LEIGH BAPTIST CHURCH “MESSENGER” JULY 2025
VERNON ST / CHURCH ST . LEIGH. WN7 1BH
Website : www.leighbaptistchurch.org.uk Contact: admin@leighbaptist church.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 July 6th 10.45am Worship Service Val Hulme
Sun July 13th 10.45am Open Service, followed by Church & Congregation Meeting
Sun 20th July 10:45 am Sunday Bible Study Val Hulme
Sun July 27th 10.45am Communion Service Val Hulme
Wednesdays 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th July 10:00 - 11:00 am: prayer Meeting Meet for drinks 9:45 (There will be no meeting on the 2nd July.)
Thursdays 10th, 17th, 24th and 31st July 4:30pm: Baptismal Classes. If baptism is something that you have been considering, please speak to Val.
Thursday 24th July 1:15 pm: Deacons' Meeting
Thursday 31st July 1:15 pm: Strategy Group Meeting
Friday 11th July 7:30pm: All Singers Great and Small Concert in aid of church funds. Tickets: £5:00 or pay on the door See Val for tickets.
Do advertise this amongst your friends and family. We will also need help with setting up for refreshments, serving them and washing up afterwards. Please let Val, Jean or Linda know if you can help
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Other users of the building
Tuesday 1st July 11:30 am - 2:00pm: Leigh Ladies Luncheon Club
Tuesday 15th July 7:00pm: All Singers Great and Small Committee Meeting
Wednesdays throughout July 7:30 pm: All Singers Great and Small Community Choir
Thursdays throughout July 10:00am - 12:00pm: Atherton and Leigh Foodbank.
Saturday 19th July 9:00 am - 12:00 pm: Manchester Alliance Church
*Our next Church and Congregation Meeting will be on Sunday 13th July after a shortened Open Service. Please put this date in your diary .
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; D.B.S. Verifier; renewing church parking permits; ordering paper towels, sugar sticks, cleaning and other equipment from Nisbets; 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 as Deacon in December 2025.
We will discuss this further at the Church and Congregation Meeting. Someone has already heeded the call to step up and fill one of the gaps. They all need to be covered. Are there any that you would be able to fill?
“God meant it for good.” Genesis 50:20
Most of us are very concerned about the various wars taking place in the world today, especially in Ukraine and the Middle East, together with the actions of certain leaders. The question often asked is, “Where is God in all this, why doesn’t He intervene?”
There have been many occasions from the time of Creation when mankind has messed things up by going against the will of God, but very often something good has come from the bad things that have happened. We can think of Joseph who was sold by his brothers to the “Caravan of Ishmaelites” taking spices to Egypt, then thrown into prison because of false accusations about him. But because God enabled him to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams which predicted seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine, he was put in charge of storing all the corn that grew in Egypt in those years of abundance so that when the famine came there was plenty to also give to neighbouring countries. God had turned around the bad things that happened and used them for good, but it had taken many years. In Genesis 50:20 Joseph said to his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
When, to avoid the command that all the Israelite baby boys should be killed at birth, baby Moses was hidden in a basket in the bullrushes by the river, his mother did not realise that he would be found by Pharoah’s daughter and grow up as her son. The fact that he had grown up in Pharoah’s palace placed him in a good position to later go back there to rescue the Children of Israel from slavery and ill-treatment and to lead them through the wilderness on their way to the Promised land of Canaan.
I am reading the MAF book, ‘Jungle Pilot’, by Russell T. Hitt, which tells the life story of Nate Saint, one of the missionaries killed by the Auca Indians 8th January, 1956. I remember hearing the news coming out about that tragic event, and now, reading of the invaluable inventions that MAF Pilot, Nate, made to make flying over and landing in the jungle less hazardous, as well as making life better for missionaries in those areas, it seems even more tragic to lose someone with such expertise. But, amazingly, because of the martyrdom of those Missionaries, that tribe eventually changed from being savages who slaughtered strangers to becoming a Christian tribe. In the last few chapters of the book Nate’s son, Stephen, continues with the story of the Auca Indians when they were no longer the tribe of savages they had been. He, like everyone else, wondered why the missionaries had to die. But eventually Nate’s sister, Rachel, had contact with one of the Auca women who taught her their language and became the first Auca Christian. This led to Rachel being able to make more contacts until she eventually lived in a house in the jungle. After her death, at the request of the women, Stephen and his family went to live in Rachel’s house and work amongst the Auca tribe. The killing of the 5 pioneer missionaries was not in vain. It enabled God’s plans to be implemented in the Amazon Jungle and opened the way for the translation of the Bible into the Auca language. What had been a tragedy many years earlier had been used by God to lead a tribe from being savage killers to give up that way of life and become Christians. He had been in that situation all the time, for He has promised “I will never leave you nor forsake you” {Hebrews 13:5}, so we can say, “God meant it for good.”
May we always let the Holy Spirit guide us to be aware of the ways in which God is leading us, not forgetting to pray about every situation and that many more people will trust in Jesus, God’s Son who died to save us. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. Isaiah 55:8