Holywell Free Church

Berkeley Road

Loughborough

LE11 3SJ

July 2010

Dear fellow Christians and friends,

I’d like to take this opportunity to repeat the thanks I expressed at the Annual Meeting for your welcome and support over the past six months.  It’s good to be part of a church where God’s people are working together for his kingdom – as was shown by the meeting’s reports.

I had meant at that meeting to give us three things to focus on over the coming year.  As we were short of time, I decided to put them in this letter instead.  Here they are:

Looking up

Let’s make sure we’re a church that is looking up to God in prayer. We can’t expect the church to survive, let alone grow, if we’re not pleading with God in prayer. So, please make every effort to come to the Thursday prayer meetings. If you really can’t make it, then there are prayer meetings on Tuesday mornings, Sundays and some Saturdays instead. And let’s not just be present, but be pleading with God in those meetings.

Drawing in

There are many people whose involvement in church life doesn’t go beyond attending once on a Sunday. Think about how you can get to know such people, and encourage them into more involvement in the life of the church-family. And if you are currently only coming on a Sunday morning, think (and ask) about how you can be part of the church’s life and work more fully. Of course, let’s not just think about these things, but also put them into practice.

Reaching out

The New Testament church was far from an inward-looking cosy club. As a church and as individuals we must be reaching out to those we meet and know, those who live and work around us, with the gospel they desperately need. We have amazingly good news, let’s reach out with it.

In the service of Christ’s church,

Joseph