"Christ is all and in all" Colossians 3:11
Student Minister: Steve Holland
219 Wellbrook Way, Girton CB3 0GL - tel: 277146
Secretary: Sally Clilverd
67 Cambridge Road, Oakington CB24 3BG - tel: 235126
Website: www.girtonbaptistchurch.org.uk
Sunday Services
(Sunday School and creche are available during the morning service, and
tea and coffee are served at the end.)
Sunday services are led by Steve Holland unless stated otherwise.
July 6th 10.30am 'All Age' service
6.30pm Evening Worship with Communion.
13th 10.30am Morning Worship
6.30pm Evening Worship.
20th 10.30am Morning Worship with Communion.
6.30pm Evening Worship
27th 10.30am Morning Worship followed by a Third World Lunch
6.30pm Evening Worship
Other Meetings
July 11th 3.00pm: Service at Midfield Lodge Nursing Home with Bob and June Earl 30th 8.00pm, Prayer Meeting in the Church 31st 10.00am - 12.00 noon Coffee Morning in the Church
DANCING IN THE DARK
John Simpson, the renowned journalist and broadcaster met a translator who felt confident enough in the changing political attitudes of China, to confide a secret. During the long years of the Cultural Revolution, when everyone was forced into drab uniformity, this lady and her husband, on the anniversary of their wedding each year, would check that their children were peacefully asleep, then in the quietness of night, they would remove a few floorboards and retrieve a hidden box containing pre-revolutionary evening clothes. Quickly donning their finery, they would then waltz around the room a few times, just to remind themselves of the days when beauty and individuality were not savagely beaten out of the population. They performed this little ritual despite the danger of discovery with the dire consequences of imprisonment for such an act of insurrection.
The human spirit craves liberty and the right to celebrate the uniqueness of each individual personality. We harbour the notion that democracy will always honour freedom, encourage creativity, and listen to diverse opinions. Yet many of us now have a nagging sense of despair, a feeling that liberty is being bartered for fragile security and bureaucratic rules are inexorably penning us into a fold without gates. We are liable to find ourselves accused of breaking new laws beyond our knowledge and being overtaken by moral codes foreign to our understanding.
When power and authority rule by suppression, the people rise up like a restless sea, searching for a champion who will deliver them from oppression.
Jesus saw in the eyes of his kinsmen, a surging resentment against the iron grip of an invading army, but he was also aware of the grief and dismay of those who had become the outcasts of society when physical ailments barred them from Temple worship. In healing the sick, Jesus restored dignity and status. He gave honour to the poor and found value in the despised ones.
He said, “I am come that they might have life and have it to the full”. John 10v10.
Yet far beyond the joy of physical restoration was the sense of revelation and freedom of spirit experienced by each soul who found faith in Christ. Still today, the quickening to life of the eternal soul brings a liberty of spirit that cannot be imprisoned by walls or exchanged for riches.
In the southern States of America, where slaves toiled in sweat and tears on cotton plantations far from their ancestral roots, their unbroken spirits still cherished the hope of freedom beyond the burning sun and the lash of the whip.
When I get to heaven, I’m gonna put on my shoes and walk all over God’s heaven”.
Abraham Lincoln, the President who emancipated the slaves, was shot whilst seated in an opera house. A young lady tried to bring comfort by resting his head against her. Later, as she viewed her bloodstained white dress, she made a decision. She cut a square of silk and sent it to the city fathers of Springfield, Illinois, where it was displayed under the inscription “To the man who liberated the slaves”. Such blood was infinitely precious.
To the Church at Rome, the Apostle Paul wrote, “You did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship”. Romans ch.8
Those who experience liberation in the Spirit may yet live in times of moral darkness, yet inwardly, they dance to the music of heaven.
Iris Niven
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