Notices 24th July

Sunday, July 24, 2016

New group! We are starting a new house group style meeting for working age adults (but it can be flexible!) suitable for all stages of faith or no faith. The first dates are as follows:
- Wednesday 27th July, 7:30pm Discussion evening, Harry & Wendy's house.
- Wednesday 10th August, 7:30pm Family friendly, meet at Sue Bagshaw's house.
- Monday 5th September, 7:30pm Games evening, Harry & Wendy's house.

Action for Children. Gift envelopes are still available for donations in support of the continual vital work being carried out, helping neglected and vulnerable children and young people. "Across the UK 3.7million children live in poverty. 1.7million live in absolute poverty." If you are making a donation and are a tax payer able to Gift Aid your donation, please do so. This will provide an additional 25p for each £1.00 at no extra cost to ourselves. Thank you for your support. It will be most gratefully received. Stella.

'Branching Out' Summer edition of the church magazine is now ready for collection. Please do help yourselves to a copy and enjoy!

Mission in Britain. Could all boxes and donations be passed to Hilde / Neil as soon as possible. Thank you in anticipation.

Overseas Mission. Please let Jill Platts have all donations at your earliest convenience. Thanks.

Becca & Dave’s Wedding. Everyone is invited on Saturday 30th July, at 1:45pm, at Wisewood Church. If you live locally and can avoid using your car, or share lifts with each other, please do, in order to leave room for guests travelling from across the country. Thank you.

The Methodist Conference 2016 unanimously passed a resolution calling for respect and tolerance in our national life in the wake of the divisive EU Referendum Campaign. It asked that a letter be sent to MP's and others in positions of leadership, via www.methodist.org.uk/nationallife which makes it easier, by automatically generating an email based on the postcode you give, addressing it to the correct MP. Alternatively, there is a link on the page to a Word document, if you prefer to send it via Royal Mail.

Golden Wedding Anniversary. Some of you will remember Rev. Abraham Williams who had hoped to come to our church from Cuba a number of years ago. You may be interested to hear that he and his wife Hilda will be celebrating their golden wedding anniversary on 6th August. The church will be sending a card. Margaret P.

Remember in your Prayers all our brothers and sisters unable to attend our services, either through illness, presently or recently in hospital, housebound or in residential homes.

Prayer Group Report

We read Psalm 78 - 'O my people hear my teaching...' etc...We prayed for the Bible to be made available to all, especially to children and young people and for its truths to be passed down the generations.

We remembered the work of Scripture Union trying to address this with an 'app' called Ancora which children can access via the internet.

We gave thanks for the book 'Hope not Hate' produced by the Bible Society. May it be an influence for good, especially in the light of recent terrorist attacks in Europe and killings in America.

We prayed for all those affected by the attack in Nice where a lorry driven into the crowd killed 84 people leaving so many families devastated.

In Turkey unrest within the armed forces led to an attempted coup which caused the death of nearly 200 people. We prayed that peace may be restored.

'Embrace' works across the Middle East providing free health care and treatment and supporting education projects. May this example of Christians working in love amongst people of other faiths and traditions be a role model for those communities to work and live together in peace.

We prayed for our new Prime Minister and her Cabinet seeking to heal divisions within our own country and prayed that God's Holy Spirit may touch their minds and hearts to lift people out of poverty.

We gave thanks that Sheffield is a 'City of Sanctuary' - may we always be good neighbours to one another. We pray for God's peace to come into our broken world. Eternal Wisdom scatter our darkness.