July Update

What a fantastic Sunday we had last week hearing Paul’s story of God’s amazing grace and celebrating together as he was baptised. It would be great to pray that there will be many more stories of salvation and people getting baptised in the coming weeks and months.

The first Encounters prayer meeting was an amazing time in God’s presence and it has been exciting to see some subsequent answers to prayer. I would really encourage you to come along to the next one and to come expectant – Sunday 3^rd July @7:30pm. It will be an opportunity to pray for people specifically. Often we can feel so helpless, lacking in resources, time, money, etc… but one thing we can do is pray and we serve a wonderful God who loves to answer prayers. Please do join us to pray for people we know who are sick, need a miracle or need to know Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. Do come along and be prayed for yourself too! It will be exciting to see all the answers to prayer in the coming months.

On 7^th-10^th July Hope Church will be taking part in the Ultimate Dream - a mini-mission with the Churches in Stratford. There will be an outdoor praise event on the Thursday evening and people will gather in St. John’s Churchyard daily during the mission offering to pray for people, taking the opportunity to do questionnaires and invite people along to Church on Sunday. The Olympics are only just over a year away and so this is a good opportunity to see what works well in terms of outdoor outreach in Stratford.

On Wednesday 20^th July we are going to spend some time listening to God and stirring up the gift of the prophetic to see if there are things that God wants to say to the Church and guide our path in the coming months and year.

A number of us from the Church will be going to the New Frontiers Brighton Leaders Conference in the middle of July. This will be a great opportunity to be equipped and envisioned with fantastic apostolic teaching and to hear about all that God is doing around the world. Do pray for everyone that is going – that they will be encouraged, refreshed and come back to Hope Church with fresh faith to see God do great things!

I thank God for each of you – the way you serve and bring so much to the Church.

You are all wonderful gifts from God.

Love and prayers, Mark