It’s time for our quarterly Sunday Evening Fellowship this coming Sunday night, when we will share a meal tobgether at 5pm and enjoy a brief worship service (with the Lord’s Supper) at 6pm. Come and join us!

Next Sunday, November 26th, our annual Sunday School and Playgroups end-of-the-year celebration is on! We meet at 10:30am and our service will be followed by a bring and share lunch. Word is out that ‘Hot Dog’ is making a return too….! See you there!

One of the great things about belonging to a Presbyterian Church is that all our churches are inter-dependent (not independent) towards each other. As a result of this the Presbyterian General Assembly of Australia’s (GAA) church planting taskforce has set its sights upon Adelaide and is asking congregations around the country for support. Why Adelaide? Adelaide is Australia’s fifth largest city, yet for many years the combined ministry of the Presbyterian churches has been smaller than many country town or rural ministries. The Presbyterian Church in Adelaide has never been really strong, and when Union came in 1977 it left the church in a sorry state. The situation has been slow going since then, so the GAA took a bold move and placed the Presbyterian Church of South Australia under the care of the much stronger and growing Presbyterian Church of Queensland, and in particular the Creek Road (Carina) congregation who have set their church planting team to work. The first steps of this have been to link the remaining 6 congregations in Adelaide (Elizabeth, Para Hills, North Adelaide, Norwood, Seacliff, and Mt. Barker) into the one Charge with a team of church planters and pastors being assembled to revitalize gospel ministry in that city. How to help?
Pray
• Give thanks for the ministry of John Langbridge, John Gilmour, Damien Carson and the rest of the team currently on the ground in Adelaide
• Pray for the formation of the staff team
• Pray for the people of Adelaide to have heart soft for the gospel
• Pray for each of the 6 congregations in the new Adelaide Charge
Give
If you would like to give to the work in Adelaide, the bank account details to give to are: Account Name: Presbyterian Church of Qld BSB: 034 010 Account Number: 13 1237 Reference: Adelaide Donor
Tell
Do you have relatives of friends in Adelaide who might consider joining the PCSA? Let them know about the proposed developments!

What a great night last Saturday night! The Bendigo Christian Union celebrated their year in style and with great thanks to God for His blessings upon them and with prayer for the year ahead.   Join with us as we pray for the CU’s plans for 2018 and for graduating students in the workforce or doing further study or looking for work. Please pray too the God would raise up financial supporters to meet all their needs!

it’s not every day that you can celebrate something that has a 500th anniversary!  Certainly not in our young country Australia, anyway…But this year, 2017, marks the 500th anniversary of one of the greatest movements in human history. You can read about it here, but even better than that join us here on October 29th at 4:30pm when we along with other churches in Bendigo gather to praise God for what we have come to know by His grace!

Later this week when the postal plebiscite papers reach our letter (and post office) boxes, we are all going to have the option of contributing our opinion on the proposed change to the Marriage Act 2004.

While some Christian leaders (even in Bendigo) have come out in support of the ‘Yes’ vote, we must respectfully disagree and put it out there that we cannot agree with the proposed change.

And why is that? You can find out our reasons here in a document prepared by the Presbyterian Church of Victoria’s ‘Church and Nation Committee’.  It’s not too long and it expresses right where we stand!

Please join us as we pray that the intent of the Victorian Labour Government to legalize euthanasia in this state will be thwarted. By all accounts, the matter will be brought before State Parliament in August.

Apart from prayer, one thing you can do is sign a petition from Australian Christian Lobby calling for a plebsicite on this issue. You can find the petition here.

The Presbyterian Church of Victoria has expressed its opposition for the following reasons:

• Accepting euthanasia – by definition – suggests that some lives are worth less than others (at the moment it is the sick and aged in view, but it wouldn’t be too difficult to imagine it could be expanded to include the handicapped, even the depressed at a later stage).

• The State cannot guarantee that these laws will not lead to some cases of involuntary euthanasia (i.e there remains the inherent danger of the possibility of involuntary euthanasia).

• There is no way of properly regulating euthanasia (Holland is a great example of where this leads) and will undoubtedly lead to vulnerable people being placed under great pressure to acquiesce, and we have no doubt it would eventually become a means of aged health-care cost controlling decisions.

The matter is of course an emotive and complex one, but rather going down this dangerous path, we consider that a better solution can be found in the improved use of and the greater funding for palliative care.

Life FM is organising two screenings of the movie, ‘The Case for Christ’ at the Bendigo Cinemas in Queen Street on Sunday 18 June at 2pm and Wednesday 21 June at 7pm.

The movie is based on Lee Strobel’s best-selling book of the same name, telling the story of how an award-winning journalist and investigative reporter set out to debunk the claims of Christianity with unexpected results!

Tickets are $20 and can be purchased online here or the Life Essentials Op Shop (near the Bendigo Town Hall). All proceeds raised will support Life FM.