St Johns, Chelsea

6.30pm in St Johns on Monday 22nd Sept is our first local area prayer meeting. Christians from all over the local area are getting together in order to pray for things going on in the local area. Any Christian from the local area, or who is connected with the local area is very welcome.

Last Saturday we had our acoustic night with St Johns which was a great time with a good number of people from all over London gathered. We had everything from classical to indie rock to rap. We’re hoping to put on our next acoustic night before Christmas.

This month we have said goodbye to our brother in Christ, William Mensah, who died in the Lord and was buried on the 19th June. We thanked God for his life and remembered his warmth and gentleness. But right from the day he died, amidst lots of tears and grief, we also celebrated the great hope that we have through Jesus of resurrection. We look forward to seeing him again in the world to come.

Last Sunday we had the great pleasure of seeing little Micah Cobbinah baptized. It was a great morning with lots of regulars and visitors. It’s always a privilege to be involved in a baptism and be reminded of everything God has done for us.

We’ve now started a new series as church looking at the book of the Acts of the Apostles. One of the big things we’ve seen so far is that, really, it’s all about the acts of Jesus continuing His work on earth after His resurrection. We’re gonna be spending a number of months looking at this inspiring bit of the Bible and seeing what relevance it has to our work now.

13 guys went to the London Men’s Convention 10 days ago. It was a great and inspiring day with great speakers. We were focusing on how we can communicate our faith in Christ, along with 5000 other men!

We had our first ever St Johns Acoustic Night at the end of February. It was an amazing evening with loads of great music acts, food and people. It went beyond all our expectations! We’re hoping to organize another one in the Autumn.

We’ve started this new year looking at the blueprint for the Spirit-filled church - Acts 2:42-47. It’s an exciting vision - we need to ask for God’s Spirit to work amongst us so that we might become more like this! And we’re looking in our teaching in January/February at what the Bible says about Family. We’ll be looking at broken families, priorities in family and parenting according to the Bible. We want to see how the Bible speaks right into the middle of our daily lives and relationships. Here’s Andy’s vision letter for the New Year.

Christmas is around the corner and we’ve got a couple of events coming up. On Tuesday 11th December we have a community Christmas meal in the church from 6pm. On Sunday 23rd December we’re having our own lunch after the service. And in the sermons in the weeks leading up to Christmas we’ll be looking at birth of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew. It’s a shocking story when you read it without the sentimentality that we often get at Christmas!