LEIGH BAPTIST CHURCH “MESSENGER” JULY 2026
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
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
Sun 5th July 10.45am Worship Service led by Val Hulme 1:30pm Cantonese House Group
Sun 12th July 10.45am Shortened Worship Service led by Rev. Neil Brighton, followed by the Church and Congregation Meeting
Sun 19th July 10.45am Open Service
Sun 26th July 10.45am Worship and Communion Service led by Linda Davey 1:30 pm Cantonese House Group
Wednesdays 1st, 8th and 29th July Prayer Meeting 10am - 11am Drinks at 9.45am
Wednesday 8th July: 11:15 am Deacons' Meeting
Friday 24th July 7:30 pm All Singers Great and Small Concert - The Stories This House Could Tell Tickets £5.00
Other Users of the Building:
Tuesday 14th July 7:00 pm All Singers Great and Small Committee Meeting
Wednesdays throughout July - All Singers Great and Small Community Choir 7.30 - 9.00pm
Thursdays throughout June 10am - 12 noon Atherton and Leigh Foodbank
Please make an extra effort to attend our Church and Congregation Meeting on Sunday 12th July, after a shortened service. We need the views of all our church and congregation members. Rev. Neil Brighton will be updating us with the latest news about the Onesimus project, and will be able to answer your questions about it.
Tickets for All Singers Great and Small Community Choir's Concert on Friday 24th July are now available, priced £5.00. (See Val, or a deacon) Please let your family and friends know about it and encourage them to come along. We will also need people to help by baking or buying cakes for the refreshments in the interval, setting up for the refreshments, washing up and clearing away afterwards. Please let Val or one of the deacons know if you are able to help in any way.
Our Pastoral Leader, Val, will be on Annual Leave from Monday 13th July to Sunday 26th July inclusive.
A gentle reminder: The list of duties on the rota sheet on the partition window is useful for the Leaders to see which duties will be covered or need to be covered each week. Please use this to record your commitment to one or more duties. For the third month running only one name appeared for a single duty for the whole of JUNE.
Cause and effect. Something that we probably learned as children, if you do this, then that will happen.
Don't touch the fire, or you'll burn your fingers. Don't run into the road without looking, or you'll get knocked down.
I remember reading poems by Hilaire Beloc when I was a child. They often warned of the consequences of telling lies, the children in the poems coming to dreadful ends as a consequence of their constant untruths.
Paul uses the word therefore many times in his letters to remind us that there are consequences - cause and effect - for our daily living as Christians. Romans 12: 1 - 8 shows us what should happen in our lives as a consequence of following Christ. Because of God's mercy, and, with the Spirit's help, our lives should be changed, transformed, our minds renewed. We will begin to see things differently, do things differently. We will want our lives to reflect God's will, not just on Sunday when we gather together, but in our everyday lives.
Sadly, there are other examples of cause and effect. Some of us may have been told not to do something because we were no good at it. If we are told often enough, then we start to believe it. We begin to compare ourselves with others, often negatively. We might even believe that we don't have any gifts to offer, that nothing we do could ever be used in God's service. That's simply untrue.
Paul reminds us that we are one body and just as different parts of our human bodies have different functions, but all are needed, then all of our gifts are needed for the Christian body to function. We notice the difference when we become ill, when part of our body doesn't work as it should; a lost voice making communication difficult, a broken bone rendering a limb unusable, and, whilst we can get round it, we recognise that we function better when everything works together.
It's the same in our church family; we need all our parts working together. Everyone has a gift, something that they are good at. Whatever it is, we are to use it to serve God. It may seem small and unimportant to you, but God can take it and use it to achieve His purposes.
Ephesians 3: 20, "Now unto Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen"
Do you know what your gift is? How does God want to use it to grow His kingdom?
Val
