Vine Community Church: Christmas Child

Vine Community Church: Christmas Child

Have you heard of Operation Christmas Child? As I write this my wife and I have just been out delivering flatpack shoeboxes in Littleport to households who’ve requested them – to be filled with Christmas gifts for needy children around the world. “The mission of Operation Christmas Child is to show God’s love in a tangible way… to share the Good News of Jesus Christ.” Over the last 30 years more than 186 million children…

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Vine Community Church

Vine Community Church

Thoughts on Freedom As I write in January, we have entered our third period of lockdown because of the Covid 19 pandemic. Numbers being infected are rising rapidly, as are hospital admissions and deaths. Vaccinations are taking place increasingly quickly, but there seems little prospect of the situation being much better soon. Most of us are having to adapt to a very different and constantly changing world. We are realising that we are all vulnerable…

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Vine Community Church

Vine Community Church

A ‘New Normal’? As I sat down to start to write this ‘piece’ for ‘Littleport Life, I suddenly realised that I am writing at the start of October, but you may not read this until December. Now, if I were writing last year, in October 2019, this would be no problem; but I am writing now, in the Year of the Global Pandemic! Last year, I would have been sure that the magazine would be…

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Vine Community Church

Vine Community Church

When the last Littleport Life was being published, churches were writing their articles back in March. At this time, we were at the start of the lockdown when churches had to close. With their buildings shut, churches had to quickly adapt and provide new ways to enable believers to continue to worship and fellowship with each other. Most of this adaptation took place through the use of the Internet with online services premiering on Sundays,…

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Vine Community Church

Vine Community Church

I’ve been in Littleport three years now, and the rooks in the trees a couple of streets away have been my constant companions through the day and through the seasons. What a season this last one has been (and very much continuing as I write). We have all had our own thoughts during lockdown, and not a few challenges. One morning in March, as soon as I woke up, a few words and phrases came…

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Vine Community Church

Vine Community Church

Suddenly, the house came alive! Shouts of joy, people rushing to get themselves ready. “What are we going to see?” “Goldfinger! It’s another James Bond film.” “Oh, wow!” The year was 1964. The place – Nairobi! We were ecstatic. We all piled into the car and set off. It took a little while to get out to the Drive-In Cinema at Thika, but we preferred it to the Bellevue near the airport. If we as…

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Vine Community Church

Vine Community Church

I have an ear-worm. Not a wriggly slimy thing in my ear but a song that is going round and round in my head: ‘A time for giving, a time for getting, A time for forgiving, a time for forgetting’ These are lyrics from ‘Mistletoe and Wine’ – a song that doubtless has been heard across the supermarket aisles as we all prepare for Christmas. I will be ready and keen to give out presents…

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Vine Community Church – Bees and Flowers – messages from God?

Vine Community Church – Bees and Flowers – messages from God?

We have beekeepers in our church family at The Vine. Their bees make the most wonderful-tasting honey. Of course they are really God’s bees. Everything we have really comes from God. I’ve been thinking about just how extraordinary bees are. I’m writing this in July, and there are bees of different kinds buzzing around in my garden. They especially seem to like a plant called Lamb’s Ear. I was reading the other day that female…

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Vine Community Church – God’s Plans Are For Good, Not Evil

Vine Community Church – God’s Plans Are For Good, Not Evil

Do you believe that? When we have terrible things happening in our lives are we able to see the whole picture and know that God’s plans are for good? The Bible says, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’” (Jeremiah 29:11). While this verse may be comforting for you in your situation now,…

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Vine Community Church – Do not despise the ‘small things’ …

Vine Community Church – Do not despise the ‘small things’ …

Last November, I walked down my garden and the weeping pussy willow tree caught my eye. Since the leaves fell, it had been a mass of dull brown twigs and – if you knew where to look – small dark buds. But that morning, some of the buds had – overnight! – turned a brilliant butter yellow colour. And I knew that, if nothing else, the tree was still alive (though dormant) and the processes…

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