Good morning and welcome to St Barnabas Stoke – if you are visiting today we hope you encounter God’s goodness and love for you as you join us in worshipping Him, please feel free to stick around afterwards for a coffee and a chat.

Five Ways To Spiritual Well-Being
There’s been a great deal of media attention over the last couple of years about the mental health of our nation. Anxiety is a growing issue among the young, our suicide rates are the highest in the world and there is growing recognition of how damaging loneliness is, equating it as harmful to our health as 15 cigarettes a day. The mental health Foundation have produced a card with
strategies for helping one’s mental health titled Five Ways to Well-being. I think there’s value in adding a Christian perspective to these strategies and examining how we can incorporate these into our daily lives.

1. Connect
Connecting with God is the cornerstone of our faith and grounds us as Christians. There’s so many ways we can connect with God; through prayer, nature, music and the Bible but God also wanted us to connect through relationships with each other. Connection can be as simple as a smile, a hello, an invitation for coffee or a sympathetic ear.

2. Give
Giving God our time, our words, our presence but also giving to others. Giving can take so many forms and can be as simple as giving a compliment, ringing a neighbour, your time, volunteering or financial giving. It’s giving something of ourselves. We never know the full impact of our giving. Consider the young boy with just a basket of fish and a loaf of bread. Little did he know how far that gift would travel, not just to 5000 who sat and ate from it but thousands of years later we are still talking about it.

Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.      - Luke 6:38

3. Take Notice
God created this wonderful world for us. I’m sure he wants us to take notice, take joy from it and give thanks for the beauty of the simple things around us. Some people keep a prayer journal and look back, taking notice of the way God has answered their prayers

4. Keep Learning
Learning stimulates the brain. From a Christian perspective I think that means delving deeply into the bible but also keeping a breast with current issues, reflecting on them and seeking God’s
guidance on how to respond.

5. Be Active
Be active for God. Now there’s a good logo for a church! I think the other four dimensions are our way of being active for God – connecting with others giving of ourselves, taking notice and learning. These all lead to developing deeper relationships with God, ourselves, our earth and each other.

Yours in Christ

Kathy

Good morning and welcome to St Barnabas Stoke – if you are visiting today we hope you encounter God’s goodness and love for you as you join us in worshipping Him, please feel free to stick around afterwards for a coffee and a chat.

Dates for the Diary…

Jingle Bells
On Sunday the 8 Dec we have been invited to be involved in a Christmas in the park (Carols on the Lawn) event called Jingle Bells. From 4pm till 8pm there will be live music from different community groups, food stalls, bouncy castle, and the evening will finish with carols from the Nelson City Brass Band and a choir. We will be looking for some volunteers to help with the water stations and to help set up, clean up. This is a great opportunity for us to serve the wider community of Stoke. If you can help on the day there will be a sign up sheet in the foyer, and if you could put your email down so we can send out more information.

Convergence 14 – 16 February 2020
Stop! Look! Listen! See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland- Isaiah 43:19 (NIV). With a new season in front of us we have invited Bishop Steve Maina to come and share his hopes and dreams for the Nelson Diocese. Corporate worship and prayer ministry in all the sessions. Prior to becoming Nelson’s 11th Bishop on 31 August 2019, Bishop Steve held the position of National Director of the New Zealand Church Missionary Society for ten years. Steve is a passionate follower of Jesus, holds to the Authority of Scripture and the power of the Gospel to transform lives. For 21 years Steve has been married to Watiri. They have two daughters Rinna (18) and Tanielle (15). Steve & Watiri enjoy serving together in pastoral ministry. Psalm 32:8 has been formative for him in discerning God’s call – “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;” For all registration and accommodation enquiries email: convergencecamp@xtra.co.nz or phone 03 547 5631

This week…

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
-1 Peter 2:9-10  

Yours in Christ

Phil

Good morning and welcome to St Barnabas Stoke – if you are visiting today we hope you encounter God’s goodness and love for you as you join us in worshipping Him, please feel free to stick around afterwards for a coffee and a chat.

Bishop Steve’s charge to Synod…

My brothers and sisters, I stand here today humbled by the opportunity I have been given by God to serve this great diocese. I am grateful to the Electoral Synod for the trust you have bestowed. I am also mindful that I step in the footsteps of forebears whose devotion and sacrifices I admire. I particularly think of previous bishops, clergy and lay leaders who have served this diocese over the last 160 years, proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus. If it were not for them I would not be standing before you today.

By His grace over the next 10 years, I would like to focus on the following priorities…

1. Gospel priority
That we will be living, breathing, speaking, celebrating and being energized by the good news of Jesus – The Gospel. We live in an age when people are open to trying anything – desperate for hope, meaning, and purpose – the Good News! Perhaps some of us may have become a bit apologetic, ‘ashamed’ of the Gospel. Perhaps we have become discouraged by the effort we put in and limited fruit/results from our perspective. Maybe we’ve been let down. The words of Paul come to mind… “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes”.

2. Discipleship
That discipleship would be a key feature of ministry around here. It’s encouraging that a number of teams across the Diocese are participating in the Good Soil Collective. I know that’s one model and doesn’t necessarily suit everyone. However, whatever model of discipleship you prefer or are working with, the question is: What is it and is it raising disciples? Who are you discipling?

3. Leadership Development
Everything rises or falls on leadership. Outside of divine intervention and prayer, everything does truly depend on the quality of leaders a ministry or organization has. If we’re not intentionally raising leaders, then having money, systems, plans and vision would still not be enough to see growth. Next year, I will be calling the diocese to a season of prayer and fasting. Bishop Oscar challenged me and us during the ordination service to be bold. The needs around us can feel overwhelming and dragging us to be inward-looking. Yet it’s precisely at this moment that I sense God challenging us to enlarge our tents, to dream bigger, to lift up our eyes and embrace his greater vision. Can I invite us to be bold and to experiment, try new ideas, develop structures that are nimble and flexible and to invest resources for growth rather than maintenance? My prayer is that we will recognize this incredible moment to reimagine mission so that future generations will witness to our great God and savior Jesus Christ.

The full transcript is at www.nelsonanglican.nz
Yours in Christ

Phil

Good morning and welcome to St Barnabas Stoke – if you are visiting today we hope you encounter God’s goodness and love for you as you join us in worshipping Him, please feel free to stick around afterwards for a coffee and a chat.

Today we start a new series out of 1 Peter. The New Testament gives a more complete picture of Peter than of any other Disciple. Peter was the most prominent of Jesus’ twelve Disciples. He was
the first Disciple to be called. He was married – we know this because in Acts we read about his Mother in-law. Peter frequently served as a spokesman for the Disciples, and he was their recognized leader. It was Peter that walked to Jesus on the water. He was the one that got out of the boat. An inner circle of three Disciples existed among the Twelve. It seems that Peter was the leader of this small group.

Peter was the first Disciple to recognize Jesus as Messiah, The first Disciple to witness the Resurrection. Luke’s gospel records Peter is the first to run to the tomb. Peter was the first Disciple to proclaim salvation to the Gentiles. In the book of Acts where the earliest information about the early church comes from, it shows clearly that Peter continued to exercise a key leadership role in the church for a number of years.

So we see this most amazing CV of Peter, but we also see the most amazing failure from Peter. It was Peter that got out the boat but started to sink, Peter was the one that said Jesus was the Messiah, and then is told to “Get behind me Satan!), and of course the three denials of even knowing Jesus, Yet Peter is fully restored in all his weakness. God uses Peter to build His Church.
So Peter had known what it is to receive Gods grace and live out of that grace and forgiveness, Peter had been broken and then made whole again and it is out of this experience that Peter became a man that God used powerfully to establish his Church.

The church Garage Sale for our mission partner Hannah is coming up Saturday 9 November. I you have good quality second hand goods you have been wanting to find a home for please bring them to the church hall. The church office is open
Monday – Friday 8.00am until 12.00noon for drop off of goods.. If you have some time on the day or the week leading up to the garage sale do come along and you help will be much appreciated.

Note – Gift day raised a little over $25,000 which is a tremendous outcome and something to be very thankful for. Praise be to God!

Yours in Christ

Phil

Good morning and welcome to St Barnabas Stoke – if you are visiting today we hope you encounter God’s goodness and love for you as you join us in worshipping Him, please feel free to stick around afterwards for a coffee and a chat.

I hope everyone had a good School Holidays, with lots of good family times and maybe a chance to get away for a couple of days.

We are into the last part of the years with Christmas not far down the road. I have been working on a joint Christmas event with the Stoke Community Group called Jingle Bells, which grew out of Shine (Carols on the Lawn) which has been held at the Isel Market for the last couple of years. This event is being held on the Sunday 8 December from 4.00pm until 8.00pm in Greenmeadows Park. Can you put the date in you diaries or mark it on your calendar. We will be needing some volunteers for the evening to help in lots of different things. We will let you know closer to the event.

We are starting a new series out of the Book of 1 Peter today. I think that the Apostle Peter is one of the most interesting disciples an probably the disciple we know the most about. The Apostle Peter (also known as Simon Peter, or Cephas) was one of the first disciple called to follow Jesus. Along with James and John, he was one of Jesus’ closest companions. After the
resurrection, Peter became one of the most influential Christian leaders in the first century.

Based on Matthew 16:19, Peter is sometimes referred to as the “gatekeeper” of heaven, and over the last two millennia, countless pieces of art and literature (and jokes) depict him waiting at the Pearly Gates to decide who gets in and who doesn’t. Peter was a fisherman by trade, along with his brother Andrew. Peter grew into a gifted preacher and bold leader. In the gospels, he’s portrayed as been outspoken, always speaking his mind and acting on impulse. In the Book of Acts, Peter’s decisiveness transformed him into someone the early Christians constantly relied on and turned to.

Peter plays a major role in all four gospels, and tradition holds that the Gospel of Mark records Peter’s account of Jesus’ ministry through his companion, John Mark. Most of what we know about Peter comes from the Bible itself, with some additional material from early Christian writers. Peter had a wife, the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) record that Jesus came to Peter’s house, where his mother-in-law was sick with a fever. The account is incredibly brief, but it does tell us that Peter had a wife.

The Gospel of John records that when Jesus first met Peter (who was originally called Simon), he says, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (John 1:42). Cephas is Aramaic for “stone,” and the gospel writer adds that this means Peter when translated. This is why Peter is sometimes referred to as “the rock.” Peter was the rock that the early church was built on in lots of ways, and 1 Peter is a letter of encouragement to the early Christians to be bold in their faith.

Yours in Christ

Phil