30 Northumberland Square | North Shields | NE30 1PW Weekly Update #235 – 2nd February 2025
Epiphany 4
Hello again everyone, from John.
Last Sunday we were reminded by Rev. Firth, that the previous week had been ‘Week of Prayer for Christian Unity’. There does not seem much made of that locally but during that week, several of us united with people from St. Andrews’ Monkseaton, and possibly other churches, in giving thanks for the life of John Goodfellow; and the following day, some of us united with folk from Cullercoats Methodist Church in giving thanks for the life of our friend Lynn. We united in the passing of others. On 27th January, we shared in the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination and concentration camp; again, remembering the passing of others but this time we prayed that such events will never happen again in our world. This, despite the fact that over the recent decades, the world has seen many attempts to ethnically cleanse groups of people from societies around the world. I think of several African countries, Yugoslavia, the Far East and the Middle East as some examples. As God’s church we give thanks for the love that we receive from those around us, we give thanks for His love to us, as we know it and as we read about it in the scriptures. In 1967 John Lennon wrote a song entitled ‘All you need is love’, it was shared via the first world-wide satellite broadcast and became a world-wide hit. Brian Epstein, the band’s manager, said of it: “It was an inspired song and they really wanted to give the world a message. The nice thing about it is that it cannot be misinterpreted. It is a clear message saying that love is everything”. God gave us a similar message over 2000 years ago, how sad that the world still cannot be united by that wonderful promise. Perhaps we should remind them?
Image by NoName_13 from Pixabay
Prayer
Father God, we know you love us, and that we should love you and our fellow-mankind. Help us to remember your love as we go through each day, meeting and talking, sharing our lives with others whom you love. Help us to pray for those who don’t know your love, may we share it with them in some way, through You. Amen.
Worship Sunday 2nd February
10.30 a.m. led by Revd Dr. Trevor Jamison, focusing on Church as “one body, many parts”.Messy Church at 3.00pm, all are welcome.
Livestream of morning services from Saint Columba’s
To watch the morning service live, catch up with it later in the week, or view previous services,
Sunday 9th February will be led by Trevor Jamison followed by Tea, Coffee, Cake, and ‘Growing Church’ meeting. Following our 2 enjoyable and positive meetings of 2024, at our first 2025 meeting today, we’ll first recap on where we have got so far. Then we’ll make a map of our connections with others, and identify which are the church events where we are most confident to invite someone to come along.
Bible readingsJeremiah 1: 4-10 – The Lord ‘knows’ Jeremiah and appoints him as His prophet over nations and kingdoms to do His work.
Psalm 71: 1- 6 – The Psalmist says, the Lord is my refuge, my hope, my confidence. I have always relied on You, I will praise you forever.
1 Corinthians 13: 1-11 – All our gifts and talents are nought without the gift of love, the greatest gift.
St. Luke 4: 21-30 – The people speak well of Jesus until He speaks plainly to them, then they turn against Him.
Reflection on the Readings
Why do we go to church? Is it to hear how good God is and how much He loves us and will look after us? The first reading reminds us how well he knows us, or at least how well he knew Jeremiah, do we believe he knows us that well? He appoints him to do His work (v5) promising to always be there to rescue him and give him the words to say (v8). Have we been appointed to do His work? Perhaps we are like the Psalmist, relying on God to get us out of scrapes, to be our refuge and rock (v4), to be the one we turn to in hope for support in difficult times. And, because of this, we are very happy to sing our praises to Him. In our church there are many who have tasks allotted to them, stewards, organist, elders, tech. team, minister, secretary and treasurer; not to mention all those who work in the Care Teams, but why do they do that work? Paul’s letter indicates that if anything is done without love, then it is nothing (v2,3). That is love of each other, the church and of the triune God. Why else would we do all this work you say; how often is it because no-one else offers to do it and we know it needs doing, so we grudgingly do it, but it works because we are actually doing it out of love. What else needs to be done?
In the synagogue Jesus addresses the Jewish men and they were amazed at His words (v22). But then He started to tell them truths that they did not wish to hear so they turned against Him and intended to kill Him, but they couldn’t. He walked through the crowd and went on His way (v30). How often have you heard words that you did not want to hear from the pulpit? Does it turn you against the preacher or the scripture? God speaks to us through the readings, songs/hymns, prayers and the spoken messages. We learn about His love for us, and about the salvation promised now, and in the future, and, in love, we hear about our failings and how to rectify them.
Discussion Group – 2nd week of meetings entitled ‘Love lets go of power’
Our next conversation, based on Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians, takes place this coming week on the theme of “One Body, Many Parts” Monday afternoon at 2.00 pm at St Andrew’s URC, Monkseaton; Monday evening at 7.15pm on Zoom, and Thursday night at St Columba’s at 7.15 pm.
For Document on Session Two please see link below.
Change of details – to keep church records up-to-date, if you change your address, telephone numbers, or email address, please let the church secretary know, thank you.
Next Update – Sunday 9th February. Andrew will edit the next Update. To get your information in for that date, please have it with him by Tuesday 4th February.
Keeping in Touch
You can contact your Elder, the Minister, or Church Secretary.