And yesterday, Pastor Ed set out a challenge for all of us: grow by 20 in a week! We’re putting an extra 20 chairs out next Sunday in both services, and it’s everyone’s job to get them filled! Of course, it’s not just about filling seats… but every chair represents someone important to God, who He loves and who He died for.

So, who can you invite to church? Who has God placed in your sphere of influence so that you can have an impact in their life? Who is God placing on your heart even as you read this?

As Pastor Ed said yesterday, God has got opportunities lined up for each and every one of us this week. Opportunities to help connect people to Christ! All we need to do is look for those opportunities and take them! Let’s see the chairs packed and the curtains taken down.

See you Sunday!

P.S. Use the hashtag #20ExtraChairs on Twitter this week to spread the word!

Here’s a quick recap of Pastor Ed’s main points -

The Local Church should be -

1. The home for everyone. The doors of the church should be open for all and everybody! (Gal 3:28; 1 Jn 4:21)
2. The hospital for the injured. The church is not for the healthy, but for the sick! (Lk 10, Jam 5, Acts 3)
3. The forest to grow in. Get in community, and get planted! (Ps 92:12)
4. The palace of blessing. If you are a Christian, you are an adopted son or daughter of the Most High God! The palace is yours!
5. The engine room of war. We are a community mobilised for spiritual warfare! (Eph 6:10)

That’s a LOT of amazing truth! Keep coming back for frequent updates and info on church life.

Be blessed!

WE ARE IN! Today we received the final go-ahead on the planning application to turn Fourfields House into Ribble Valley Church! So, starting on Sunday, we will be holding our regular Sunday services there at the normal times of 10:30am and 6pm.

Are you free tonight? If so, why not help us move! We are meeting at the High School at 6pm to bring across all the gear in time for Sunday. And we’ll need help tomorrow to get everything ready, so if you’re free, please come join us from 10am.

Talk about just in the nick of time! We are in such an exciting season, so make sure you’re in church this week for the very first services to be held in our new building. We can also announce special guest speaker Richard Scholes will be with us in the morning to bring the Word.

You don’t want to miss it, because we’ll also be making some VERY exciting announcements about the next few months. Don’t miss this opportunity to invite friends, family and neighbours as we step into this amazing season that God has for us!

Praise God!
Ed & Michele

As you know, we have recently been approved planning permission to hold worship services at our new building! There were a few conditions we needed to meet, and after working with an architect we believe we have fulfilled those conditions. A big thank you to everyone who has been helping practically, praying, donating items (which you can still do! See the list here). We are still awaiting a response from the council for these conditions. This means we will not be moving yet!

So, at least for the next three Sundays, we will be meeting at our regular venue; Walton-Le-Dale High School, hoping to be able to move our services in to the new building by the end of August. This leaves us a few extra weeks to prepare and kick off the Autumn with style!

We’re in a very exciting season! So make sure that you’re in church every Sunday for God-encounters, powerful messages and opporunities to hang out with great people!

Be blessed

Ed & Michele

Please take a look:

Parent and Baby Area
- A High Chair
- Floor cover
- A changing table
- Changing mat
- Toilet accessories box/container
- Child table x 2
- Washbasin stool
- Stair gate
- Children’s books, book case
- Soft floor mat
- Blanket throw
- Scatter cushions
- Larger cushions
- Wall canopy
- Storage containers
- Children’s/tots toys

Tots and Explorers
- Soft play area toys
- Crash mats
- Kids sofas / bean bags
- White board
- Kids tables and chairs
- Craft materials
- Storage units / containers
- Large LEGO
- Computer
- Educational jigsaws
- Kids toys

Kids
- Storage
- Chairs and tables
- Bean bags
- Cool floor lights
- Whiteboard, pens and eraser
- Games equipment (eg foam balls, plastic balls, indoor cricket set)
- Gazebo

Youth
- Table Tennis table and equipment
- Uni-hockey set
- TVs
- Decorating equipment and paint
- Kettle, mugs, Toaster, Glasses
- Board games
- Basket Ball and hoop
- Beanbags / seating
- Note books, pens
- Football nets
- Gazebo
- Fairy lights
- Craft resources

Café
- Cake stands / holders / covers

Maintenance
- Mower (ideally Petrol, but electric would be good)
- Strimmer (ideally Petrol, but electric would be good)
- Compost Bins
- Spades & Shovels
- Shears
- Pitchforks
- Branch loppers
- Rakes (normal & leaf)
- Brooms
- Buckets
- Secateurs
- Lawn Edgers
- Mattocks
- Small Hand Tools
- Bin liners & Garden Refuge Bags

Other
- Please if you have anything else you feel may be useful please let us know, all is very appreciated by all of us!

We are so grateful for your generosity! You can either bring the items to church on a Sunday, or into the office on Mon, Tue, Wed or Fri (closed Thursdays). If you’re struggling to bring them in, get in touch and we can arrange pick up. Please call in advance before you drop anything off! And finally, please be aware that we can only take so much – we will try to update the list as items are donated so that we don’t get a lot of multiple donations of stair gates etc. and have to turn down the gift.

Yesterday, we began our Healthy Home series, discussing and learning from God’s Word what it means to have a healthy home and for the Church to be a home.

We heard two unbelievable messages from Pastor Ed and Andy Carter. You can download the audio here.

In Connect Groups over the next couple of weeks, we will be further discussing these topics and you will have much more opportunity to ask questions for the live Q&A. Once again, here are the details for how to ask a question -

Email to questions@ribblevalleychurch.net
Tweet us at @valley_church
Text us at 07760430115
Or fill out a paper slip in the Cafe on Sundays

We will attempt to answer EVERY question within the topic, so if we run out of time on the day, stay tuned here to read answers in the near future.

Why not ask a question now?

What a season we are in, Six Hot Weekends has been amazing, with each speaker bringing something timely and powerful into the life of our church. You can get all the podcasts here.

PLUS, we received the keys for our new offices last week. If you were in church yesterday, you had a small sneak peak at the potential of this building. Stay tuned for more details as and when they come.

And as for yesterday, we had a fantastic time in church, celebrating all God has done over Six Hot Weekends, seeing record attendance at the evening service, Skyping our team in Brazil and witnessing three people take the next step in their walk with Jesus by getting baptised. Amazing!

We thought you might like to watch the Six Hot Weekends Recap video again, so here it is!

As I was saying on Sunday in our services, we have found new office space… and potentially space for our church to gather and worship each Sunday as well. The planning application has been submitted and now I would ask that every person take time to pray for that process.

So, on the 26th July and the 2nd August, I’d like to encourage all Connect Groups to come together, pray and fast for what we believe will be the next big step in the history of our church. Pray that the process would be quick, smooth and that we would be able to move our services into the new building as soon as possible.

So what does it all mean? Well, yesterday we received the keys and signed the lease agreement, which means we will move our base of operations there at the end of the week. This means that there is a LOT to do! So, as well as praying for this project, I want to ask everyone to DO something about it and muck in!

If you have any time at all this week, starting today (Wednesday 5th) at 9:30am to help get the place ready, we would hugely appreciate your help. Here’s how you can get in touch to volunteer -

email volunteer@ribblevalleychurch.net with the subject “Count Me In”

Text to 07760 430115

Tweet @Valley_Church #CountMeIn

Thanks in advance, church really wouldn’t be church without YOU!

- Ed & Michele

I admit, I’m an information junkie… I listen to around 15-20 podcasts a week (ranging from 30mins to over an hour each) and read a similar amount of blogs. There’s great benefit to being a learner, a reader, a listener… and there’s also some danger. The Bible says that “Knowledge puffs up” (1 Cor 8:1), so we need to be careful to keep on learning but without allowing that new knowledge to make us proud.

So if you ever listen to podcasts (talking about podcasts from another church than your home church), or read blogs regularly, the points below will be vital for you:

1) If you get more excited about listening to a Brian Houston/Joyce Meyer/Mark Driscoll message than a message from your own pastor in your own church, you have an issue.

It’s so important to remember that even these globally-recognised communicators are still speaking in a local context, to a specific group of people, within the mandate God has given them. They’re not primarily speaking to you in your situation. You are in your local church for a reason, under that leadership for a reason and God wants you there and the likelihood is that you probably need to hear what your pastor has to say.

2) If you like it when you hear preachers bad mouth other churches, preachers, Christian groups, you have a SERIOUS problem.

Now, there are instances when pastors have to protect the church from false teachers, but when anyone publicly attacks a fellow believer based on anything short of blatant heresy, they’re out of order. So often, believers attack fellow believers based on secondary issues and that is shocking. We’re on the same team!

3) If you only ever listen to or read the perspective you already have, you are missing out.

Proverbs says that wisdom is found in many counsellors. Why? Because no one person has all the answers, or all the correct perspectives. If you are going to listen to podcasts or read blogs regularly, it’s important to understand that whoever you listen to, I don’t care how famous they are, they still don’t have all the answers! What one preacher says to do in his context, in his city, to his people might not necessarily be the right thing to do where you are.

4) If you are listening to others and reading other people’s blogs more than seeking God for yourself by reading His Word and talking with Him, you’re trusting man, not God.

It’s so easy to be caught up in the information available today that we miss the revelation God has for us waiting in His Living Word, the Bible. A podcast is no substitute for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. A podcast is definitely no substitute for being in a local church. I’m not saying it can’t be a part of your personal Christian discipleship, but don’t let it be the main thing.

Having said all that, I’d love to know what podcasts/blogs you tune in to each week… Feel free to leave a comment and let me know…

- Dave