Hi Church,

Thank you to everyone who helped to make Mother’s Day such an amazing service at Grace Church. It was a special moment to see our Mum’s walk the honour guard of thank you and having bubbles falling around them, as the children applauded their exit from the auditorium. It was such an honouring time recognising that women play a very important part in establishing faith in the lives of children and continuous encouragement for us all to live it. 

Ps Amanda spoke so well a God given message on the value of passing on sincere and authentic faith to the next generation. She reminded us that such faith can’t be given by religious practice it must be owned first in our heart and life to fully pass on to someone else. She also spoke of the need to starting our children young in the practice of apology and forgiveness as this will help them take responsibility for relationships especially as they get older. Parenting is not an easy task and it’s not about perfection it’s about being loving, faithful, consistent, and authentic. We thank God he made mothers to demonstrate His heart to us.   

This coming week is our usual monthly practice of family Sunday with a BBQ, with Youth and Kids participating in the service. Having our children involved makes it clear that we are not striving for perfection, but participation and that Church gathered is for all. I look forward to sharing more in our fruitfulness theme for families as well.

Speaking of gatherings, the One Accord unity event is happening on Saturday the 27th of May, see the details in e-news, this is a great opportunity to gather with our brothers and sisters from all over Port Macquarie and lift the name of Jesus in worship, pray with each other for the City and raise funds to support SRE in public Schools. That day is also a national day for prayer and fasting see https://www.australiaprays.com.au/national-day-of-prayer-and-fasting to help give you focus and bring a heart for unity to our gathering time.

I spoke previously about completing the Missions training centre in Nepal with IMM and Ross Nancarrow. We hope to raise $20,000 or as close as possible. The offering date is 25 June. If you would like to make instalments towards it now, then please deposit your funds to the church account with a reference “Building Nepal” and this will ensure all your funds are included in that gift.

Church, can I encourage you all to please be faithful in prayer one for the other. There are some enormous challenges facing some of our church family members right now. They can’t carry it alone. We need each other. We need to be honest about what we are battling so we can stand with each other in the fight. Let’s not just be a church of individuals who only share a common meeting place, rather let’s be one body, standing together in our victory through the Cross of Christ. Together we can.

Love and blessings.

Ps Greg

16th May 2023