The Salvation Army Chatham

Majors Drew and Beverley McCombe returned to meeting leadership yesterday following a short break and Candidates Sunday last week.

Majors Drew & Beverley McCombe

However our weekend began on Saturday with a ‘Table Top’ sale in aid of the Building Fund, managed by Barbara Hatton. £215 was raised.

Barbara

Sunday morning saw a further chapter in the series on ‘Who’s the Fool?’ and specifically dealt with ‘the fool and his money’. The meeting began with the chorus ‘He’s got the whole world in His hand’ and songs chosen were 17, 793, and 591 from the Salvation Army Song Book.  935 and 1607 from Songs of Fellowship were also used as was scripture from Luke 12:13-21.

The Singing Company, with ‘Bless this Child’, and the Songsters, with ‘Breath of Heaven’ (soloist Carolynn Woodman), brought a musical blessing to the dedication service for Skye Tranah, conducted by Major Drew, as Kirk and Stephanie made promises to bring up their daughter in the Christian way.

Skye with Mum and Dad, Drew and Declan and Daisie.

Carolynn

Commissions were presented to Martin Castle and Vanessa Robinson who are undertaking the responsibilities of Young People’s Treasurer and Assistant Young People’s Sergeant Major respectively.

Martin & Vanessa receive their commissions

In his message Drew said the saying goes that ‘a fool and his money are soon parted’. Is it sometimes true that a fool and his money are NOT parted? Jesus spoke about having a good time now because there is always tomorrow to put things right. Eat, drink and be merry. But life is bruising, there may not be a tomorrow and wealth can be a roadblock to faith. Material things are not the most important. So the question is ‘who does your life belong to?’ Where is your final security? Who’s life is it, anyway, yours or God’s? (consider abortion, euthanasia, etc.) Looking after ‘number 1′ is increasingly shallow and unfulfilled. Eat, drink and be merry is a false philosophy. Trust God, who has given you life in the first place, and He will bring a new kind of freedom. He wants us to know that our lives are on loan; they are really His. We have a value to Him which is underwritten by God himself. If we realize this we will not be seduced by what the world offers us.

In the evening we resumed our study of what Jesus had to say about the Spirit, focusing on the ‘Spirit of Conviction’. Songs 192, 189, 217 and 195 from the Salvation Army Song Book were chosen along with 955, 27 and 894 from Songs of Fellowship. The Band brought ‘The Cross is not greater than His Grace’ and the Songsters ‘Nothing but Thy Blood’ . A period of testimony was again featured in which Greg Davis and Jean Jones spoke of recent experiences and challenges they had each had. In particular, Jean spoke of her recent trip to the Holy Land and has promised to record her experience for this website soon.

Greg Jean

Numerous references to scripture concerning the Holy Spirit were introduced into the early part of the meeting, namely Matthew 3:11, Acts 2:2, John 7:37-39, Matthew 3:16 and John 20:22.

Preaching on John 15:26-16:11 Beverley said sometimes we tend to think of the Holy Spirit as being that part of God that works in the life of the Christian. Tonight we will think of the work the Holy Spirit is already doing in the world. This is work the Spirit does and we must not be tempted to do it for Him. He works alongside our testimony and will convict the world. That is not our responsibility but we must testify, leaving conviction to the Spirit. We think of sin as being what other people do, not us ourselves, but the Spirit will show us how we are guilty. Believing that sin is unimportant in our lives is sin in itself. In regard to righteousness, the world itself seems to set the standard but the Bible says that Jesus’ righteousness is that which we should follow even if it cuts across what the world thinks because cultural responsibility is not righteousness, not the Jesus way. To live His way is a much bigger challenge and it is in this that the Holy Spirit guides us. If my testimony is feeble that is not a disaster because I have the Holy Spirit working alongside me. BUT I MUST TESTIFY!

This weekend we said a temporary goodbye to Cecilia Mprong who is going home to Ghana for a few months. We wish her well and look forward to her return in January. God speed!

Cecilia

Have a good week. See you all again soon.