From the sadness of taking a funeral on Thursday to the joy of taking a wedding on Saturday; this is the variety of privilege and emotion a Pastor has. Neena our Young Adults Pastor and Chris had their special day with a service in St George’s Church in Epsom. Neena was so keen she arrived early and had to wait around the corner from the church. They are a great couple and faithful servants in our church.

Yesterday I had my last lecture with our interns at Ministry Training College; first year students have a few more weeks before the term ends. I teach the interns on church health/growth. And then tonight it looks like I will be attending my first ever cooking demonstration. Not really my thing, but one of our Elim College students has invited TV cooking celebrity Annabelle White to demonstrate as a fundraiser for the college Israel trip. Marilyn is hoping I might learn something, but I don’t think you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Saturday night is our staff Christmas party, and then I am back in the East on Sunday after being in the North last Sunday. We are into number four of our series on Forgotten Virtues; this week talking about integrity.

We have a new series starting this week called Forgotten Virtues. In the latest North/South magazine there is an article about the huge demand by parents for special character schools like ours. Parents want their children to be taught in an environment where biblical values are taught and lived. We are going to look at some of these values over the next five Sundays.

On Saturday night we celebrate our volunteers. We have hundreds of members who sacrificially give their time every week to serve in the church. They are awesome and as staff we want to let them know how special they are by giving them a great night out. This year all of our campuses will join together including a couple of bus-loads from the North. Pray the weather is nice as we are outdoors.

Tonight we farewell two of our Elders as Jon Gundy and Phil Gaze come off the team, and we welcome onto the team Shane Suili. Shane and his wife Kuini are part of our South congregation. Jon and Bridget are off to the Netherlands for an extended time with Jon’s work Mainfreight. We wish you guys God’s blessing as you travel. What a great adventure.