Hi All

 

Hope is a wonderful thing, our nation was given some more hope yesterday as we heard the roadmap to recovery from the global pandemic. Whilst we welcome this news and look ahead to more social freedom, it strikes me as Christians our hope never needs to be reliant on the temporal or the transient. I have watched our church family move through this season with our hope firmly in Christ. I expect as we step into the coming seasons our hope will increase as we have seen the faithfulness of God through this challenging time. Hope is a beautiful thing and faith is the substance of things hoped for. Our eternal truth is that hope has a name and His name is Jesus. We are the people of hope because we are filled by Jesus the person of hope. Life’s journey has its mountains and its valleys, it’s storms and it’s sunshine, yet our hope is above every circumstance, our hope is constant, and stable, our hope is faithful, our hope is Jesus!

 

Lockdown Lifting

 

I watched the Prime Ministers announcement last night as I am sure many of you did. We are currently working with our teams as we plan our provision for gatherings over the coming months. More information will be given in next weeks update.

 

Live Prayer

 

 

This Thursday night we will be live on the CLC Facebook page for live prayer.  We will be taking your prayer requests, praying together, and sharing prophetic words as God leads us. Join us and come prepared to share in the comments and bless someone else.

 

 

A reminder of what we have Coming up

 

We have a number of new opportunities being prepared for at CLC:

Spiritual Support Team

Please pray for our Spiritual Support Team as we pilot an online and phone based support service with Nutgrove Primary School.

Online Alpha

Will begin early March look out for details on how to join and share with your friends very soon.

Online New Members

We have had a number of new people join us and have been unable to hold a physical new members evening during lockdown.  We are considering an online event for people who want to come into membership. Please contact us if you are interested in becoming a member of the CLC family.

 

CLC Stories

 

Great to hear from Jon, Lauren and baby Asher this week and also to receive a message from Chris & Jackie. We love to hear from our CLC family so please continue to send us your Welcome, Worship, or Witness stories then we can all celebrate your testimonies and hear from you.  Find out how below:

 

Send us your testimonies

 

We love our church family and we want to hear from you!

 

As we continue with church online we want our services to have an authentic CLC family feel. Send us your stories of Worship, Welcome, and Witness, then we will share them in our CLC online services.

 

If you have a testimony in any of the following areas then please send it to us:

 

Worship

 

Do you have something to thank God for? What is inspiring you to worship God at the moment? How is God impacting your life currently?

 

Welcome

 

How are you and your family doing? Where are you from? What are you praying about at the moment? How can we pray for you? Are you new to the CLC family then take a moment to introduce yourself.

 

Witness

 

 

Which not yet Christian people are in you Reach that we can pray for?  Have you shared your faith with anyone recently? Do you have a story of healing, salvation, or answered prayer as you have been sharing your faith?

 

 

The technical bit:

 

• • Testimonies should be between 1 and 3 minutes long
  • Record on your phone in landscape
  • Record in a quiet area with good lighting
  • Send your videos to us via whatsapp or wetransfer

 

we are looking forward to hearing from you and seeing you in our online services.

 

Elders Announcement and Affirmation – Last chance to share your votes and affirmation

 

If you are a member of CLC and haven’t yet sent us your vote then this week is your last chance to do so. Details of the affirmation process are below:

 

After much prayer and hearing God the Elders believe God has been speaking to us about appointing an Elder from a younger generation. Having heard this, we believe Simon Consiglio is the right person to step into Eldership. We have felt for some time that Simon would be our next Elder and have received a prophetic word from a member of our CLC family confirming the importance of both Simon and his wife Kelly alongside us in leadership of the Church. We have approached Simon and he has taken time to pray and seek God. Having spent time praying, Simon also believes this is the right time for him to step into Eldership.

We would love you all to spend some time in prayer throughout the month of February. Our members will have received an email asking for a response during the affirmation process. As an Elim Church our process of appointing Elders is to seek the affirmation of our members. We therefore ask that all of our members contact us giving  affirmation of the Elders’ proposal or with any questions or concerns. For those who are not yet members we value you and we would love to hear from you as you pray and hear God during this month.

 

Hope has a name

 

My prayer for each of you this week is that Jesus will increase your hope levels and release a fresh gift of faith to each of us. May we be so hope filled that we overflow with hope into the lives of everyone we meet.

 

^{Romans 15:13} 

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

Love and blessings

Craig