january 2008 @ city of peace

Here’s a small devotional (of sorts). The monthly activities are below.

If you missed this past Sunday Henk B. talked about the events surrounding the arrival of the wise men in Jerusalem and Bethlehem in Matthew 2. On the one hand we see the incredible account of the wise men bowing to worship Jesus because of the Kingdom he will establish here on earth, and yet on the other hand we see the terrible disaster that ensued when all the boys under 2 years old were slaughtered by Herod. We discovered (probably not unsurprisingly) that we also live in this same tension. We know things aren’t as they should be, and yet we realize that the Kingdom Jesus established here on earth through his church can and does have a remarkable impact on our lives. Many of us within City of Peace can attest to the saving work of Jesus Christ in the past and possibly even today, but the difficulty comes when we just don’t see it in the mess that can be our lives. My hope is that you would cling to the promises of Jesus in your own life despite the tension we feel, rather than relying on yourself (or even someone else or some thing) as a pseudo-saviour to reverse the disasters that have and will continue to come. Other religions and world views offer you a plan to get out of the disasters that come, but it normally comes through your own effort. However, Jesus comes and says, “I (not you) will get you through this, just trust me on this one.” It’s hard for me to believe Him at times, but He gives me reason to believe when He too was slaughtered (willingly) and experienced life’s disasters on my behalf so that I might receive the promises of a new Kingdom.

Here’s the schedule for the month:

New Sermon Series—The 10 commandments
We’ve been looking at the book of Exodus over the past several months and now we’re taking time to look at the 10 commandments. We’ll be looking at the first four commandments in the month of January.

January 8th—House Group Begins
We have 3 house groups that meet weekly to study the Bible and fellowship. All House Groups begin this week. Time and places are as follows:
Tuesday at Henk Bouma’s house, which is located at 270a Manchester Road and the group starts at 7:15pm.
Wednesday at Café Forever and it starts at 7:00pm
Friday at 272 Manchester Road and the groups starts at 9:30am. The group is for women and provides child care.

January 9th--Badminton Starts
Every week a group of guys get together on Wednesday nights to play badminton. Feel free to join them at 8pm at George Green Secondary School. Contact Henk van der Meer for further details at henkvandermeer@yahoo.com.

January 10th—Christianity Explored
Henk van der Meer will be running a Christianity Explored Course on Thursday nights starting January 10th that will run for 7 weeks. If you or anyone you know is interested, then please contact Henk for further details. He’ll be holding the course at his house and will include dinner.

January 11th —Friday Prayer Meeting
Please join us at Café Forever at 7:00am for our monthly prayer meeting to pray over individual, community, church and world issues.

January 27th—An Afternoon at Departure
We’ll be heading to Departure after our Sunday service for a meal followed by games and activities. Depature provides us with more space, so this will be a great way to spend a bit more time with people from City of Peace. It also would be a great event to invite a friend to.

Peace,
Tom