Catching up Again...

OK here I am way behind again... Looks like I am about 8 instalments behind... so will get them all caught up and you can catch up as well.

Cheers,

Rev. Jon Bergen

From September 22:

In 2004 some of the churches in Greater Manchester had an idea of inviting folk ‘Back to Church’ as they realized that a lot of folk had had connections to the church but hadn't been in quite awhile.  In the past several years more than 150,000 folk have reconnected with their link to faith and many stayed.

It reminds me of the story of Jesus as he called his disciples. He called them to ‘come follow me...’ They had little idea of what that journey might look like but they did it anyway. An interesting side story that can relate to a lot of folk that have disconnected with the thought of faith is that of Philip and Nathaniel: the Gospel of John shares that ‘Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, “we have found the Christ... Jesus of Nazareth.” To which Nathaniel replied... Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? And Philip simple said back to him; ‘Come and See’. And like the early disciples many will not know what is in store as you also hear the invitation of friends to ‘come and see.’ 

I think there are many here that will read this and think to themselves; can there be anything good about going to church? After all Sunday is my day to have a long lie, it is my day to do more chores around the house, it is... and you can fill in your own blank of why you may have lost touch and can’t be bothered to reconnect. Maybe you are one of the ripped off that never had a ‘church’ connection in the first place and so you have no idea what it is even about and maybe no one ever asked you to ‘come and see.’ 

Well this Sunday, 25 September is Back to Church Sunday.  Many of you will have been invited and many more will not have been. We have the day planned for special services that will address the idea of connecting to faith and finding out who Jesus really is. This can be one of the most important days of your life, you won’t know unless you check it out. You may have to take a couple of weeks of ‘Back to Church’ to check a few of us out... but it will be worth the effort in the long run...

The main thing is know that we invite you as Philip invited Nathanael with the words:

COME AND SEE!!!!

Inviting the Whosoever will,

Rev. Jon Bergen