Well, it happened! Our annual Playgroup and Sunday School Celebration was a great event today. Children participating in Christmas-themed costumes, lots of singing, short and sharp videos of the Sunday School children acting out and talking about some of Jesus’ parables, and of course ‘Hot Dog’ came along to help us to understand God’s ‘big story’ and how the birth and death of Jesus fits into it all. Lunch was great too! Bring on next year!

Wow.. how quickly the year flies past! On Sunday November 29th  at 10:30am we’ll be wrapping up our Playgroup and Sunday School year once again! Even ‘Hot Dog’ is promising to be there! A shared lunch will follow in the hall…come and join with us!

Leading Seaman Patrick Daniels, Russell Pettis Lieutenant RANR Rtd and Rev Philip Burns at morning tea

Our Annual Naval Service (held this morning) was attended by members of the ex-Navalmen’s Club of Bendigo and District, along with their special guest, Russell Pettis, Lieutenant RANR Rtd, National President of the Naval Association of Australia, and Naval Cadets of the TS Bendigo. Rev Philip Burns preached on Jonah 1:1-17 (you can listen to or download the message, just to the right of this post) and a yummy morning tea in the hall was enjoyed by all!

Medical Doctor and former Australian Navy Commander, Dr John Anderson, from Creation Ministries International will be speaking at a public meeting at our church on Friday October 2nd at 7:30pm. A freewill offering will be received.

You can read more about Dr John Anderson here.

We are delighted to announce the approval of a new ministry called SMILE (Supporting Migrants In Learning English), a conversational English class for migrant women (and their children).  SMILE will run from the Upper Room on a Monday morning commencing in Term 4.   We are excited that this new ministry is in line with Session’s own Vision Statement; ‘developing ministries that will reach out to the city of Bendigo and the world.’  Your prayers for SMILE are encouraged!!

Over 100 people from Presbyterian Churches all over Victoria (Bendigo, South East Bendigo, Eaglehawk, Castlemaine, Camberwell, Ballarat, Rochester, Kerang and Broadford…did I miss anyone??) who gathered together in St John’s yesterday for our ‘Safe Church Training’ led by our Safe Church Unit’s Trainer, Mrs Fiona Bligh. (See their website here). What a morning it was! It is a sad fact of life that we need to be taught how we must work together to eliminate abuse of every kind, but that is the way things are. We learned so much (not all of it was good!) and we are all now better equipped to help make each our churches ‘safer’ by ensuring that we truly care about one another and look out for the vulnerable among us as we ought!   Thank you Fiona for your time and expertise and wisdom. We praise God for your appointment to such a vital role.

After lunch together on Sunday July 26th, we’re going to share life together for a while in the second part of our ‘Sharing life, sharing the gospel’ workshop. The aim of the workshop is to help us understand how we may best share the gospel (the good news about the Lord Jesus) with those we meet and mix with in an ‘everyday’ kind of way.

Can’t make it? The workshop will be repeated after our August 23rd lunch.

This will be the second of three workshops along this theme during 2015. Come and join us!