Weekly Bulletin: Staying connected as a church - 16 March 2025
Kia ora St John’s whānau,
This Sunday we continue our series on the faith practice PRAY, as we journey through the season of Lent.
When we pray we open ourselves up to a much more fulfilling spiritual life.
Prayer can help us deepen our relationship with God and each other, centring us so we can live more closely aligned with Christ's calling for us.
Our children and young people will go out with their leaders part-way through the service to their peer group times.
At the conclusion of the service we will all share Morning Tea together.
If you can’t gather in the city, and you want to join the worship service via Zoom, here are the details to access the live-stream:
Zoom Meeting ID: 370 260 759
Passcode: worship
The link to join the Zoom worship service is below.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/370260759?pwd=b2ZkajZ5d28rTy9EN1VKZDJUM3N4dz09
If using your phone: dial 04 886 0026 (Meeting ID: 370 260 759#, Passcode: 1560107#)
This is the link to the printable Service Sheet:
OTHER THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT…
A&J ANNUAL APPEAL FOR MISSION SUNDAY 16TH MARCH
The St John’s Outreach Committee encourages everyone to be part of the spiritual and practical support for A&J (a St John’s couple working overseas), by praying regularly and contributing financially to their work with poor migrant workers. A&J speak eight languages between them, so can talk to these migrant workers often in their own language. A&J are not paid a salary for bringing hope to these people . Instead, they raise most of the money that they need to live themselves.
THIS SUNDAY 16th March there will be a Retiring Offering (making a donation in the foyer after the service). The Outreach Committee is committed to give $4,000 each year and matches dollar for dollar all additional donations up to $2,500 per year. We hope to generate additional giving of $6,000 through this annual appeal.
If you would rather use internet banking, then use the normal bank account number 02 0500 0021908 00 and put ‘AandJ’ in the reference and your name or donor number in the particulars.
WHANAU NIGHT
HOPE continues as we take an international focus at Whānau Night THIS SUNDAY - 5:00-6:45pm @ St John's Centre.
Ian McInnes, CEO of Tearfund New Zealand, will be joining us and sharing his experience bringing HOPE to some of the world’s toughest humanitarian situations.
Ian is an engaging storyteller who loves connecting and sharing how God is working in many nations and through faith filled people like you. We’ll be thinking about his message of HOPE and considering how we can apply this to Our City, Ourselves and Our Church Community.
Some follow-up actions you could try are:
Pick an item and pray about that HOPE
Ask God to Guide our HOPE focus as a church for Our City, Ourselves and Our community, and Our World.
Take some action about that HOPE. You can be Gods Hands!!
As usual we’ll eat kai together at 5pm and kick off with activities from 5.30pm.
Everyone is part of our St John’s Whānau – so come check it out!
Ian McInnes, MBA MSc
CEO, Tearfund New Zealand
Ian McInnes is the CEO at Tearfund New Zealand, the second largest international NGO in New Zealand. He has spent the last two decades in international aid and development work, including many years in disaster response work and follow-on recovery operations. Ian has served in some of the world’s toughest humanitarian emergencies - starting in 2004 with the Indian Ocean tsunami in Sri Lanka which was followed by a civil war, then in Myanmar, Haiti, Pakistan, East Africa and within various Pacific Island disaster responses. Ian holds a number of governance roles in the charity sector: the Emergency Alliance – a consortia of NZ humanitarian agencies; at Fairtrade Australia New Zealand; Crave and KIND Cafés Auckland; and various Baptist Church bodies - Chair of the Auckland Baptist Tabernacle Governance Elders Board, Deputy Chair of the Tab Trust, trustee at the Northern Baptist Association and trustee of Iosis Social Services. Ian is married to doctor and author Himali McInnes and they have served alongside each other in a number of humanitarian contexts.
CONCERT
Entry by Koha
FELLOWSHIP GROUP
Swinging the world in harmony, locally, nationally, and internationally! Lala Simpson will be sharing about her work as a community song leader and why singing each other’s songs matters. This will be at the next meeting on Tuesday 25th March at 11am, in the St John’s Centre Hall.
DCM NEIGHBOURS
Our friends at DCM have invited us all to their 3rd Annual Chess Day, held in Te Aro Park on the 26th March, to celebrate Neighbours Aotearoa Month!
Downtown Community Ministry (DCM) are the leading social service working with people who are experiencing homelessness in Wellington – in particular, those who are rough sleeping or without shelter.
DCM have a Food Bank service and as St John's in the City is a member of DCM we make offerings of food as part of our worship each Sunday service to support this. As well as your generous gifts of food items, remember all ages are in need, from baby formula and feminine hygiene products to that tin of baked beans.
For more information please contact Carolyn Goudswaard.
WEDDING
Our Youth & Families Pastor, Hannah North is marrying Josh Dunne on Sunday 30th March!
Their wedding will be part of our 10am Sunday service, and so all are able to be part of this celebration.
Please save the date, and consider dressing up for this special occasion!
EASTER CAMP
Our youth are preparing for the Easter Camp at Forest Lakes, so this is an opportunity for us to pray for them to encounter the risen Jesus in a new way at this special time with other youth.
PARTICIPATING TOGETHER – CAN YOU HELP?
PHOTOS: We want more photos of all we do together as a Church, for use online and in print. Could you help coordinate a collection of photos?
Part of what needs to be organised is permissions for sharing from anyone who is identifiable in the image, and an on-line folder for receiving digital images.
If you’re interested in this opportunity please let Allister or an elder know.
FLOWERS: Do you enjoy flowers in church? The flowers are currently done by a team of 2 - Vicky Wood and Judi Ferguson.
We would like to welcome anyone else who has any interest in flowers in the church to join us. Arrangements do not have to be complicated, and can be supplemented by a huge variety of lovely artificial flowers.
If you have flowers in your garden you are willing to share, or if you would like to contribute to us buying flowers (necessary in winter), please contact Judi or Vicky
Mā te wā
Allister