Worship Sunday

Between the Old and New Testaments there is a 400 year gap in which the voice of God was not heard.

It must have been tough for the Hebrews to carry on in their worship with no sign of life from God.

Then the Angel Gabriel spoke to Mary and the silence was broken.

Suddenly, for those who were listening, life was full and rich with the blessings of God, and where religion may have been dry and dusty it was swept through with the awesome grace of the living God.

Fetching Water

The story of The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen is a long and varied one, and over the eight years that we've been running it, we have had some interesting issues and obstacles to deal with and overcome.

Today's particular obstacle was perhaps the strangest to overcome... 

The water in Firgrove had been off since 6pm the previous night and it still wasn't on at 11am when I needed 100 litres of water to get ready making the soup.

A New Tradition

Starting today, I have challenged The Gathering to join together in reading a chapter of Luke each day, so on Christmas morning we'll know exactly what Christmas is all about and will be keeping Christ in Christmas..

Why not join us too..

How Many Noodles?

It's a great blessing to see so much food stacked up in the church office/kitchen, especially knowing that Paula negotiated such a great deal with the shopkeeper that we got +/-1700 individual packets of noodles for the princely sum of R1.60 each (7p each in Blighty). In the local shops a cheap packet of noodles would normally cost around R5 each (22p).

What a blessing. Thank you LORD!

Preparing To Serve

This picture warms my heart as it captures the very heart and DNA of The Gathering.

We don't run our Soup Kitchen as an evangelistic outreach, and we put no conditions on who can or cannot receive soup, we serve all comers.

The reason for this is that we use our weekly Soup Kitchen as a way of thanking God for all He's done for us and as such we want to share those blessings with others. 

The Gospel

I wasn't supposed to be preaching at The Gathering this morning, but events in the week meant that it was over to me, and as ever it was a joy and a privilege to share the Word. 

During the week I had briefly contemplated giving our Gathering over to an impromptu Testimony Sunday, but decided against this because I knew we would be low on numbers this morning, and partly because I knew I was being lazy in not preparing a word.

Well before I even got up to preach, God had interrupted our Gathering spectacularly and it turned in to an impromptu Testimony Sunday with testimony after testimony being shared.

Happy Place

Once again I find myself in my happy place, and today I'm especially happy because I get to use our new 100lt pans for the first time.

Today I'm making two hundred litres of delicious creamy vegetable soup, which hopefully will be a real blessing to those that come for soup.

Royally Blessed

I've said this before, but my greatest joy in our ministry is raising up and releasing others to serve the Kingdom for God's glory.

So it was pure joy and a real privilege to allow two of our members to share the Word as part of our Seven Minute Challenge.

What made it even better was the fact that Jubilant had asked a few weeks ago if she could also lead The Gathering's worship on this Sunday.

Just wow!

New Pans

Today is an exciting day for The Gathering as we finally got new larger pans for our weekly Soup Kitchen.

We've been making 140 litres of soup each week for a while now, and even on our quieter evenings, the soup has all gone within thirty minutes, meaning we have had to turn some folk away.

Testimony Sunday

Testimony Sunday at The Gathering is always a joy and a blessing, and this morning was no different!

The stream of testimonies of God's goodness just kept flowing. What was clear is that most had been having a tough year, but each acknowledged that it was only by God's awesome grace that they had got to where they were and were blessed because of His loving kindness.

Loadshedding Soup Kitchen

It seems so normal these days to just get on with life regardless of whether we have electricity or not, and we've certainly learnt to make a plan for those all too frequent occasions when the power is switched off.

On Thursday it was the turn of The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen to once again enjoy the inconvenience of loadshedding.

Unexpected Blessings

This is what church is all about!  There was such a buzz at The Gathering yesterday as we prepared soup, hosted our Homework Club and launched our first go at offering free haircuts to any men/boys who wanted. Add in to this the fact that we also took food to the two Macassar Soup Kitchen's The Gathering supports and it really was an amazing day of blessings!

Barber Outreach

We are really looking forward to doing something a little bit different at The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen this week...

Following a conversation with one of our Soup Kitchen regulars - who has recently started gathering with us on Sundays - in which he asked for money for a haircut, we got to thinking about how we could help without giving him money. The Gathering has quite a strict policy on not giving financial handouts for a number of reasons.

Tablets For Homework Club

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28

Sometimes it's hard to fully grasp the reality of this scripture, especially in the midst of difficult and trying circumstances.

Prepping For Soup Kitchen

That was a lot of carrots needing to be prepped for The Gathering's Soup Kitchen tonight...

Homework Club

We are thrilled that The Gathering's Homework Club has restarted. 

It's actually in its second week of the new school year and already we're full with quite a long waiting list.

We also have quite a lot of Gr7s from the local primary school asking to join so we are going to have to look at ways of accommodating them too. What a brilliant problem to have!

Festive Soup Kitchen #3

On Thursday we had our third and final Festive Soup Kitchen in which we once again served a delicious homemade Gammon & Pea soup.

Once again the soup went down a storm with many appreciative comments from our regulars.

It has been a real joy, pleasure and a privilege to be able to treat our Soup Kitchen regulars to three special soups over the last few weeks as we've done our best to celebrate Christmas with them.

But Take Heart

"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world."

These words from Jesus constitute my favourite Bible verse in John 16:33 (I've posted on this before here & here). 

I like the fact that trouble is just part of the human condition. Jesus didn't say we were being tested or refined, nor is there a suggestion that god is a malevolent being that relishes in visiting bad upon mankind. Nope, trouble is simply a fact of life, full stop.

Festive Soup Kitchen #1

Sadly The Gathering have had to shelve plans for our annual Soup Kitchen Christmas Lunch this year. The main reason for doing so is simply one of logistics, as it would be beyond our resources to cater for and accommodate all of our regulars, which would lead to some frustration and disappointment, which we would rather avoid.

Next year when The Gathering is meeting in the main hall it will be a different ball game, but sadly we need to pass on it this year.

Sweet Potatoes

Tonight's Soup Kitchen will be serving a rather yummy Cream of Sweet Potato & Ginger homemade soup.

After chopping 18 kilograms of sweet potato and peeling & chopping quite a lot of fresh ginger the building is smelling divine!

The soup doesn't taste too shabby either.