2 February 10am 11am

Communion Service Chairing: David Aird Coffee Team: Alice, Lynn & Margo Welcome Team: Team 3: Ernest, Fiona P, Molly & Thane All Age Service Leader: Jon Gemmell Student lunch in upstairs hall Evening Service: Leader: Cornhill team Welcome team: David & Paul Speaker: Richard Woods (Cornhill) Hebrews 12:1-11 Team: Alastair & Gill Speaker: Stephen Hay (Cornhill) Mark 4: 35-41

11.30am 1pm 6.30pm

9 February 10am 11am

Communion Service Chairing: David Aird Coffee Team: Anne J, Gill & Margo Welcome Team: Team 4:Alice, Alistair H, Graeme, Karen & Laurence All Age Service Leader: Paul Johnson Student lunch in family homes Evening Service: Leader: Peter McGregor Welcome Team: Ally J & Sylvia Communion Service Coffee Speaker: Jon Gemmell Inconvenient Truths: Do not worry Matthew 6: 25-34 Speaker: Graeme Shanks The God who is for us: Romans 8:1-17

11.30am 1pm 6.30pm

16 February 10am 11am

Chairing: Ian W Team: Doreen, Nan M & Tracy Welcome Team: Team 5: Charles, David, Irene, Neil M, Ruth W & Sylvia Speaker: Paul Johnson Inconvenient Truths: Dont be angry- Matthew 5:21-26 Team: Bridget & Ian Speaker: Neil McAllister The God who is for us: Romans 8:18-30

11.30am 1pm 6.30pm

All Age Service Leader: Ian Naismith Student lunch in upstairs hall Evening Service: Leader: Fraser McLaren Welcome Team: Ian W & Laurence Communion Service Coffee:

23 February 10am 11am

Chairing: Ian W Team: Alice, Alistair H & Molly Welcome Team: Team 1: Ally J, Ian, Luca & Tracy Speaker: Ian Naismith Inconvenient Truths: Blessed are those who are persecuted Matthew 5:10-12 Team: David & Ruth Speaker: Graeme Shanks The God who is for us: Romans 8: 31-39

11.30am

All Age Service Leader: Graeme Shanks Student lunch in upstairs hall Evening Service: Leader: Jamie Wilson Welcome Team: David & Irene

1pm 6.30pm

Church Vision meeting 9 March 6.00pm

Transport in February:
2 Feb: 9 Feb: 16 Feb: 23 Feb: David & Ruth Bridget & Ian Margo John C

Flowers in February:
2 Feb: 9 Feb: 16 Feb: 23 Feb: Ann C Doreen Lilias Irene

Missions Focus
PRAYER MEETINGS:
Wednesday 5 February - 7:45pm upstairs hall Wednesday 19 February - 1pm Room 3 Sunday 23 February 7.45pm Room 3

Childrens Work Prayer Time:

Introducing monthly prayer time for the work with children and young people connected with Bruntsfield. Please join us on Sunday 9 February , 7.458.15 in room 3. Everyone is welcome!!
70 Leamington Terrace, Bruntsfield, Edinburgh, EH10 4JU. Telephone: 0131 229 0127 Email: [email protected] Website: www.bruntsfield.org.uk

FEBRUARY 2014 NEWSLETTER

BEC exists to glorify God through lives being transformed by the grace of Jesus Christ.

Welcome! Were delighted that youre here today and hope you feel at home with us. As a church, we want to know
Jesus more and more, show Jesus in our words and actions, and grow spiritually and numerically in Christ.

FROM THE PASTORS PEN:

Jon Gemmell

The start of a new year is the prime time to look back and reflect, as well as to look forward and hope. Looking back over 2013 brings great thankfulness for all God has done amongst us. The way he has preserved us, blessed us and used us to expand and extend his kingdom. Looking forward to 2014, I have one overriding hope for us as a church: that we would seek God more earnestly together in prayer. That we would be faithful, persistent and united in our prayer life. That prayer would be the culmination of our life in community, the engine room of all our endeavours, the daily declaring of our dependence on God and the laying hold of Gods willingness and ability to work in and through our lives. John Wesley famously said, You can do more than pray after youve prayed. But you cannot do more than pray until youve prayed. Can we make 2014 a year where prayer is a priority? Can we pull out all the stops to be present in the corporate prayer life of the church? Are we willing to sacrifice in order that we might have the blessing of seeing God move remarkably in our church? God does everything through prayer and nothing without it. As an eldership we have been really burdened by our need for regular, earnest, Spirit enabled prayer. We are endeavouring to meet every Sunday night after the evening service to review and give thanks for the day as well as praying for the week to come. We are aiming to spend more of our elders meetings in prayer. We want to make prayer effective, normal and habitual in our church, but we need everyone to play their part. We have 3 principal prayer meetings during the month. The first Wednesday of each month we have our main corporate prayer meeting from 7:45pm in the upstairs hall. We want this to be a time where we do business with the Lord and bring our prayers and petitions all together. Please come along and join us. There is also the lunchtime prayer meeting at 1pm on the third Wednesday in Room 3; we have had some great times together praying and would love you to join us. We are also introducing a corporate prayer gathering at the end of the last Sunday of the month after the evening service. Just a chance to reflect on the day and give thanks to the Lord for his goodness to us. We are also greatly encouraged by the sweet times of prayer and fellowship that have been cultivated through the multiply groups and sincerely hope that these continue to flourish. Samuel Chadwick in the late 19th century said, The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray. Together let us be responsible for much of his trembling in 2014.

Youth Ministry
Christmas

Youth Ministry Leader: Peter Ervine

Christmas now seems a very long time ago but it's worth highlighting the awesome answers to prayer and God's amazing generosity. Mission Rescue Codename Christmas Cracker was a great success. We really weren't sure what the take up of the afternoon would be and I was a bit concerned we hadn't got our advertising out early enough but in the end God brought even more kids than we were prepared for. It was great to have a good number of the kids back from the summer holiday club and also to have a good number of new faces. Pretty much all the children seemed to have a great time and enough some parents who had planned to pick kids up early came and decided to wait until the end as their children were enjoying it so much. Please pray that they will remember the great time they had that afternoon but more importantly the message that Jesus was God here on a rescue mission would stick with them and that they will accept Jesus as their rescuer. I also really want to thank all those who gave up their time to pray for us and the kids, to help on the day or before and supported us in any other way. One area we need would love to change and improve is our follow up. After both Mission Rescue eve nts we had something special happening on the following Sunday but the response has been non-existent. In the summer many of the children were keen to come back on Sunday but clearly parents were not and no one came. So please pray that God would guide us and move in the parent hearts to help us continue what has started.

Easter
Looking to the year ahead it would be great to have something for all our mission rescue kids around Easter time to help bridge the gap between Christmas and the summer. Exactly when this should be and what we would do is still to be determined. As always we will need lots of prayer, lots of volunteers and lots of help with various different things, if we are to go ahead. Continuing on the Easter theme, the Real Easter Egg is back again for 2014. If you are planning to buy any Easter eggs this year, do consider The Real Easter Egg. See www.realeasteregg.co.uk for further details.

Weekly Kids' Club

Would you like to see our church have a weekly kids' club again? Would you be willing to help make that happen? One person has already approached me about this, which is fantastic, but we will need more help and much prayer. My initial thought is that we could perhaps trial a weekly kids' club from Easter until the summer holidays, hopefully launching off the back of our Easter event. Kids church helpers in February
Feb 2 Feb 9 Feb 16 Feb 23 Sheeba, Bridget, Peter Arlene, Elizabeth,Peter Sheeba, Ali, Lynn Bridget, Peter, Luca

Creche helpers in February

Feb 2 Feb 9 Feb 16 Feb 23 Anne J Irene Anne J Bridget

Mailing List:
If you would like to be added to the Bruntsfield Weekly e-newsletter updates then please email [email protected] and you will be added to the list.

TUESDAY COFFEE MORNINGS: 10.30am

Tuesday 11 February Judson van Wyk Singer Song Writer Tuesday 25 February Steve Wright ECM Basics Bank Everyone welcome to this great time of fellowship

MENS MEETING: 22 February

Holy Trinity, Wester Hailes. Speaker will be ex professional boxer Alex Arthur who will be speaking about his faith and the start time is 1pm. Anyone interested in attending can contact Alastair MacIntosh for further details.

CARE VAN: 19 February

Any donations of clothing (particularly jumpers and coats), blankets etc are always appreciated. They can be brought to church and left there in the foyer, marked CAREVAN.

Building Ministry Leader: David Wright

There are several ongoing projects within the building team at present being advanced by various people; Neil and Michael are taking forward work on the platform following concerns regarding the safe access and egress. They have worked up some plans, which we will get costed and then consult the church and leadership team. The upstairs hall is now getting some of the fiddly finishing jobs done, with new coathooks, and finishing of the skirting and caulking of the panelling. We are still taking forward the plans for secondary glazing in the upstairs hall. The screed flooring in foyer toilets was relaid in autumn 2013, and we are currently investigating the possible flooring options, and hoping to get this flooring laid shortly. We now have motion sensor lights in the rear stairwell, room 2, rear toilets and are having them fitted to the caf toilets. All other lights still need to be manually turned off when leaving an area. We have also had to respond to some unexpected issues related to the weather. Overflowing drains and loose slates on the roof being the 2 main ones. We have had drain clearance and roof repairs undertaken, which have been unanticipated costs. Going forward, we plan to have a work party on 22 February, 9.30am-12.30pm if you are new to BEC, or havent previously volunteered your skills, then please consider coming along to help. The jobs range from sanding & painting to deep cleaning and light bulb changing. Please pray for the team as a church we are grateful for people like Michael and Neil using their professional skills to help develop our initial thoughts and ideas into feasible, practical designs in sympathy with the existing building. Prayer for Peter, Philip, Susan, Gabriel and Irene as they deal with day to day aspects of building maintenance, booking and cleaning. We are grateful to God for this building, and the ministries that go on within it. We are conscious of the need to upkeep the building and improve to meet the needs of the church, please pray for wisdom and guidance in these issues.

Heart of the Matter

Sundays at 8.02am on Black Diamond 107.8FM
Feb 2: John Mason MSP Feb 9: Ruth Aird Feb 16: Scottish fellowship of Christian Writers Part 2 Feb 23: Dr Charles Sommerville

Refine Student Ministry

Ministry Leader: Graeme Shanks
January has seen the return of our students following their post-exam well earned Christmas break. For the term ahead we will continue to run our midweek Multiply groups and Sunday student lunches, both of which proved very fruitful and most enjoyable last term. There is a 'lunches in homes' planned for 9th February. If you would be willing to host some students for lunch then please let me know. This is a great way of getting to know the students in our church family. Some prayer points for the term ahead; Pray for wisdom for those who are considering decisions on what next year holds for them. Pray for the work UCCF on campus especially the upcoming 'Events week' that will be happening in all the Edinburgh universities at the beginning of February which many of our students will be involved with. Pray for the 3 student multiply groups that happen during the week. Pray for Jonny & Rachel Towler during their medical elective in Zambia.

Church AGM - Sunday 23 February

Soup & bread lunch, with AGM approx. 1:30-2:30 More details to follow

Missions Update
Richard and Elaine Leakey, with Youth with a Mission, Switzerland. During the autumn, Richard was involved in co-leading a Discipleship Training School. Nine students from France, Germany, Dominican Republic, USA, Belgium and Switzerland participated. This also gave the opportunity to mentor a young leader who will be able to lead a DTS next year. Elaine organises the kids ministry at their local church and both have been running a Marriage Enrichment weekend. This is the tenth weekend they have held and are encouraged to see marriages strengthened during this event. They are now looking at how they can help families with young children and hope to have a parenting course sometime this year. Last summer Naomi and Rebekah joined Richard on a trip to Malawi. Richard gave a seminar on rain water catchment and sanitation in a small village where YWAM are planning a new ministry. Evangelists will go out from there on bicycles to surrounding villages. They are able to show the Jesus film using a solar battery powered hard drive and beamer.

PASTORAL CARE Ministry Leader: Ruth Aird

Saturday 25 January saw the first Pastoral Care morning conference being held at Bruntsfield. It was encouraging to see not only a good number of our church members but others from Edinburgh churches, keen to understand and be effective in the churchs pastoral care. Ruths demonstration of leaving the fragrance of Christ was certainly a highlight and led to good discussion and sharing regarding the different aspects of pastoral visiting. We look forward to the next conference. Please see Ruth if you would like a copy of the handout that was available.