Easter isn't Easter without the Cross

Here is a reminder that our three Easter Services are at Rosalie School this year

1. Palm Sunday Family Service 1st April 10am @ Rosalie School "Are you the King of the Jews?" GP

2. Good Friday Service 6th April 9:30am @ Rosalie School "Father, Forgive them" KDR

3. Easter Sunday Communion Service 8th April @ Rosalie School "He is not here for he has risen" KDR

Please take the opportunity to bring a friend or a family member.

There are a number of jobs in which you can help us set up too! We want to set up the school at 3pm Saturday afternoon for Palm Sunday, and 7pm Thursday night for Good Friday. We are also letterbox dropping the invite to the local area if you can help....

For more information contact us at the church office 9381-2640

office@stmattsshentonpark.org.au

See you there GP

Snakes Alive: A picture debrief

We had an excellent time at snakes alive!

Minute 4 Mission: Sixty seconds in Maddington

Ray and Lyn Arthur at Maddington Anglican thank you for your partnership in the Gospel. Your faithfulness in praying for ministry at Maddington is greatly valued and your financial assistance is very generous. Your active support is greatly appreciated.

In the past 2 years: We have made many contacts through activities with the community, particularly through Playgroup ‘Mites and Minders’ & Kids’ club. We have had opportunities to take people further with a discussion group "Focus" – 1x each month – We are looking at a new format after Easter.

In the last 12 months: Our small groups have increased from 3 to 6 – representing 30% of the congregation. "Introducing God" has been a useful tool to introduce people to Jesus. Youth Group continues to be a point of contact–made up of local children contacted through Kids’ club, mostly non-Christian families

As a result of your prayers we also see our contacts with non-Christians leading to people becoming Christians or having their Christian lives fanned into flame. A couple of weeks ago a man in his 30’s gave his testimony at our Men’s Breakfast and his wife will be baptised at the end of April, possibly including their son . This family became Christians a little over 12 months ago. The NCLS survey revealed 2 significant figures for St Luke’s. In the last 5 years we have grown numerically by 60% but more significantly our average age has dropped by 10 years. Since the survey our Sunday School has doubled in size and our 9.45am service has increased by around 20%.

Things to pray for:
· The Introducing God group – 4 families
· Easter outreach
· Energy and wisdom for Lyn (children’s worker)
· Next year’s provision for leadership, we praise God for Brian and Annie.

I praise God for your partnership in the Gospel, thank you. Ray Arthur

"I don't know him..."

Jesus speaks challenging words in Luke 9 "If any of you are ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his glory"

Peter feels the weight of them in his own experience.

Luke 22:54-62 After seizing Jesus in the Garden, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance... Peter sat down with them.

Observe Peter's three responses to inquiries into his identity:

"This man was with him."... "Woman, I don't know him,"

"You also are one of them."..."Man, I am not!"

"Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean."

"Man, I don't know what you're talking about!"

Do you know the temptation to be ashamed of Jesus?

V.61 records Peter's moment of truth.

The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: "Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times." 62 And he went outside and wept bitterly.

A look from his Lord confronted his temptation to denial.

A few hours earlier after the Passover Meal Jesus had said: "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." But he replied, "Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death." Jesus answered, "I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me."

Peter's struggle with denial is an encouragment to us all. It was not final.

Peter did return to Jesus and led the apostles in the mission of the early church.

30 or so years later he writes to encourage the churches...

"For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty".

What do you learn from Peter's struggle not to be ashamed of Jesus?

What does not being ashamed of Jesus look like in your situation?

Stand firm! GP

"Take this cup"

The olive tree grove of Gethsemane is still on the

Mt. of Olives today.

Luke 22:39 records that Jesus, after the last Supper, went out as usual to the Mount of Olives to pray, and his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed...

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 

Notice a couple of things

1. The Son prays to his heavenly father in a time of anguish

It is only the Son who knows the Father intimately
It is only through the Son that we can know the Father
Obedience to the Father’s will is the choice of the son.

By the Spirit we are adopted into the family of God.
By the Spirit we too cry, “Abba Father” Romans 8 or Galatians 4

What do you learn about the relationship between the Father and the son from this Gethsemane prayer ?

2. The request to take the cup

The cup is OT picture language to describe receiving the full outworking of the judgment of God. The OT for example....

Psalm 75 for in the hand of the Lord is a cup with foaming wine well mixed
And he pours out from it and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs
Isa 51 Wake yourself wake yourself stand up Jerusalem
You have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath

Jesus agonises over over the necessity of drinking the cup of God's judgement for us so we might have forgiveness and life in him.

What's your response to the agony of Jesus? what's your response to his act of drinking the cup for you at the cross?

3. Heavenly refreshment in a time of anguish

An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. 

Don Carson reflecting on Gethsemane says "...Jesus went to his death knowing that it was his Father’s will that he face death, completely alone as the sacrificial, wrath averting, Passover Lamb. As his death was unique, so also his anguish: Our best response to it is hushed worship”

When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. “Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”

Are you sleeping? Wake up, Pray that you will not fall into temptation!

Here is a scene that deserves our hushed worship

Hallelujah What a Saviour!

GP

Minute 4 Mission: Sixty seconds in Myanmar

11th March, 2007 was the Global Day of Prayer for Myanmar or Burma as some of its nationals still call it., a country with promising missionary beginnings, especially with the Baptist work pioneered by Adoniran Judson from 1813 onwards.

But since Independence in 1948 it is a divided and troubled land, still suffering under a military regime which has crushed the National League for Democracy and its leader Aung San Suu Kyi, disallowing its landslide election victory in 1990.

The Anglican Church has stayed there through thick and thin, Perth’s late Archbishop George Appleton being a missionary there in his younger days, and recently Archbishop Roger keeping up connections with a visit. The WA church has welcomed displaced and migrant families, many of whom now form an integral part of our Victoria Park parish.

Other links with WA include visits by Michael Lush of Scripture Union, training youth workers and Sunday School teachers; and also Peter and Louise Snowsill, who lived there with their children for Interserve, training teams for village development.

But tragically, many of the large ethnic minorities, who contain the majority of Burma’s Christians, are currently being brutally suppressed, because of their desire for autonomy within their own states. Villages are torched, children abducted and – and now Thailand has closed its doors to refugees.

Last month Dr Summerville told our 10.00 o’clock congregation of his regular trips to Thailand, to teach health care to tribes people from North Burma.

Dr Mitch Ryan goes on forays across the border into the jungle world of the Karen with the Free Burma Rangers. He takes medicines for malaria, TB etc, and teaches prospective health workers how to relieve suffering. The team also has a Karen pastor/counsellor and a human rights reporter with a simple video camera, whose footage sometimes gets on our TV screens.

Let us pray for the church in Burma.

Five reasons why Aussie men hate church

At the Blokes Breakfast I mentioned a Web Article that caught my attention titled "Five reasons men hate church." This was an aussie response to Alaskan, David Morrow's Book " Why Men Hate Going to Church. Five issues for Aussie blokes were identified:

PROBLEM NUMBER 1: Church meeting styles are ‘feminine.’ It’s singing that has received the widespread comment. Author David Murrow writes, “Think of the mental gymnastics that must take place inside a man’s subconscious mind as he sings lyrics … using words no man would dare say to another, set to music that sounds like the love songs his wife listens to in the car.”

PROBLEM NUMBER TWO: Church leadership model is weak and not compelling. To put it crassly, author David Murrow thinks a key reason men hate church is that too many pastors are gutless wimps who present a ‘girlie’ message blokes don’t care to follow. “Christ’s bold, masculine command, “Follow me!’, is now ‘Have a relationship with me.’ We’ve recast Jesus’ offer in feminine terms. Men want a leader, not a love object...”

PROBLEM NUMBER THREE: Church is boring and safe. There is no risk.
One of the key conclusions of David Murrow’s book Why Men Hate Church is that the church has let men down: that men are drawn to risk, challenge and daring, but our
“Men like adventure as a rule,” he said. “Men warm to challenge and to leadership and to responsibility.” Andrew Cameron describes the problem as our church’s culture of ‘niceness’.

PROBLEM NUMBER FOUR: Church doesn’t relate to a man’s world
As Andrew Cameron puts it, our churches treat most men as if they are ‘spiritual incompetents’ (see article below). Pastors are failing to teach men the skills they need to become the ‘theological expert’ for their own field of endeavour.

PROBLEM NUMBER FIVE: Blokes like to get their hands dirty

Andrew Cameron believes that if churches pursued a range of mission activities that gave men – especially working-class blokes – something to do, ‘we might not have to change Sunday meetings much’.

The article went on to suggest a number of solutions for each problem, tell me if you think they got it right...

“Five reasons men hate church” http://your.sydneyanglicans.net/indepth/articles/five_reasons_men_hate_church/

“Why men hate church”

http://your.sydneyanglicans.net/community/viewtopic.php?p=61502#61502