MASTERMIND

We didn't want to let Gary down, so here is a report on todays Mastermind! Every Monday our Glow Community Group meets, and has been for nearly three years now. The group is a drop in, in that people can come drop in, and drop out when they want to. Although most come at 10am, and do not go home until 1.30pm. People sit and chat, read papers - or a whole host of other things - its not as dull as it sounds. We sit and enjoy a meal together at 12noon, and this is followed by an after dinner speaker or activity. This week our Envoy Val arranged Mastermind - and it was great fun. Our guests were Sue Wall, Gary Chittenden, Diana Anderson and Carol Monk. They all choose subjects to answer questions on and then had to answer general knowledge. The winner was Carol Monk (shes very brainy) and the person that did not win first, second or third place was Gary Chittenden. We will continue to pray for him.

MISSIONARY WEEKEND

Next weekend is our Missionary Weekend and we are privileged to have our guests Commissioners Margaret and Paul Du Plessis. The commissioners will be leading most of the weekend, starting on Saturday at 5.30pm at East Stour School when we enjoy INTERNATIONAL NIGHT. This will feature all sorts of things, and will be an evening not to miss. On Sunday we worship together at 10.30am, and then anyone and everyone is invited to stay for a family celebration meal, concluding with The Event, and then some tea. The commissioners have served in national and international leadership roles, and now are retired (whatever that means!)

SUNDAY 25TH FEBRUARY 2007

Today a full hall shared together in worship and praise led by our assistant senior leader carl whitewood. Carl also spoke this morning, and spoke on doing as well as being, looking at James as his reference to this. The rest of the day was spent in community church activities, and our youth met together for youth nite this evening.

DAYS OF RETREAT

Officers from throughout the London South East Division of The Salvation Army will be retreating from the world next week for three days at Ashburnham Place. The event starts on Tuesday and concludes on Thursday, and will feature our Territorial Leaders as speakers. Please remember our senior leaders in your prayers at they spend this time coming apart, and spending time with God to be reenergised for the days ahead.

WOMENS WORLD DAY OF PRAYER

Two services are being held in Ashford next Friday to share in the opportunity of being together for the Womens World Day of Prayer. The day is written by women, but open to people of all genders! The first service is at St Marys Parish Church, Church Yard, Ashford, at 10am, and will feature our divisional family officer, Maureen Hood, as the speaker. The evening service at 7.30pm will be at Cade Road Church, and the speaker will be the Reverend David Clark.

LENT STARTS WELL

This week we have started two lent groups to explore material entitled 'Life Essentials'. The six week journey looks at what is essential in our lives to know a true passionate relationship with Jesus - to know the hope of Glory! The first group met on Tuesday at 10am at our church centre and was attended by about 10 people. The second group met on Thursday at 7.30pm at the home of our senior leaders and was attended by sixteen people. Numbers have been very encouraging - and the desire for people to explore this, shows gret potential! We pray everyone will know what a passionate relationship with Jesus is all about, and go deeper in their relationship with Him, more than ever before. For further information on this material please do not hesitate to contact our church centre.

THE JOURNEY IN DISCIPLESHIP

Two of our church family will be travelling to Maidstone tomorrow evening for further discussions with the team at headquarters about their vocation and journey towards leadership as officers in The Salvation Army. Please pray for Luke Johnson and Clare Hayward in this.

Sunday 18th February 2007

Being the end of half term, our congregation size was a little lower today - about seventy people gathering together. This morning our senior leader Ian, led worship, and our youth officer, Trevor spoke. We thank God for what He has sought to say to us. Yesterday we looked at John 15 during our time out day, and today Trevor opened the word from John 15 (he did not know). This evening at Disciple College we also looked at John 15, and shared personally what God is saying to us individually and collectively through this. We recognied: God has chosen us - and therefore we need to live close to Him; we need to stick with Him; we need to grow in Him; we need to keep growing (and not going); we need to obey - and above all in this refect who our Father is, that of course, being God. We thank God for what He has and is teaching us. This morning was also very special because we welcomed formally into membership Nancy and Charles. They have been sharing with us now for six months, and was great to share with them as their commitment to our church fellowship - and indeed of course, we are committed to them. Love binds us.

TIME OUT

About twenty people gathered together for our first Time Out Day. Sadly our planned leaders could not be with us, but our senior leaders filled the gap. Capt Sue and Childrens Ministries Officer Clare helped the children through the day exploring Family and God's place within this. The 'older people' shared the day with Capt Ian who explored the same, but looked more at God's Relationship with His People, and His desire to reach out to us, as The Word states from the beginning till the end! It was a helpful day for many people (comments welcome below), as well as helpful to come apart for a while and spend sometime reflecting and focussing on God without the rush and pace of the day. We would like to see more people sharing in such days, especially as we get so little precious time like this. We recognised the importance of it - just doing it is important as well. Our next event like this will be held in June when Commissioners Bob and Janet Street share the weekend with us.

GODS ARMY

We are currently updating our teaching and resourcing programme and are pleased to announce that God's Army has now been updated and available. This is a one or two session study on what the Bible teaches an soldier of Jesus Christ is all about, and how that marries together with what a Soldier of The Salvation Army really is all about. Copies of the material are also available in booklet form. If you would like to see this material, or would like to attend a forth coming group discussion on the material, then please contact us.

LENT 2007

Each year we have a focus throughout the Lentern Period, and this year we are going back to basics, to explore the essentials that need to matter in living a passionate relationship with Jesus. The material has been written locally, and is part of teaching and resourcing ministries. Two groups have been arranged to discuss the material - this will help to bring it more to life - and it is hoped that members and friends would join with one of the two groups. The first starts Tuesday at 10am, and meets every Tuesday, the second Thursday evenings at 7.30pm. For further information contact the senior leadership. In addition, if you would like a copy of this material, then please also contact us. Copies will be available at our celebration meeting on Sunday, and a donation of £2 is suggested, although not essential.

LEADERSHIP CHANGES

Within The Salvation Army leadership changes have been announced for the general move in the summer. Our leaders are not caught up in this, this year. The following is something that is doing the 'rounds' at the moment - you might have seen it already. However, maybe this outlines what we need to be looking for in the future months?

Corps Officer Chain Letter
The results of a computerized survey indicate that the perfect officer preaches for exactly fifteen minutes. He condemns sins, but never upsets anyone. He works from eight in the morning until midnight, and is also the caretaker. He earns £50 a week, wears good clothes, buys good books, drives a good car, and gives £50 a week to the poor.He is 28 years old and has preached 30 years. He has a burning desire to work with teenagers, but spends all of his time with senior citizens. The perfect officer smiles all the time because he has a sense of humour, but keeps a straight face as he's seriously dedicated to his work. He makes 15 pastoral visits a week to families, shut-ins and anyone in hospital, but is always in his office when needed.If your officer does not measure up, simply send this letter to six other corps that are tired of their officer too. Then bundle up your officer and send him to the corps on the top of the list. In one week, you will receive 1,643 officers and one of them will be perfect.Have faith in this procedure. One corps broke the chain and got its old officer back in less than three weeks! So don't break the chain

TIME OUT.....

This Saturday is the first of our TIME OUT DAYS - time when we take time out of our busy lives to seek retreat from the busyness of this world, to reflect and to seek renewal in The Holy Spirit. The day will be held at our church centre and start with coffee at 10.30am, and the day proper at 11.00am. Our leader will be Captain Ian, and the focus throughout the day will be on exploring our relationship with God, mainly in preparation for our Lent studies this year entitled: The Hope of Glory. The day will be relaxing, challenging, and exciting - and so much more - and the day is open to anyone who would value taking some time out, whether you are part of this church or not. You still are part of our family! Captain Sue and Acting Childrens Ministries Officer, Clare, will be leading an equally exciting for children throughout the day as well. We conclude by 3pm. You are reminded you will need a Bible, and also require a Packed Lunch. Please pray for this day and for Ian, Sue and Clare as they lead us.

VISITING PEOPLE

ASACC have been blessed this week with two visitors. On Monday at GLOW Community Group, our after dinner speaker was Captain Denise Cooper. The captain is our divisional childrens officer. She spoke about her dreams and her vision and how God is fulfilling that through her ministry as the childrens officer for the London South East Division. We thank God for Denise. Today (Wednesday) our Adult Ministries day, we welcome Major Christine Clement from Territorial Headquarters. The Major is the Publishing Secretary and Editor in Chief. We have had many visits from the Major and thrilled she is returning today.

JOURNEY -WEEK TWO

Yesterday we held our second session of Journey. It was again a time of great opportunity to meet together with other church members and friends, but also to explore the Journey of Life. This week we looked at how this relational God has stepped in to this world to do something about the reality that our sin seperates us from God, and we looked at how The Cross speaks to us of freedom from sin, and the resurrection about hope for the future, a sure desintation can be seen. We spoke of the need of repentance. We spoke on how sin can destroy us and cause us to take our eyes off Jesus. What we need to do is to continue to journey, but firstly to journey to the Cross, unpack all the doubt, fears and burdens, and leave them with Him - thus being able to continue the journey weightless. Journey returns after the half term break.

FIRST WEEKEND IN FEBRUARY

Its been a very busy, but exciting weekend for the church community here in Ashford. We started with our annual quiz night, which this year was held for the first time at the East Stour School. Over fifty people attended, and there were about eight teams. This year we saw some new faces sharing with us which was great, and the winning team was the Mission Team who took the MUG from the Flame Youth Group who won the MUG last year. The assistant senior leader, Carl, led the evening and arranged it so well as always. Carl is such a blessing to this church community and a great blessing as part of our church leadership and ministry as a whole.

Sunday a bursting full hall welcomed the day of celebration together, and being the first Sunday in the month we held our Family Day. Our Senior Leaders led worship, and our guest speaker for the day, Lieutenant Colonel Royston Bartlett, who in his ministry has travelled the world, and is now the Secretary for Communications for The Salvation Army in the UK and Republic of Ireland, spoke. Our Family Day meal was brillaint, and served over 70 people, again of all ages. THE EVENT, our monthly informal meeting, featured the colonel speaking on his travels with The General, the International Leader of The Salvation Army, which was one of his previous appointments.

An additional part of today was the presence of BBC TV who were recording our celebration meeting, interviewing our senior leader and also gary and jan chittenden, members of our church. This is for a report they are doing on the TV looking at how churches are reaching into new estates, and they wanted to feature how The Salvation Army are seeing God do things. Again this week we have seen new faces, and a very full hall, again reflecting people of all generations. This is amazing, and we just thank God for what He is blessing us with. We have amazing leaders, amazing family, and amazing facilities. Watch out for the feature on BBC TV later in February. We will include information about this nearer the time.

THANK YOU to everyone for making this weekend possible. You are deeply and dearly loved by God, and us all.