LEIGH BAPTIST CHURCH “MESSENGER” JUNE 2025
VERNON ST / CHURCH ST . LEIGH. WN7 1BH
Website : www.leighbaptistchurch.org.uk Contact: admin@leighbaptistchurch.org.uk
Pastoral Leader – Val Hulme ( Days Off Tues and Fridays)
email : pastoral.leader@leighbaptistchurch.org.uk TEL 07817142192
Check LBC website for updates and info also LBC FACEBOOK page
Dates for your Diary:
Sun June 1st 10.45am Worship service led by the Deacons
Sun June 8th 10.45am Worship Service for Pentecost Val Hulme
Sun 15th June 10:45 am Sunday Bible Study Revd Neil Brighton
Sun June 22nd 10.45am Communion Service Val Hulme
Sun June 29th 10:45 am Open Service
Wednesdays throughout June 10-11am Prayer Meeting (drinks from 9.45am)
Thurs June 19th 1:15 pm: Deacons' Meeting
Other users of the building:
Tuesday 3rd June 11:30am - 2:15 pm: Leigh Ladies Luncheon Club
Wednesdays throughout June 7:30 pm: All Singers Great and Small Community Choir
Thursdays throughout May 10:00 - 12:00: Atherton and Leigh Foodbank
Friday June 20th 12:30 pm: Pensioners' Link Poetry Competition
Friday July 11th 7:30 pm: All Singers Great and Small Concert in aid of church funds. Tickets: £5.00
Our next Church and Congregation Meeting will be on Sunday July 13th after a shorter Open Service.
At our last Church and Congregation Meeting, Val gave notice that she would be stepping down from all the "extra" duties that she has continued with since taking up the Pastoral Leader role, by December 31st at the latest. These include organising lettings, dealing with renewing contracts, completing B.U. Annual Returns; bookkeeping, issuing invoices, banking; Designated Person for Safeguarding; DBS Verifier; renewing church parking permits; ordering paper towels, sugar sticks, cleaning and other equipment from Nisbets; ordering and collecting flyers/publicity; setting the heating; security alarm contact; bringing milk for church use. She will continue as Pastoral Leader with a view to retire by June 2027. We also need to be aware that Jean comes to the end of her term of office in December 2025. Will you heed the call, step up and fill some of the gaps?
We are sorry to hear of the death of Ken Smith a former church member and deacon. Our sympathies to his wife Janis.
Pentecost.
Acts 2:4 says, “-- they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”
We often talk as if that was the beginning of the work of the Holy Spirit in the world, but that was not the origin of the Spirit of God
If we read Genesis 1 we see that God’s Spirit was in existence at the time of Creation. Verse 2 tells us that “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” But we shall never know where it originated from.
Many times in the Old Testament the Spirit of God is mentioned in different ways. In Job 33:4 Elihu says to Job, “The Spirit of God has made me and the breath of the Almighty has given me life.” Many times the Israelites turned away from God, but He told the prophet Ezekiel to tell them, “I will put My Spirit within you; you shall be My people and I will be your God.” (Ezekiel 36:27, 28).
When Jesus came up out of the water having been baptised by John, “He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. --- A voice from Heaven said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”(Matt 3:16,17)
In John 3 Nicodemus went at night to speak to Jesus and was told that it is only those who are born of water and the Spirit who can enter the kingdom of Heaven. Jesus went on to liken the Spirit to the wind which blows where it will, but, although we hear the sound of it we don’t know where it comes from, or where it goes to. This seems to me to say that the world cannot understand how people are led by the Spirit.
Jesus spoke a lot to the disciples about the Holy Spirit. He told them that when He departed from the Earth He would send the Helper, the Spirit of Truth to them, from God the Father, and in John 16:13 He said, “When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth.”
That is what happened on the Day of Pentecost when the many Jews ‘from every nation under heaven’ who were gathered in Jerusalem heard the disciples speaking in their own language, and Peter was able to speak to everyone and tell them that that was what had been spoken about by the prophet, Joel: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.” (Acts 2:17 NIV) Peter went on to tell them who Jesus really was and about His life, death and resurrection. He went on to tell them to repent and be baptised. About three thousand were added to ‘their number that day.’ From then on, all through the centuries, the Holy Spirit has been at work, transforming the lives of those who have put their trust in Jesus Christ as their Saviour, guiding them in the ways of the Lord and enabling them to witness for Him. The early disciples and St Paul gave us accounts of the life on Earth of God’s Son, Jesus, up until He ascended into Heaven and of the life of Jesus’ followers in the early church. The Christian Church has survived persecutions, divisions and other problems since those early days until now. God’s Spirit is still at work guiding and enabling the believers to spread the truth of the Gospel.
Each member of the Christian Church has a part to play in their local fellowship and in the world. We have each been placed where the Lord wants us to use the individual gifts He has given us to use by the power of the Holy Spirit in the Mission of the Church. Galatians 5:22 lists the nine fruits of the Spirit, beginning with ‘love, joy, peace, and verse 25 says, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Paul urged Timothy “to stir up the gift of God which is in you.” (2Timothy 1:6).
May the Lord help us to be faithful in what He has called us to do in the power of the Holy Spirit.
KathieW. Quotations are from the NKJV
Correction. In the May Message I wrote that Jacob had to work another seven years before he could marry Rachel. This was incorrect. After marrying the older sister, Leah, he only had to wait another week to marry Rachel. He then had to work the other seven years for her.