Northfield Methodist Church

Dear Friends

The Advent theme for today is PEACE.

Dear Friends
The Advent theme for today is PEACE.

Dear Friends

The theme we will be following for the next six weeks leading up to Pentecost (11 May) is "Come, Holy Spirit". Each Sunday we will examine various aspects of the work of God's spirit in us.

This week we focus on the strength which the spirit gives us to help us in our weakness. One of the words Jesus used to describe the Spirit was, "Comforter". Sadly it is a word which has changed its meaning over the years. Today it has come to mean something like, feeling sorry for someone, or cheering them up. But originally it had a much stronger meaning. It meant "a power which comes alongside us when we are weak or in need."

Dear Friends

The following open letter was placed on the Methodist ministers blog site by one of our Senior Ministers, Rev Themba Mntambo:

"Cry, my beloved country:

There are moments when some of us despair about reconciliation, harmony and peace in my beloved country. If the despicable act of those students at the Free State University are a gauge of what the future of our country looks like, then I despair. The anger that welled up within me is one that I felt as a young black man seeing an elderly black gentleman being kicked from the pavement of a street in Pretoria by a young white policeman, and his colleagues urging him on to "skop sy gat". I was about ten years old at that time, and the only wrong this elderly man had committed was not to stand aside for one 'miesies" who bumped into him. It is the same anger I felt when I saw respectable men running from the police because they did not have their pass books in their possession.....

Cry, MY beloved country! Maybe tomorrow you will wake up and realise it was a dream."

"Dear Themba

Dear Friends

2007 has been a busy year it has flown past, certainly for me. I am always so grateful when December comes around again because it is a time when we can slow down a bit. Many businesses close for a few weeks. Followers are in recess. Some are fortunate enough to go on holiday. Some stay home and relax. Whatever this time holds for you, may it be a special and a blessed time.

Peace, Love, Giving and Joy are words we have focused on during Advent. These are central words at Christmas-time, but most important of all is that the living God became flesh and came to live amongst us in order to make it easier to find him and be drawn into a deeper relationship with him. As Charles Wesley's wonderful hymn says, "Our God, contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man." He became like us in order to open the way for us to come to God. This is the greatest gift of Christmas.