles North and Blythe Bridge) night at 7.30 pm. Wednesday 6 March, 10.00 am Deacons meeting. Sunday 10 March, 3.00 pm Vickys Tearoom. Tuesday 12 March, 10.00 am Open Doors group. Wednesday 13 March, 3.00 pm Dovecot service. Thursday 14 March, 7.30 pm Mens group. Saturday 23 March, 3.30 pm Messy Church. Friday 29 March, 7pm - Good Friday communion & reflection Sunday 31 March, 6.30 pm Big Issue on Sundays.

VICKYS TEAROOM Sunday 10 March

Please pray for the well-being and enjoyment of everyone involved!

We have a Believers Baptism service coming up on Sunday April 21st. Baptism is one of the things that Jesus commanded his followers to do. Its not a sign of having attained some deep level of spiritual maturity, but rather its the first thing were supposed to do when we start following Jesus, as an outward sign of our commitment to him. Its also a really exciting time for the whole church family! If you would like to be baptised, or if you want to know more about what baptism is and what is involved, please speak to Ian or one of the deacons. If youve already been baptised as a believer and would like to find out about becoming a member of Peebles Baptist Church, please also ask. For surely you know that when we were baptized into union with Christ Jesus, we were baptized into union with his death. By our baptism, then, we were buried with him and shared his death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from death by the glorious power of the Father, so also we might live a new life. Romans 6:3-5

Prayer Diary

Thank God for who He is, the true and living God. Pray for Syria, that God will intervene mightily and restore peace to that land, and all people in countries in the throes of conflict who are experiencing terror, injury and displacement. Pray for the community garden, that, through the work and through meeting folks in the community, friendships will be formed and God will get the Glory. Continue to pray for the folks in our fellowship who are poorly and find it difficult to come to church. Remember in your prayers the journey we are taking as a church through E100. Pray that it will impact positively upon the lives of those in our church, as individuals and as a church family. Remember May Nicholson and the work of Preshal Trust. Pray that they will be enabled to continue the good work that has gone on in the past and that they will be given the courage to continue. (Mathew 11:28) (Mathew 11:29) (Mark 2: 14) Please pass prayer requests to Wilma Wintour

Jesus said, Come to me Learn from me Follow Me

World Day of Prayer service Led by Gillian Hughes Friday 1 March, starting at 2 pm Leckie Memorial Church.

On Saturday 16th March I will be running in the D33 Ultra Marathon to raise money for the Peebles Foodbank. The D33 is a 33 mile marathon from Aberdeen to Banchory and back again! As some of you may know I have run a couple of marathons now but am still a comparative newcomer so will run with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. The Peebles Foodbank is a real opportunity for meaningful practical and spiritual outreach in our town. It is a way for us to show God's love for all His people and will be a real Christian witness in Peeblesshire, in addition to meeting a very tangible physical and financial need in our community. Anyone who would like to sponsor me can do so on my Just Giving page (https://www.justgiving.com/BarryHughes4) or by contacting me on 01896 831197 or gill_baz@hotmail.com Many thanks, Barry Hughes Messy Church Peebles Over 100 adults and children came to the first ever Peebles Messy Church in January. Our theme was creation. We glued, stuck, coloured and made puppets, windmills and big pictures of animals. We hunted for treasure. We sang songs, led by a great band and heard about God creating the world. And we shared dinner together. Everyone (including helpers!) went home with a smile on their face. So one down, lots more to go... Messy Church Peebles is going to be a regular monthly event. Dates for your diary are Saturday 23rd March, 20th April, 25th May and 15th June from 3.30pm 5.30pm in the Victoria Park Centre, Kingsmeadows Road, Peebles. Messy Church provides an opportunity for people of all ages to worship together, have fun together and to encounter God through hospitality, friendship, stories and worship. How can you help? Please continue to pray for Messy Church Peebles for the practicalities and the people organising it. Pray that it would be Christ-centred and enable those on the fringe or outside church at the moment to encounter Jesus. Please invite families to come along to Messy Church although we have put up posters and have information in the Peeblesshire News and Peebles Life, we know it is most effective when people are directly invited to Messy Church. If you are free on any of the Messy Church dates, then we would welcome more help with setting up, crafts, food and clearing up. Please get in touch with Barry Hughes (07747 565397 or gill_baz@hotmail.com) or speak to Ian.

Christian Aid Week: 1218 May 2013 The Christian Aid theme this year is Bite Back at Hunger. One in eight people will go to bed hungry tonight. This is not just a problem it is an injustice. Christian Aid therefore aims both to feed the hungry and to address the underlying issues. Not all of us can actively help in this struggle, but we can all help to run events and donate money in Peebles. A Charitable Art? This year we are planning to hold a Christian Aid art auction. Pictures will be available to view at the Eastgate during Christian Aid week, and to buy at a set price during the week or by auction on the evening of Saturday 18 May. In order to help with the planning it would be really useful to have some idea of the pictures we are likely to receive. So, if you have anything, from an Old Master in the attic to an original work of art, that you would be willing to donate, please could you e-mail Helen Holt (helenholt.peebles@gmail.com) with a brief description and suggested price. Door-to-door collections. We need volunteers to deliver and collect envelopes in May and to help distribute bags of envelopes to collectors at the end of April. The money raised in this way accounts for well over half of the total, so is a vital part of the fund-raising effort. (Contact Sue Isherwood on 01721 721252) We will, as always, need home-baking for the coffee morning and market stall, and seedlings/plants for the plant stall. Finally, if you have any new fund-raising ideas or are willing to help in any way, please contact Helen Holt at the address above. Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter? ( Is 58:6,7)

Come and engage all five senses in this unique preparation for Holy Week!
One of Jesus' last acts before His death was the celebration of Passover the meal we remember today as the Lords Supper. It was important enough to Him that, with only hours left before He gave His life on our behalf, He participated in this oldest of Jewish festivals. But what was so important about this meal to Jesus, and whats the relevance of an ancient Jewish festival for Christians today? Christ in the Passover shows the link between the ancient Festival of Redemption and Christ as the Lamb of God - you will never forget it! Using Scripture as well as visual items to walk through a Jewish Passover Seder meal, we will weave the story of the Exodus together with the life, death and resurrection of Christ. The words Jesus spoke in the upper room come alive as each traditional Hebraic item is carefully explained by our host for the evening, Barry Barnett of Jews for Jesus. Peebles Churches Together invite you to bring your family and friends to celebrate the Passover on Wednesday 27th March. The evening begins at 7.00pm and includes a full meal. Tickets are 6 for adults and 3 for children, available from all the Peebles churches.

Other events . . .
With Chris Duffett, president of the Baptist Union of great Britain, jovial evangelist and founder of The Light Project whose vision is that every person in the UK should have an opportunity to connect with the good news of Jesus. More information from Ian

Slavic Gospel Association: Equipping Gods people to reach their nations with Tomasz Chylka (Poland). 6.00 pm on Saturday 9 March, Galashiels Baptist Church. Refreshments will be served from 5.00 pm. Contact: Rev A Hembling (01896) 759162 or Mark Foster (0151) 334 9841. Michael Harcus in Concert: 6.30 pm on Sunday 17 March, Galashiels Baptist Church. Entrance is free, but there will be an opportunity to donate. Michael is a singer/songwriter from the Orkney islands, and although he may not be widely known, his music can be compared to Ian White (not Gray). It would be great to support this new Christian musical talent. For more details, please visit the churchs website (www.galashielsbaptistchurch.org.uk) or telephone (01896) 756239.

BMS Church Partners Scheme At the church members meeting in January, we discussed a new proposal from BMS, which is to change the way that local churches partner with mission workers overseas. BMS Church Partners is a new way that we can sign up in 3 ways: with people, regions or ministries around the world. We have the option of choosing up to three people and receive regular updates from them, or we can choose a region (Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East/North Africa), and receive updates from three mission workers in that area. Lastly we could choose a particular ministry BMS suggests church, development, education, health, justice and leadership ministries, and then we would be linked with three mission workers who are working in that particular ministry. The plan is that in any event, we stay linked to Ann and David Macfarlane in Reggio, Italy, and in fact we can read their latest prayer letter in this edition. Could you all please consider whether the new proposal from BMS is something that we would like to link with here at Peebles Baptist and could you please give your feedback to Lindsey, who is acting as the BMS link for the church. If you have no particular feedback, that is fine, and a decision will be made, however if you do have something to say, please can you feedback during the next month, by the end of March.

Prayer Diary
Ann and David MacFarlane (Reggio, Italy) We hope you all have had a joyous Christmas and a good start to the New Year. We have not stopped since our return after my hip operation in September. It has been the busiest period for us in our three years here at Reggio. It has also been the most fruitful period with four people coming to Christ. The addition of Davide (the football manager) and his wife Cristina whom I mentioned in our last prayer letter has given the fellowship a real spiritual boost. As we said last time he also brought his assistant coach Lorenzo and wife Marianna who were converted shortly before coming to Reggio. Three weeks ago the teams physiotherapist Antonio and his wife came forward for salvation after I made an altar call. Also saved that day was a young woman (Maria Grazia) who has a beauty parlour just round the corner from the church. Ann and Christina had been talking to her about the Lord and invited her to come to the church. Previous to them we had a young Filipino boy Roland (15) who came to the Lord at the youth fellowship meeting. Harvey has been to see a brain specialist in Verona all financed by Davide (football manager) and his friends. We are praying and hoping that he can do something. We are still praying for a divine miracle and in fact we prayed with Harvey anointing him with oil on Sunday past. Bianca Maria bravely fought to the last with cancer and she is now with the Lord. Thank you for all who were praying for her. God is good and we are rejoicing

with all he is doing among us here at Reggio. Our church is growing numerically and spiritually. We are one of the churches within our union that are going against the norm. At our Union assembly we heard the sad news that the union is not growing and in fact their numbers are diminishing. The financial situation is in serious difficulty as the churches contributions are not meeting the unions needs. Our Action Team has been with us now for three months and they are doing really well. They have been a great encouragement to our young people and to all the church and have applied themselves unreservedly in all that they have been asked to do. We thanks BMS and the work they do in training and getting these young people out to us and working all over the world. The only thing that they have not been involved with as yet is our work with the young African men at Rosarno. Lucia, as you know, is there every week teaching Italian and coordinating the food, clothing and bedding that comes from the various churches and other associations. The chaos that I was telling you about last time with the arrest of the whole town council still remains and in fact has got even worse. The streets are filled with refuse that is not getting collected as it should. There were over 30 fires dealt with one night as people were setting fire to the mountains of refuse. It has been revealed officially now in the local papers that the Maria was controlling the supermarkets and the slot machine shops that are many in Reggio. Today our basement hall was flooded with dirty water coming from the drains that have not been cleaned for two years. We phoned the council only to be told that there is very little we can do other than calling out a private company to clean out the councils main drains which are 200 feet away from us. We are in the UK on home assignment later this year from 10th May to 3rd June 2013. Ann and David. BMS World Mission, PO Box 49, Didcot, OX11 8XA

Services: March 2013

Sunday 3 March Communion Servers: Wilma Wintour, Lindsey Gray Stewards: Jacqueline Wilson, Wilma & Willie Wintour, Flowers: Janet Smith Teas: Helen Henderson Transport and Setting up: Team Two Children: Rab Bramhall, Carlyn McCall, Christine Drummond Sunday 10 March Stewards: Hazel Hoggan, Kirstin Gray Flowers: Christine Drummond Teas: Helen C Transport and Setting up: Team One Children: Christine Drummond, Pat Hamilton Sunday 17 March Communion Servers: Linda Bell, Janet Smith Stewards: Linda Bell, Gordon Craig Flowers: Hazel Hoggan Teas: Vi Brown Transport and Setting up: Team Two Children: Bill Jacobs, Janlyn Townley, Kirstin Gray
Laying Communion Table:

Jacqueline Wilson
Services in Victoria Park Centre, unless otherwise indicated
Pastor: Ian Gray

07881 518854 pastor@peeblesbaptistchurch.org

Services: March 2013 cont.

Sunday 24 March - after Joint Palm Sunday service and procession from Cross Kirk Stewards: Vi Brown, Frank Drummond Flowers: Margaret C0wan Teas: Douglas McCall Transport and Setting up: Team One Children: Jenny Jacobs, Carlyn McCall, Wilma Wintour Good Friday 29 March Communion & Reflection - 7pm in the Victoria Park Centre Sunday 31 March - Easter Day Stewards: Margaret C0wan, Jacqueline Wilson Flowers: Wilma Wintour Teas: Margaret C0wan Transport and Setting up: Team Two Children: Rab Bramhall, Pat Hamilton, Christine Drummond
Transport:

Team 1 Margaret Cowan, Jackie, Frank Drummond Team 2 Lindsey Gray, Douglas McCall, Margaret Cowan
Setting up:

Team 1 Callum Gray, David, Frank Drumond, Janet Smith, Team 2 Janet Smith, Bill Jacobs, Jacqueline Wilson
Secretary: Treasurer: Christine Drummond 01721 722062 Liz Keiro 01721 730217

Website: http://peeblesbaptistchurch.org

Articles for the magazine

We would like the magazine to be as informative and relevant as possible. We aim to provide news about Peebles Baptist Church, its wider concerns and involvement, and Peebles Churches Together. If you have anything you feel you could provide a regular report about, or something you feel should be included in the magazine one month, a Christian book review, a report on an event etc., please do get in touch with us at magazine@peeblesbaptistchurch.org. All articles should be sent to this email address by the 12th of every month. If you do not have internet access or if you think you might have a problem meeting the deadline one month, please dont let that put you off. Speak to Morag Bramhall on a Sunday to see how best you can supply something. We would love to have you involved in this project and enhance our church community. We also hope to have a section each month for anyone who would like to share a response to the E100 readings. This only needs to be a couple of sentences long. So, please share!

This months eco tip Pats corner

Adam and the frog: Adam had spent all day in the garden naming the many different creatures. But he was beginning to notice that he was lonely for human companionship. He shared his loneliness with the last creature he named, the frog. Adam asked the frog if it had any idea on how to solve his loneliness. To Adams surprise, the frog opened its mouth and said "Rib-it!" ....... and the rest was history. Hope this makes you smile. love Pat xx
This year, Fairtrade fortnight runs from Monday 25 February to Sunday 10 March. This is a chance to celebrate all things fairtrade and spread the word on what it is all about. So, this month, choose one product that you regularly buy and start buying its fairtrade equivalent instead. And, of course, stick with it once the month is over.
step.fairtrade.org.uk