 ALAN’S
MESSAGE
Easter has come and gone, believe it or not. I pray that is was a time of
reflection and transformation for you, bringing you closer to God. Easter is the
most crucial time of the Christian calendar where the grace and power of God was
made known in a way that no one could doubt. May you not only know of this power
but experience it in your life. The Cells are one of the major ways in which we can encounter, experience, share
and enable the power of the Spirit in life. It is about the fullness of the same
power at the resurrection in our lives and world today. God changed the world
through individual lives then and will do it again now.
This is the challenge that faces every church, to enable the Spirit present in
us to be released into the lives of those around us who need it most. In other
words we need to share the Holy Spirit with unbelievers ministering into their
pain, trauma and brokenness transforming their lives. Most of our new members are from other churches as folk move around the country
and it is great that they find a home with us, but it is not enough. We exist to
make the love of Christ known especially to those who don’t know Christ yet.
When this happens society will change for the better, to what we all hope for.
In this we all have a responsibility. Do you want society to be better? Then
lets work together with God as he guides us to where the change needs to happen.
Our Youth are crucial in this regard as many don’t have a grasp of faith at a
time they are seeking and easily influenced. We are also in a time when many
parents are un-churched and so many teens have never been into a church. These
two factors are important for us. Firstly, because we have on opportunity to
positively influence teens who have no ‘bad’ spiritual habits. Secondly, they are at a time where they are seeking guidance and we need to
offer A major positive step in this regard is the appointment of a new Youth Pastor,
Debbie Prinsloo, whom we are fortunate to have. She is a Valley mom with wonderful experience and will be a tremendous asset to our staff team. Debbie starts with
us in mid-July.
Our evening services remain a challenge as we try to create a place where teens
are not only catered for, but enjoy worshiping and being together. This is very
difficult as there are a wide range of suggestions offered at a time when teens
themselves are struggling with what it means to worship. I pray the situation
will improve as we spend time with them and learn about each other together, and
they get involved in what they see as their church.
Blessings, Alan
|
T ERRY’S
MESSAGE
Well, we
are well into the year, and I’m amazed at how time seems to have rushed by so
quickly. My time at Valley has been exciting and I can now say, I’m truly
beginning to see myself as an integral part of the Valley Family! I have been
challenged, stretched, shaped and re-shaped by so much and am finding this a
wonderful time of growth in my ministry. It is my prayer that you too, will find
this a time of growth and challenge as we re-visit what really
means to live out our Church vision as “Christ-filled people, bringing God’s
love and healing to a hurting world”. l am reminded of the words of 2 Peter
3:11-12 that says, “So what kind of people should you be? You should live holy
lives and serve God, as you wait for and look forward to the coming of the day
of God.”
Being
Christ-filled requires that we embrace and allow the Spirit of God to guide,
grow and empower us to do God’s will.., to make a difference to our hurting
world. This is a tall order, but the key for us is to surrender completely to
the Holy Spirit, and this is why we have focused on the Holy Spirit during our
latest cell group series. We need to grow in holiness and to do this, we need to
continually seek and surrender to the Holy Spirit, to allow the Fruit of the
Spirit to become even more evident in our lives. One of the ways we can do this
is to become a praying Church. By this, I don’t mean we just spend a few moments
in prayer occasionally; rather we should all be moved to pray corporately and
regularly for the power of the Holy Spirit to be evident in our midst.
Through
earnest and passionate prayer, our entire body of Christ will, I’m sure,
experience a revival and be renewed to continue God’s work in our community!
The theme
for Synod this year was “making new wine!” I’d like to suggest that as we open
ourselves up even more to the promptings and activity of the Holy Spirit in our
lives and worship; then we at Valley will “become new wine”. It’s true that in
this process, we may need to be pruned to rid ourselves of that which hinders
our ability to produce good fruit, but this is not a bad thing, because is through
pruning that we are able to produce more abundantly, the fruit God wants us to
produce. Remember, scripture warns against putting new wine into old wine-skins
for will taint
and detract from the flavour of the wine and the skins themselves may burst!It is my
prayer that all at Valley will be equipped and empowered to not only flavour,
but intoxicate the world around us with a passion and desire to know Christ more
intimately and personally. May yours and my journey as Christ-filled people,
enable us to touch the lives of God’s people. Let us then rejoice, in the
knowledge that God is calling us to be Holy in all we do, and continue to
worship and serve God with passion. Let’s celebrate the opportunities we have to
grow through the Holy Spirit so that we may be ‘new wine’ to the world.
Blessings, Terry |