God has a dream for all of us. That we would know Him again intimately (1 Jn 5:13), that eternal life would be certain in our life (Jn 4:14), that we would be full of joy (Rom 15:31), full of peace in all situations (Phil 4:7), that we would follow His path so we would prosper (Jer 29:11-14), a life so full and so abundant (Jn 10:10), that we would be full of wisdom, insight and knowledge (James 1:5), fully equipped to achieve our dreams (1Cor 12:7) and filled with a power to do the impossible (Jn 14:12-Lk 18:27-Acts 1:8-Acts 2), to list but a few! God has a dream that our dreams, the desires of our hearts would come true (Ps 37:3-4). What an amazing thought!!
AND we as Church get to bring others into this place of encountering the God-dream too. You see, when you and I turn up the possibilities of heaven turn up too. All of us who are already in Christ are people who make dreams come true. This thought has transformed my heart for sharing my story of how Jesus has changed my life and telling people all that Jesus has done, may it do the same for you!!
Ps Ed
This is a guest blog post by Yovaan Ilangakoon, a volunteer on one of our most recent Community Action Team projects
I decided to volunteer for the CAT projects as I support the message behind it and what it stands for. Speaking to James Baker, we were to volunteer cleaning up gardens on a ‘something for nothing’ basis. This approach of reaching out to the community by showing God’s love by lending a helping hand with a very real need, rather than forcing ‘religion’ on people appealed to me.
I got to the church grounds early on Saturday and the instructions for the CAT project were clearly laid out by the project leader for the day. The volunteers were split into sub-teams, enabling everyone to have a specific role. After praying for some good Ribble Valley weather we were off!
A few weeks ago, on Easter Sunday, we announced the launch of Valley Church’s very first Extension Service in Wigan!. The service is going to begin on Sunday 30th September, at 2:30pm. Check out the announcement video!
Paul spends the more than 10% of his letter to the Colossians greeting people or sending greetings [Col 4: 7-18], and for most of us we quickly read the names through to finish the letter. However, they tell us something about Paul and how we should live!
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On Vision Sunday, Ps Ed announced that we would be starting midweek ministries, and we’d love to resource the team that are heading this up in any way possible! Below is a list of items that the toddler group would love to be able to use—if you have any of the items below, please consider donating them!
- Baby prop up cushions
- Car garage or car park
- Play cars
- Dinosaurs
- Wooden dolls house
- Duplo
- Wooden farm with animals
- Pirate ship
- Pushchair for doll(s)
- Dolls
- Dolls clothing
- Dressing up clothes
- Dressing up rail
- HappyLand sets (Early Learning Centre)
- World of Little People (Fisher Price)
- Medium inflatable pool
- Ball pool balls
- Brio
- Trains for brio
- Train table
- Large or medium storage boxes/crates/baskets
- Bean bags for seating
- Popoids
- Stikkle bricks
- Interstar
- Indoor slide
- Refreshment trays
- Baby push-along walker
- Pull-along toys
- Stand up toddler toy (ball run etc)
We are so grateful for your generosity! If you have any of these items and would like to donate them, fantastic! Leave a comment below, get in touch with us, or bring your items to church and speak to Sarah Yates. Also, if you have any other donations or toys that you think would be helpful, leave a comment or get in touch!
On the 17th February, the youth of Ribble Valley Church submitted questions related to sex, dating and relationships for a panel of people to answer. Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be posting some of those questions and answers here on The Latest…
Q – Why is lust wrong? And how do you know when it’s love and not lust?
Definitions are always tricky, but I think what this question is getting at is clear. When you get down to it, Lust is primarily selfish but Love is primarily selfless. Lust says “I want that and I’ll do whatever it takes to get it”, but Love ought to say “I love you so I will lay myself down for you and serve you!” That is the fundamental difference. Job 31:1 says “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look at a woman with lust” – we should follow this example.
Q – What do you say to a non-Christian when they tell you they want a relationship. Not having one may be bad for your friendship?
The Bible is clear that it is unhealthy and even dangerous to be connected to an unbeliever in that way. Paul says in the Bible don’t be ‘unequally yoked’ (2 Cor 6:14), which is the idea that a ‘yoke of oxen’ would plough a field together, and if they are unequally yoked, they would walk at different speeds and wouldn’t achieve a well-ploughed field. In the same way, when we connect ourselves to unbelievers in that kind of relationship we have to ask ourselves “where is this heading?”, with two different faith systems, two different worldviews, and two different authorities in your life, it is almost impossible to make that work over any period of time. If it may be bad for your friendship with that person to avoid a relationship now, it will certainly be disastrous for it in the long run to pursue one.
Q – How do you prioritise properly with a relationship, school & God? If you feel unstable, or are in a weak relationship with God, how is it best to cope with a relationship?
The answer is easy, actually making it happen isn’t so easy! The priority for someone in school needs to go like this – God, School, Relationship. When you have priorities set out correctly, you will find that other things tend to fall in place more easily. How do you do this? You might have to make some difficult decisions about laying some stuff down in your life to actively pursue your relationship with God (maybe less TV, less social time etc). Ultimately, if you are seriously struggling with it all, perhaps the relationship needs to wait till later…
Q – God wants us to have fun when having sex, why is it so wrong to sleep with a few people?
You are right! God does want us to have fun when having sex. The truth is this though – people with only one sexual partner for life have much more fun in sex than those who do it with multiple partners. For one, there’s no comparisons – nothing to measure up to, nothing to complain about because you’re both learning from scratch! In that environment, you can learn to enjoy sex more and more over a life time as you become a pro at it. Emotionally and spiritually the same thing applies. The more partners you have sex with, the more you are robbing yourself and a future spouse of intimacy. God is the designer of sex – he came up with the idea! It only makes sense to listen to Him when it comes to sex because He knows best in this area. And God says “one partner for life – that’s the best way!”
Objection 3 – How Can A Loving God Send People To Hell?
Okay, so today is one of the trickiest topics to address – “How can a God who is supposed to be all-loving send people to Hell? Surely the punishment doesn’t fit the crime? No matter what someone has done, eternal punishment seems far too much.”
Well, as with the previous objections we’ve discussed, there needs to be two major things considered here – the intellectual problem and the emotional problem. The intellectual problem is fairly simple, and should give you confidence to hold fast to these foundational truths of Christianity. However, nearly everyone has an emotional issue with these problems, so we need to address that too.
The contrast hit home as we came in to land at Manchester Airport and the captain address us over the tannoy “…the temperature in Manchester this morning is -5 degrees.” Minus 5, you’ve got to be kidding me! It was 32 degrees in Mumbai yesterday; that’s a 37 degree drop! But the extreme difference in temperature doesn’t come close the extreme difference in lifestyle between these two countries. In the UK, we feel hard done by if we merely have to demonstrate some patience in getting what we want. In Mumbai, kids come running at the promise of a boiled egg!
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Objection Two – How Can A Good God Allow Pain and Suffering?
This objection, also known as The Problem of Evil is probably the most common objection people hold towards belief in God today. It goes like this:
If God is supposed to be an all powerful, good God of love, how can he allow such great pain and suffering to happen to so many innocent people? What about the Haitian earthquake? What about the Japanese Tsunami? What about HIV and cancer? If God really was ‘good’, he would prevent these things from happening.
So, let’s firstly look at some of the problems with this way of thinking and then address how you might respond to someone who has this objection.
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Objection One – There Can’t Be Just One True Religion
This is a huge objection in our society today, hence why we’re beginning here. Educational systems today tend to lead people to think that truth is relative - that truth is what you make it; what’s true for you isn’t necessarily true for me – and we are seeing a rise in the number of people who claim to hold on to this view.
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