The Digest is our monthly magazine which can be purchased from the church, or if you live locally a copy can be delivered to you each month – please contact Judith Betts on 07753 613433 for more details.
Our Children, Youth and Families Minister Katey Mills writes………
I do love this time of year, with the bursts of Autumnal beauty, the busy birds and creatures all around preparing for winter. God really does bless us abundantly with the colours of Autumn. The sunsets (and sunrises I am told!) are staggeringly beautiful and we still have the light evenings, and a warm sun. It is the colours that really catch my breath. The reds and browns, oranges and yellows. One harmonious roar of nature that lights up the streets, gardens and road sides around us. It may be fleeting, but these scenes ooze warmth and comfort. I imagine Heaven to be full of colour, like the Autumn here yet with a deeper beauty that is beyond our comprehension. Colour is so important to our children’s work. It brings art alive, expresses the child’s mood or emotion … represents joy as well as sorrow. And is a common language between young and old. God uses colours to describe great riches in the bible. For example, Blue is the holy spirit, the sky, the sea and it is Gods throne, a mighty precious stone. “And above the expanse over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance.” , Ezekiel 1:26. Purple, gold and scarlet are named many times when talking of making important garments, “Moreover, you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns;” Exodus Green is a flourishing tree that will bear good fruit, the healthy grass. It is the breath of life to the earth “and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so.” Genesis 1:30, Out of all the variations of colour in our world, Black is the only one that absorbs light rather than reflecting it. It swallows the light. Snuffing it out. The 31st of the month will be a time when children and adults alike will be celebrating the fun of Halloween. Enjoyed by millions every year, and yet it is the darkest of celebrations. Of course, it is now not the Pagan festival it once was, yet it still sits uncomfortably within the church family. Hence our alternative celebrations of Light! I imagine that we are as the light of Christ, and when we teach his word, or show kindness and love to someone, we are making that person shine a little brighter. Those little sparks of light make all the difference and can be passed on again and again… igniting a whole torrent of lights shining brightly for Jesus! Those lights can only be smothered if we let the darkness overcome them. Do not let that darkness put out your spark, it is too important to be snuffed out. Be the light that shines, shine as a light of the world … and share the love of God far and wide. Halloween is but 1 night a year. we praise God 365 days a year. Johns gospel says in 1:5 “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Let your light shine always .
Katey