Eastern Hills Community Church

SURRENDER:10 is on 5-8 March at Belgrave Heights Convention Centre

Register now online at www.surrender.org.au/register/

EASTER GIFT MAKING MORNING Sat March 27

Festive fun for all Ages. Details out soon!

Here is a great Lent project for your home that follows our Eastern Hills Sunday Lent journey.  It involves creating an Easter tree and decorating it with something different each week leading up to Easter.

The decorations tell us something about Easter and relate to our Sunday meditations. Each Wednesday we will post the new decoration for the week.

Week 1 – Ash Wednesday

Choose a branch or tree that you are going to use as your Easter Tree.

You can paint it if you like! We painted ours purple – which happens to be a traditional Lenten colour. (More on that later!)

Explain to your household that this is an Easter tree that we are going to decorate each week during Lent.  Lent is the special 40 days leading up to Easter! The decorations will tell us something about Easter.

Lent is a time to think a lot about Jesus’ life and how we can be more like him and celebrate that he is here with us, helping us to live the wonderful life he has planned for us.

You may like to read the story of Zaccheus and Jesus and that special tree!

Here is an introduction to Lent just for your interest

Lent has a long history. It began in the early church as a time for those who were going to be baptized to prepare themselves for baptism and full acceptance into the church. It was a time for fasting and prayer as well as a time for them to study and learn about Jesus and what it means to be a part of the church. (baptism happened only once a year on the day before Easter)

Eventually everyone in the church joined in this practice as a way of showing fellowship and support for the new believers. It became an official season of the church calendar and was established as a 40 days of preparation to celebrate Easter. It is a time to reflect on Christ’s life and example, to turn from sin, to renew our commitments and our faith, to celebrate God’s redemptive and life-giving presence with us. The church has traditionally made this journey through a focus on fasting, giving and prayer.

So the time of Lent is really about growth. The word Lent means “Spring” or “springtime”. Just as spring is a time when we plant seeds and bury them in darkness it is a time when we plant ourselves in God and focus on and repent of the darkness in ourselves and in our world. It is a time when through repentance we grow and become a thing of beauty and restoration to the world around us. Lent is really about going through a process that should change us, that should bring us closer to being fully the people God has called us and created us to be.

We hope that this journey to Easter draws us together as a community and draws us deeper into the truth of our faith and the reality of what God has done and is doing. And we pray that we may grow to know the strength of God’s new-life power, his resurrection power that makes his reality possible in our reality.

Information collated from Dennis Bratcher http://www.crivoice.org/index.html

and Beth Stedman http://bethstedman.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/lent-an-introduction-a-little-bit-of-history

Lent is always a very special time of the year. It’s the season when together we allow the Spirit to rework our hearts and lives closer to Jesus’ way. It is a time of preparing for the wonderful celebration of Easter. And so we join Jesus’ followers through his ministry and on towards Jerusalem, being challenged by him (even disciplined by him!), learning from him, thanking God for him, opening our lives to him.  This year we are going to focus on Jesus’ parables for Sunday Services. These revolutionary stories confront us and create new possibilities of taking up ones cross and joining in Jesus’ movement.

Please be at Yarrunga at 10am – 10:15am to get your fairtrade cuppa and have a chat before our beautiful opening meditations on Easter symbols at 10:30am.

Two Lenten Challenges from this Series:

The Lenten Fast

Reflect on your general lifestyle and the many things that fill your time. Are there any fairly superficial (though no doubt fun!) activities that tend to take up great chunks of your spare time? Why not decide to cut right back or even go cold turkey over Lent for one or two of these extras. Then use the time you have found to spend with God.
You could read through a gospel, start to pray more regularly (learn some different ways to pray), get into the practice of sharing your spiritual yearnings and struggles with your friends/house mates/spouse. Maybe you could get back into journalling too. This simple change in your lifestyle is just the thing needed to help you open your life to God’s Spirit working in you.

The Hospitality Challenge

Just as Lent is about opening your life to God’s Spirit working in you and renewing you from within, it is also a valuable time to put more time into others. Sit down and think about how you can bless the people God has placed around you. Maybe you could invite those neighbours you’ve been getting to know over for a meal, maybe you know someone that is going through a lonely time and you know they would love a visit. Perhaps you have other gifts and resources at your fingertips that can be a real blessing to those around you in ways i can’t even imagine. Just do it! Get out there and give it a go. And once you get a taste for it, I’m sure it will quickly turn from a discipline into a passion.

Matt J

Promises from Scripture

We are going to still ourselves now, and focus on some promises from God’s word that relax us, evoke prayer within us and prepare us for the day. At the end of this time we will join with megs and the ancient tradition of celebrating our God through singing.

Holy Spirit, breath of life – Light candle – play track ‘Cocoa Soul’ by Oka. Album ‘Elements’. Itunes.

(Read really slowly. Allow space between sentences.)

The candle is a symbol of the Holy Spirit’s presence with us, right here. Find a comfortable position where you can breathe deeply, relax, you can write, draw or just sit and close your eyes.

Ancient and pure, moving and mysteriously present  – like this flickering flame, is your Spirit Lord.

Your spirit was moving over the earth in the very beginning..before light had even opened her eyes.

The first words of our creation story read …

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Gen 1:2

Ancient and pure…

The Lord God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Gen 2:7

Take 3 deep breaths…

I invite you to breathe in deeply as each phrase of this verse from Job is read and repeat these words within yourself..

‘The spirit of God has made me; (pause)

the breath of the Almighty gives me life (pause)

I too have been taken from clay.” (pause)Job 33:4

REPEAT

Jesus said: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.” REPEAT

“Now remain in my love…if you obey my commands you will remain in my love…I have told you this so your joy may be complete.”

“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”

“If you love me you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him or knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be and is in you.”

Repeat last line.

Psalm 51:10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.

Jesus, resurrected said “Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, I am sending you. With that he breathed on them and said …receive the Holy Spirit.”

The Marble Jar – pop a marble in the jar for every positive behavior or action you wish to encourage.. in our fam this round it is going to be for kind actions and good manners. (Not just for the kids!) When the jar is full you celebrate with the previously agreed on activity together eg. Go to the movies.

Thanks to the Colston fam for this fun.

Picture Prayer Diary – Create a prayer diary where you draw your prayers to Jesus.  We draw three things.

1. Something we want to tell Jesus about our day.

2. Something we want to thank Jesus for.

3. Someone we want to pray for.

Thanks to the Coyles for this one. Ezra drew a car one night and they were given one the next day!

Letter Writing Night – After dinner everyone gets letter writing stuff and stamps around the dining table and writes a letter to someone.

This is a cosy social event with Michaela’s family.

Tea leaves and Beer dregs – Did you know that indoor plants love the rinsings from your empty beer bottles and cans?

Citrus trees and geraniums love your tea leaves.

Thanks to the Woods’ Companion Planting Book.

Yummo Spelt Pizza

You can get spelt flour in health food section of Woolworths or Coles.

Ingredients

2 cups light spelt flour

1 1/2 teaspoons quick-rising yeast

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil or other cooking oil

1 teaspoon honey

2/3 cup warm water

Directions

1 Stir first 3 ingredients together.

2 Add remaining ingredients. Stir well.

3 Knead until smooth.

4 Stretch to fit greased 10- or 12-inch pizza pan.

Add your favourite topping and cook for 20 minutes on 180C.

Thanks to Dan Gray for this winner!

‘I will be still’

Music – ‘Most beautiful’ by oka.

We are going to spend some time in quiet communion with God. In this time we will rest in God. A communion which refreshes and restores.

I invite you to spend a moment, relaxing in the Spirits presence.. Consciously offering your whole self to God. Let your prayer be the loosening of tension in your body, if it helps imagine a slow flow of water, melting your muscles from the top of your head to the tip of your toes.

Psalm 16:7-9 says..

7 I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;

even at night my heart instructs me.

8 I have set the LORD always before me.

Because he is at my right hand,

I will not be shaken.

9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;

my body also will rest secure,

‘Set the Lord before you’ the Psalmist says.

We are going to spend some time just setting our minds eye on Jesus.

You may like to think about a quality of Jesus, his love, intimacy, the fruit of the spirit or a message or promise of Jesus, or a picture of Jesus.

(images of Jesus eating at the table, Jesus healing, Jesus the shepherd on screen and quote “It is He to whom I now come-this Jesus, this very Jesus. He is present and interested.”)

Think slowly over this picture or pour slowly over this message. Keep in the foreground of your mind; “It is He to whom I now come-this Jesus, this very Jesus. He is present and interested.”

We bring ourselves before you Lord, ready to worship, serve and receive you.

(Inspired by George S Stewart in The Lower Levels of Prayer )

www.artbible.net.

‘Washing of the Feet.’ Artist Unknown.

Protest racially motivated violence in Melbourne.

Dine at your local Indian restaurant on Wednesday 24 February 2010.

Let’s  find a way to show support for the Indian community and signal that we will not turn a blind eye to violence in our city.

This violence threatens all Melburnians’ sense of safety and pride in their home. I want the Melbourne Indian community -and all immigrant communities – to know that they are welcome and entitled to feel safe here.

How cool would it be if Melbourne displayed a show of force by all going out and eating Indian food on a certain night, to embrace and show solidarity with our local Indian community?

Let’s do it!

Please join us (our fam has to do takeaway but still!) and Register at:

http://vindalooagainstviolence.wordpress.com/