Encouraging Easter

After a real downer on my Mashbury ministry last week, Easter proved a real encouragement for me.

For the Good Friday meditation, I had focused on the last 7 utterances of Christ(inspired by the book "Seven Words for the 21st Century" - see link below).

I had a guest soloist, Nicola a friend from work and member of the ISS, who willingly gave of her time on a bank holiday to assist in the service.

I also had a 6-foot wooden cross, made for me by a fellow bandsman at Chelmsford.

Despite the PowerPoint not working exactly as I had wanted, the atmosphere that I had wanted to create was created. I had two phonecalls from Corps members at home that evening thanking me for the service and another 5 came up to me on the Sunday specifically to thank me for it. I felt that God had really blessed my preparation and felt really encouraged.

Easter Sunday was also encouraging, a young family from another church who had come on Good Friday came along on Sunday too and our congregation had almost doubled from Good Friday! With the visit of the UrbanArmy clan on Sunday afternoon/evening it was a good day.

Today I had arranged a bank holiday ramble. I'm always worried on occassions like this that nobody will turn up, but today there were 40 of us, taking advantage of the good bank holiday weather and we had a 3.5 mile walk in the countryside which surrounds the Corps. It was a good chance to chat to fringe members of the Corps who are infrequent attenders. Here's a photo of us outside the hall before we set off.