Hither Green Baptist Church

We are looking forward to welcoming David Shosanya of the Baptist Union who is coming to HGBC on 15 November to help us with a day of evangelism training. Above is the short promo video produced by one of the Life Groups and shown in yesterday's service.

Or, more accurately, no service at our building on Theodore Road. This week, Hither Green Baptist Church is meeting at Ashburnham Place in East Sussex. Many of our church family will be there; those who can't make it will be visiting other churches around the Hither Green area, which builds our connections with them.

This Sunday we celebrate our church anniversary in our 10:30am morning service, which will be followed by a fellowship lunch. Friends from the local community are welcome to come and join us either for the service or afterwards.

This year we are also joining Crofton Park Baptist in the evening for their anniversary service. They are celebrating 100 years; Hither Green Baptist can claim a bit longer (105 years) since the church building was dedicated but we owe a debt of gratitude to Crofton Park who, in the late 1980s, recognised that "Theodore Road Baptist" church was on the brink of closing and sent a team headed by our previous pastor (Rev Richard Blyth) to revitalise our church.

Join us at the church by 6pm if you would like a lift across to Crofton Park for this celebration.

This week sees the launch of our new Life Groups. We have five groups meeting on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and look forward to seeing them support our vision for the development of the church.

Our Sparklers group, for parents and young children, starts its new term tomorrow morning. If you look after a young child, you are welcome to come and join us at the church (see directions) from 10am until 12 noon.

The weather was poor today - not a patch on yesterday - so instead of taking our service to the park we carried on with our plans in our building (including the picnic lunch following). Perhaps next time the sun will shine on our plans but nothing stops us from offering up our praise to God.

If the weather tomorrow is anywhere near as pleasant as the weather today, we will be back in Mountsfield Park tomorrow morning. As we did a couple of weeks ago, we will meet at the church building at 10:30am, will be in the park by 11:15am and will be having a picnic lunch and games from midday - you are welcome to join us.

We had an excellent time at Mountsfield Park yesterday and here is the evidence:

We plan to repeat the exercise on Sunday 31 August, when we will follow the same timetable:

• 10:30am Meet at the church building for a short indoor service
• 11:15am Arrive in the park for an outdoor service
• 12 noon Picnic and games

If it is wet then we will still have an informal service followed by games and a picnic but all in the shelter of our church building! Friends and neighbours are welcome to join us at any point in the proceedings - you can sign up or ask questions on the new Facebook event page.

If the weather is decent tomorrow morning, we will take our service over to the nearby Mountsfield Park:

• 10:30am Meet at the church building for a short indoor service
• 11:15am Arrive in the park for an outdoor service
• 12 noon Picnic and games

If it is wet then we will still have an informal service followed by games and a picnic but all in the shelter of our church building! Friends and neighbours are welcome to join us at any point in the proceedings - you can sign up or ask questions on the Facebook event page.

The fifth word we have highlighted in our statement of purpose is Kingdom:

Seeing growth and transformation as we intentionally demonstrate Gods love within the local community; building, supporting, encouraging and influencing activities across religious and secular boundaries.

Luke 19:1-10; Matthew 5:14