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Easter ‘Holy Week’ Highlights

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Easter Week at City Gate 

We hope you’ve had a lovely Easter weekend! During the past week, we’ve walked, contemplated the power of God’s love, prayed, expressed our creativity and come together as a community to give glory to God… Here is a taster of some of the things City Gaters have been up to during Holy Week this Easter.

Palm Sunday ‘Meditative Walk’

      

Walk into the city.  Walk around an area.  Pause, ponder and pray.  Remember …‘Nothing is so beautiful as Spring’.  See Christ in all and everywhere.

    

    Lent – anticipated death intertwined with hope of life”

Take a passage to walk and recite.  Take a character and walk with in your imagination.  Make it a pilgrimage!  Make a cross.

      

25 Easter Gift Bags!

 Hollingbury mission group were busy this week, packing Easter Gift Bags distributed to local families via the Old Boat and Gathering Place in Hollingbury. Filled with chocolate eggs, a craft activity, Easter story picture book and greetings card from Messy church…  a wonderful way to share the GOOD NEWS of Jesus!

Good Friday Contemplative journey @TheDIP

A mini installation was set up at The DIP for Good Friday – a journey leading through the building, into the garden and back through the kitchen… a self-directed contemplation, moving through the space with scripture, poetry and imagery to contemplate, pray and take communion.

    

  

A big THANK YOU to everyone who helped to make the installation and set-up the space, especially:

Becky, Patrick, Nicky & Finley, Johnie, Carmella, Andy M & Hannah B

“We adore You,

O Christ, and 

praise You. 

Because, by

Your holy cross,

You have redeemed

the world.”

 

Easter Sunday Sunrise Walk

  

A few of us got up early and walked to Hollingbury Fort to see the sunrise on Easter Sunday. A slightly cloudy start, but a lovely way to begin the day with thanksgiving, bible reading and prayer over our city.

“Go with confidence

into the days ahead,

trusting in God’s unfailing

love and faithfulness.

God will not abandon you,

for you are the work of His hands

– His own creation and

His love endures forever.”

‘See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up,  do you not perceive it?’

Isaiah 43:19

New Year: a time of thankfulness, reflection and hope…

By | News

Although we couldn’t meet in person as a church to mark the start of 2021, we encouraged City Gaters in their households & bubbles to take a stroll to the beach, gather some pebbles and make a little memorial, being creative with the different colours found; choosing a different shape such as a heart, cross or star.

      

Looking back over the past year, we used the stones collected as a way of:

• Being thankful to God the Father for his faithfulness over this last year.
• Remembering his covenant with us
• Honouring Jesus, the rock on which our lives are built
• Laying down any heavy ’stones’ we don’t want to carry into next year: forgiving someone, asking God to take the weight of people we worry and care about, letting go of anxiety.
• Praying for the church, the ‘living stones’ that we might be built together in greater unity this year
• Being thankful that, by the Holy Spirit, we now have his law written, not on tablets of stone, but on our hearts. It can be an opportunity to recommit ourselves to building our lives on the Rock and following his ways.
• Praying for a soft heart this year.

      

Here are a few rocks collected on 1st Jan from one of our members:

Heart shaped Earth I thought… reminding me to pray on Earth as it is in Heaven.  Resting on a lovely red rock…. “Our Rock, Our Redeemer “

The 2nd photo is a Mother and child….reminding me to pray for pregnancies, childbirth and all those becoming parents during this time.

Last ones….empty shell….reminding me I need to be filled each day with more of Jesus, and a stone which looks like a ✔️ to say Yes!! To Prayers of Faith, Hope and thankfulness.

You may want to gather your own stones to spend time in January being thankful, reflecting on the past year and holding onto hope for 2021.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable and pleasing in Your sight,
O LORD, my firm, immovable rock and my Redeemer.

Psalm 19

Wishing you a Happy, Healthy & Hope-filled Christmas

By | News

Blessings of Hope

Christmas, what an amazing time, time to celebrate, time to fellowship, time to remember who Jesus actually is, and to reset our flagging faith with the hope that comes with the coming of Jesus. The hope that Jesus brings is so so different to the usual understanding of hope that prevails nowadays. His hope, sets in us a confident expectation on the promise of not just a new day, new week, new month, new year. It is an eternal hope that doesn’t evaporate in the noonday heat of adversity. It is a hope that holds its nerve, in the midst of a troubled world, and delivers the eternal promises of God to our hearts, minds, souls, spirits and bodies. This Christmas, let us bathe in the hope of Jesus Christ.

We wish you a happy, healthy and hope-filled Christmas.

Blessings of Hope

Love

Andy Au
City Gate Church Elder