Stop 4 Coffee

If you guys are lost for something to do this Friday morning (2 April) between 11am - 12noon, the church is open for "Stop 4 Coffee - FREE". Why not stop in for a drink, a hot cross bun and to hang out with us.

It'd be great to see you there!

Jack's Last Club...

Sadly, Youthclub said goodbye to Jack this week as he turns 18 during the Easter Break.

We had a lot of fun kicking your butt in volleyball, and other games ;-) , during the four or more years you were with us. We're all gonna miss you being around.

!Happy birthday!, don't forget what you learned, and stay in touch!

Jesus Risesfrom the Dead[Luke 24 v1-12 & v36-49]

Our culture is affected by relativism - no rights or wrongs, no absolutes - everyone does as thy see fit and end up having no purpose in life but to please themselves, then to die. You are growing up in society that teaches there are no real consequences or goal.

The Bible teaches exactly the opposite. The Bible teaches us that there is a purpose to life and then eternal life after death.

What we believe will effect where we end our lives and where we spend eternity.

The Christian faith isn't blind faith. Jesus was real and taught like no one else, but also died for us and then rose from the dead. He really was born, He really lived, He really died and He really did rise from the dead. History confirms it.

Jesus died and was buried in a rich mans tomb. The women were the first to see the empty tomb and the grave clothes laying empty. After the disciples too saw the empty tomb, it slowly dawned on them that He had actually risen. Jesus then began to appear to people in different places. He even ate with them and let them touch Him to see that He was really there.

Word spread quickly. While the disciples were still talking amongst themselves, He appeared to them and stood amongst them and spoke to them, "Peace be to you". They were so scared. Jesus came to bring peace. He calmed their fears and began to explain to them, showing them His wounds. They couldn't believe it for joy!

He reminded them of the Bible that they all knew so well, about the prophecies and how they had all been fulfilled in His death and resurrection. More than 300 prophecies from hundreds of years before were fulfilled in the life and death of Jesus. 65 of them were fulfilled in the 6 hours of Jesus crucifixion alone!

For example, 800 years before Jesus, Isaiah prophesied: Isaiah 53

Believing and seeing the truth of these things, is to come to faith in Jesus - coming to the point of saying "Jesus is my Lord and my Saviour and I need Him".

Who's the best?[Male vs Female]

A number of small tasks covering a variety of skills will be set for a fun competition for the boys and girls of the Youth Club to see who's the best.

Challenge	Male	Female
Artistic Interpretation A member from each team was given the same subject to draw at the same time. The team that recognised their artists drawing first won the point. There were 10 subjects to draw.	5	5
Verbal Interpretation A member from each team was given the same word to describe at the same time. The team that called out the correct word first won the point. There were 10 words to draw.	5	5
Baby Knowledge As part of the celebration of Karen & Nigel's baby, the teams were given multiple choice questions about all things baby.	8	8
TV Theme Music A short clip of a number of TV Theme tunes were played and each team had to state what program they thought the tmusic belonged to.	14	16
Number Puzzle A grid of numbers was pinned up on the board and the challenge was to find the largest total achievable by starting from the bottom left and moving either upward or right and adding the numbers from each box until reaching the top right. The highest total could have been 28.	27	27
Word Description Number Racing Game When the contestants decided their number was called, they had to race their opponent the length of the hall and back to their seat. The first back to their seat won the point.	14	4
Toilet Paper Mummy Both teams were given 3 minutes and 2 rolls of toilet paper to wrap up a team member like a mummy, then the Leadership Team judged the results out of 10.	5	9
Physical Endurance Sit-ups, Squat Thrusts, Step-Ups, Running & Wall-Squatting! The teams (5 members each) had to do each excercise for a minute in turn, continually, until team 3 members from one team dropped out. After about 30 minutes (!) the boys lost three of their members, while the girls only lost 2.	2	3
Spelling 10 of the most common wrongly spelt words were read out for each team to attempt to spell correctly.	3	5
Wallace & Grommit Puzzle A nine piece puzzle was shared out and stuck to the back of nine members. Everyone was given the chance to complete the puzzle, putting the persons' name carrying the puzzle pieces in the correct corresponding puzzle location... best of 5	1	3
Wallace & Grommit Puzzle TV & Movie DVD Quiz	28	26
Current Total	112	111

The Crucifixion[Luke 23 v26-56]

All the things that happened here were predicted hundreds of years before. King David wrote, 1000 years before, Psalm 22 v1, 16 & 18. Isaiah lived about 700 before the crucifixion and wrote Isaiah 53 v4, 9 & 12. It was all in the plan of God... every detail. This is also proof to us that the Bible is Gods Word. What it says, came to pass.

Some strange things happened at the time:

• The sun stopped shining for three hours and the world went dark.
• The curtain of the Temple, that seperated the people from the Holy Place, was torn in two from top to bottom.
• Jesus cried out that He commit His spirit into the hands of God, and many who heard and saw this moment were saved.

Jesus died on the cross in the place of us who are sinners. God sent His Son to live as one of us and to take our punnishment. During the darkness, Jesus took upon Himself the darkness of our sin. Because Jesus was our substitute, we can be restored to God.

The two criminals crucified with Jesus reacted in different ways. One mocked Jesus, not seeing that Jesus was His only chance of salvation. The other criminal saw Jesus and believed and asked Jesus to remember him. This man was saved right at the end of his life. We don't know how much time we have on earth... Let us be like this criminal now and turn to Jesus as our saviour.

What happened on the cross really worked. Why continue life as if it didn't!

Welcome to the world Hannah Louise!

Hannah Louise was born to Nigel and Karen at 10:15 Monday morning... 7lb 6oz! They're all well, though, as I understand, pretty tired. Hopefully Karen can soon stop in at club so you can all meet little Hannah.

Congratulations!

Jesus Condemned[Luke 22 v66]

Fairness matters a lot to us all, we hate to be treated unfairly.

Here we see an outrageous miscarriage of justice. Jesus told them great truths but the people were so prejudiced that they just wouldn't hear. They insulted him Terribley, but if they would have listened to what He was saying, their lives would have been changed amazingly. They were unable to find any fault with Him, they knew His teaching had accomplished great things, but their minds were prejudiced. They didn't want to listen, didn't want to hear. They didn't want to know. Let's make sure we don't shut our minds to what Jesus tells us like these people did.

They got up at dawn to put Jesus on trial. They accused Him of things that were not just untrue, but were exactly the opposite to who Jesus really was. He is Christ, but He wasn't an earthly king and never claimed to be. He even explained this to Pilate. But, despite His gentleness and kindness these people blindly hated Him.

Pilate knew Jesus was innocent and the people knew it too but they wanted Jesus dead. So, concerned for his own reputation, Pilate is swayed by the crowd.

Jesus is then handed over to Herod and remains completely silent to Herod's questions. Herod had killed John the Baptist, a very dear friend of Jesus.

At this time, Herod and Pilate became friends. This is something we should notice: Enemies are often united in opposition to Christians.

Pilate decided he would have Jesus flogged and then freed, so that he didn't have to kill an innocent man and at the same time would please the crowd. But the people still wanted Jesus dead.

The crowd grew strong and won Pilate over. It looks like a terrible mistake, but it was all part of God's plan. God allowed this gross miscarriage of justice so that Jesus would be put to death as an innocent man and bear the punishment for our sin.

So the real criminal was freed and Jesus, an innocent man, took a criminals place. This is a picture for us. Like Barabus the criminal, we deserve to die but we, the guilty ones, go free and Jesus takes our place.

All we have to do is ask Jesus to take our place of punnishment.

Men's Breakfast [Jeremy Field]

After a great breakfast, as always, the 50 (or more) men who attended were blessed to hear Jeremy Field tell of how God has worked in his life.

Jeremy is currently studying to be a Vicar at Cambridge, for the Church of England.

He was born in the UK and his family moved to Washington US when he was just 6 months old, and then moved on to Mexico City in mid 80's. Jeremy was sent back to boarding school in the UK after his dad realised he wasn't doing well academically and basically spent the whole first year messing about having fun.

Jeremy hated boarding school. They were only allowed to write letters home once a week, and the letters were read by the headmaster before they were sent. It was like prison. At the age of 11, not long after writing a letter home telling his parents how much he hated the school, he was called into the headmaster's office and was told that his parents had been in a serious plane crash and died.

Life changed from that day on. He had to go back to boardig school and moved in with his uncle living on a Devon farm. at this time Jeremy sensed God was with him. He wasn't a regular church goer but at the memorial service he knew God was with him. Despite this feeling of the reality of God he missed the point of Christian faith. He knew God existed but didn't do anything about it.

He went on through boarding school but didn't associate with Christians even though he thought God was real. Life for Jeremy began to unravel, becoming lonely and pointless. He didn't want to do any job and missed interviews because he didn't see the point in it all.

He decided to travel and search for meaning in life. He went to India to teach English which he enjoyed and the went to the Himalayas. Jeremy got sick while in the mountains and, fearing this sickness may mean death, called on God with promises of faith if God would heal him. It seems God answered his prayer as he did recover, but after the healing it wasn't long before he forgot all about God again.

After becoming ill again Jeremy had to return to the UK. On his travels, he always carried a Gideon bible and could never throw it away, he kept it with him without really knowing why.

Soon After his return to the UK he got a job and settled down. It was now that he decided to look into the faith... was God real? Reluctantly, Jeremy undertook the Alpha Course (10 meetings where the Bible and Jesus are explained in detail). He hadn't cried at his parents death because he was always able to keep a stiff upper lip, but the moment he walked into the church for the Alpha Course he found himself welling up.
 
During the Alpha Course he started understand the Christian faith and about the possibility of a relationship with God through Jesus. He experienced again the feeling he had when he was 11 but now he understood what it meant.

It's not just a warm feeling, in response to what God has done he wanted to go out into the world and make a difference. Jeremy decided to go into prisons and saw what a difference a relationship with God made to
these prisoners lives causing them to be a blessing to their families and society. Jeremy also started helping full time at Holy Trinity Brompton Church in London and began taking the Alpha Course to the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, taking resources to the field and running the Alpha Course from DVDs.
 
Jeremy said he could see more and more that God was opening doors to meet people who's lives were being changed. In Sierra Leone, the Civil war was evil, vicious and bloody. There were riots in the city. He saw the head of armed forces there who was a Christian and asked Jeremy for prayer because he feared things there would escalate and put the Jeremy and the others in danger, so they ran the course outside of town. The tension didn't explode as fear, believed to be and answer to their prayer and they were able to continue their work there.

Jeremy recalled an encouraging story of that time when a Christian was threatened in his home by a number of gunmen. Surprising himself, rather than obeying the gunmen, he told them "Come into my house, I want to tell you about Jesus". These men who wanted to kill him came in, ate with him and he even prayed for then all. They left his home and  they never touched him again. His confidence obviously came from years and years of a relationship with God.

Since the age of 11, Jeremy had struggled with forgiveness when it came to the pilot of his parents plane, who was clearly in error, causing the plane crash because he was trying to save money by landing the plane in dangerous circumstances instead of flying to a different airport. But something happened to show Jeremy that God is in control and hadn't forgotten what he was dealing with. It happened that Jeremy met someone, Washington, US, who was visiting the UK for a week and Cambridge for one day and walked into Jeremy's church. After hearing Jeremy's testimony, it turned out this visitor had lost his parents in the same plane accident. It was clearly not just chance. God is at work. God is creating relationships.

Jeremy finished by urging us all to "investigate God or even ask of God himself now".

The Night of Jesus' Arrest [Luke 22 v39-46]

Temptation
Jesus disciples were going to be tempted and tested at this time when Jesus was going to be put to death. Jesus had come to die as a sacrifice for sin. He knew this right through His life and He knew the time had come. Now was the night before. He prays and He tells His disciples to pray. He needs their support and encouragement. He is going to suffer for us, despite His own perfect life. He asks His Father if there's any other way, but that He was prepared to go through with it if it was His Fathers will. The sign of His distress is His sweat like blood.

Even though Jesus was in such anguish, His disciples fell asleep.

Betrayal
For money, Judas was willing to hand Jesus over to be killed. He brought a mob of soldiers, priests and rulers with weapons. They came as if Jesus was leading a rebellion even though Jesus was having a peaceful time with His disciples and wasn't about to cause any trouble. Judas was shown to be a false disciple. Peter struck out but Jesus stopped Him. He wanted to go in peace. At this point the disciples run away and Jesus is lead off by the mob.

Denial
Peter follows at distance. He's sitting nearby while the trial is taking place. Three times people pick him out as a disciple, but he denies it strongly each time. People recognize him as a follower of Jesus and even though Jesus warned him about this moment when satan would tempt him, he still wasn't prepared and fails the test. Jesus looks directly at him with forgiveness and Peter leaves and weep with remorse. There is encouragement here because later on Peter would be restored and would go on to stand firmly for Jesus and paid the price.

Sadly, with Judas, there was no sense of sorrow or forgiveness, and he ended his own life.

Are you just pretending to have an interest in Christ or are you standing firm in Jesus.