- If you remain uncomfortable about being in church where masks are no longer required, use @church via Zoom until you feel confident enough to be in church with or without a mask.
- If you’re unwell please stay at home, and use @ Church via Zoom.
Here’s our Zoom link –
Topic: St Martin’s Sunday Worship. To Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81508696154?pwd=cnErZFM5VG5OQVhsZkxYc0dxOHdvUT09
Meeting ID: 815 0869 6154
Passcode: 712158
NOTICES:
A very warm welcome to all who worship with us this morning. Please stay for the BBQ following the service as we farewell Don.
NEXT SUNDAY 27th November there is a Congregational meeting following the service to approve the Parish Profile. Any apologies to Irene please.
Wednesday Walkers 23rd November: Contact Sonya 027 2533397 for this week’s destination.
GIFTS FOR WALTHAM COTTAGE: We invite you to bring along Christmas gifts for Waltham Cottage to distribute to people in need. Items must be new, and we require gifts suitable for all ages – men, women, teenagers and children. Please do not wrap them. Donations of wrapping paper also appreciated. Bring any contributions along to church from next Sunday 27 November until 11 December and place under the tree. Thank you.
A message from Sue: Peter has some excess tomato, chilli and capsicum seedlings looking for a home. Anyone who wants them should phone before coming round (960 7657).
Special Christmas ‘Messenger’: please email contributions to Charlotte & Sally by Sunday 27 November (hooty@xtra.co.nz).
From the Moderator – An Advent Message: Is Jesus the help we are looking for? There is a poignant segment in the Advent readings for this year that finds John the Baptist languishing in Herod’s dungeon and doubting whether Jesus is the promised Messiah. Despite his earlier calls to prepare the way for the Messiah, events have turned for the worse. So, he sends his disciples to ask whether Jesus really is the promised Messiah, or should we look elsewhere (see Matthew 11: 2-3).
I am sure that there are many in the world today who share the doubt! Ukrainian Orthodox families experiencing Christmas this year in cramped refugee conditions so far away from home, or worse still, in areas of Ukraine where fear of missile strikes will dominate their ‘festive’ season! And, in a similar vein, homeless families in our country, crammed into temporary accommodation of motel units, struggling to meet rising food costs.
The story of hardship, anguish and suffering is repeated many times over in our world as we approach Christmas this year. So where are you Jesus, in this world with so much suffering? With John the Baptist we may be justified in asking the question, Are you the hope we are looking for? Or should we look elsewhere?
Part of the answer comes for me in asking this question, Where would Jesus be born in 2022? In 2008, the UK Churches Advertising Network asked that question and came up with this answer: a freezing bus shelter. They then made a poster depicting this and had it displayed in over 1,000 bus shelters across the UK.
This was a message of hope: God incarnated help that comes into the places of poverty and despair. Originally it was a baby born in the middle of a winter night, out where the animals were kept. This speaks a message of God’s presence in the most unlikely and despairing places.
In the bus stop posters, some of the bystanders see what is happening and respond with worshipful devotion, while others are too busy checking the bus timetable. May our churches help people to stop and notice the hope that the birth of Jesus brings to our needy world this year.
Right Rev Hamish Galloway, Moderator Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand
moderator@presbyterian.org.nz
THIS WEEK AT ST MARTINS
Tuesday 9.30am South Elder Care (lounge) Jeannette 332 9869.
Tuesday 7.15pm Meditation Group (church) Dugald 021 161 7007.
Wednesday 9.30am Walking Group: Sonya 339 7038.
Thursday 10am Crafty Crafters (lounge) Jeannette 332 9869.
Thursday 1.30pm Sit & Be Fit(church) Anneke 021 077 4065.
Thursday 5.30pm Familial Trust (whole complex) Vanessa 022 169 6569.
Friday 9.30am Sing & Sign (lounge) Becky 022 086 2211.
