Celebrating God's generosity at Harvest

Yesterday was a day of celebration at Holy Trinity!

We celebrated Harvest Thanksgiving...

Lizzie Baker preached to our 3 All Age Congregations on 'Our Generous God' - reminding us from Genesis 1 of the God who has given us a world of abundant beauty and variety to rule over and care for, and then from John 3:16 of the God who 'so loved the world that he gave his only Son'. God's generosity and grace seen in creation and cross.

Members of HT brought their Harvest gifts - donations of non-perishable food and other items for the Salvation Army Food Bank.

The HT flower team (pictured below) had once again decorated the church imaginatively for Harvest so that we were reminded of God's variety and abundance in creation as we walked into church.

We celebrated an update from our Connected Pledge Weekend...

The weekend before had been our Pledge Weekend, as we invited members of HT to come and pray on the Saturday before coming along to take part in a shared act of pledging to our Connected Building Project on the Sunday. It was a moving sight on Sunday 17th as so many members of HT came forward to make their response. 

Yesterday we were able to announce that we are now past the half-way mark towards our required £3,000,000. We celebrated by using a verse from 1 Chronicles 29 - King David's prayer at the building of the Temple in Jerusalem:

 “But who am I, and who are my people, 

that we should be able to give as generously as this? 

Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand."

These ancient words came to life again as we - like God's people in every generation - were able to celebrate God's goodness to us and his abundant provision for all our needs.
At the launch of our Connected Building Project we had heard this quote from Hudson Taylor, the pioneer missionary to China: "In any great work of God there are 3 stages: Impossible. Difficult. Done!" It feels as though we have moved beyond the impossible stage, and into the difficult territory (by human standards at least).


We hosted a celebration of schools work in Redhill and Reigate...

At our Sunday@7 service we welcomed members from churches around the borough, as we hosted the annual Sparkfish Celebration Service.

Sparkfish is a Christian organisation, supported by local churches to go into local schools to present the Christian message so that children can hear it and make sense of it for themselves. They do this in a variety of ways - offering assemblies, seasonal events, personal mentoring and 'Think' spaces. Click here for more info.

Last night we were able to meet a couple of new appointments to the Sparkfish staff team, including Harriet Pearce the new Leader of Schools Work.

We also heard a report of the last year and how schools have welcomed Sparkfish in - so much so that there is more opportunity than the team can currently take up. Volunteers welcome!

Adding prayers to the Sparkfish Prayer Tree!

It was a day to celebrate the goodness of God in his faithfulness and his generosity. It was a day to experience something of the joy of belonging to such a God, and to be among his people.

Thanks be to God for his goodness in creation; thanks be to God for his indescribable gift to us in his Son!