What a great first service!

We are spending the month of October going through the book of Philippians with our team.

It oozes the vision and values of the church God is calling us to build. Even though we have not advertised it to the public, people have arrived and it is amazing to see some people that have always been near to our hearts.

It really was great to just meet together, worship and listen to the Word of God together. It has been missed! We all need community! We were never meant to do things alone. The vision and values seemed to go down well even if we did tackle myths that people could be carrying about the reason we were church planting. We just know that it is good to air things so that we can just get rid of some of the attitudes that we are all capable of having. This is a God thing and so we must let go of what has gone before.

Not opening to the public straight away was strategic in that sense. If we have wrong motives then this will fall; we have to build on the firm foundation that God has given us. There is no room for anything less and today we even declared the song “Make Room” over ourselves and over One Church. We had to surrender. The words are perfect for us at this time. They are as follows:

Here is where I lay it down

Every burden, every crown

This is my surrender

This is my surrender

Here is where I lay it down

Every lie and every doubt

This is my surrender

And I will make room for You

To do whatever You want to

To do whatever You want to

Jesus has to have His way. We can’t do this without Him. Leah and Abbie led us into His presence and there was such a powerful moment when we got to the Bridge of the song.

Shake up the ground of all my tradition

Break down the walls of all my religion

Your way is better

Oh Your way is better

Literally the good, the bad and the ugly had to go. Traditions and Religion had built walls within us and those bricks had to come down. His way is perfect and so much better than anything we could muster up. We were so proud of the entire team. God really has blessed us greatly.

Even though we say it was a great first service, lots of things went wrong but that is what made it truly great. This was part of the adventure and we just laughed at ourselves and even my tooth falling out could not stop the smiles. Honestly, at times it was like we were filming a scene from a Comedy movie!

The keyboard had no sound again until literally twenty minutes before we started. What an earth was that all about? We have no idea but hopefully we now know where we had been going wrong all along. Presenter wasn’t giving us a full screen on the TV screen which was one of the funniest moments we have ever experienced in Church Life! “Poor Justin” is all we will say on that one! We could still cry laughing when we think about it.

Justin did get payback on us though as the message did not record. When you Church Plant you really do not get to check everything in the ways that you do when your equipment is already set up! We needed the message for people who join us later as they will be able to hear the messages detailing the vision and values of One Church.

We really did not want to do this as it never comes across in the same way but we re-recorded it in our kitchen whilst staring at a sink of dirty dishes! It was so hard to deliver especially when you feel empty as literally you have just poured everything out to the congregation. We did it though because it will mean something to someone in the future!

The biggest highlights came from conversations with those in the building. Gill had wanted to make sure we were ok on our first week so had come in to be on hand for support and those using the offices could hear the worship. Gill was so complimentary, I am not sure she has ever had this type of Church experience and one of the other tenants said this “I’m not really into that sort of thing but I don’t know what just happened because I had goosebumps all over when the singing began”.

Week one and the Spirit of God was there! We can’t ask for any more than that!

Simon & Valda

October 4th 2022