Dear Friends

Why Not You?

Colossians 3 v 23 – “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.”

A parishioner called into church one Sunday morning and was having a conversation with the Vicar about an acquaintance who had had to leave his home because he had not paid the rent and had nowhere to go.  He had called at the parishioner’s house for help to find a place to stay for the weekend and the parishioner had offered to ring the church office for assistance.  Of course being a weekend the church office phone rang repeatedly to no avail, so the parishioner was forced to put this acquaintance up.  “For future reference” he asked the Vicar, “could you tell me if the church could have taken him in”.  The vicar replied “the church did”.

Very often we are confronted with situations like the one above and expect someone else to deal with it, perhaps we feel the Pastor is more suitable or maybe one of the more prominent members of the church. But why not you? Although we call ourselves Christians, day by day we come across opportunities to demonstrate the Christian faith and yet we turn them down.  Don’t be a bench warmer in the Christian faith, you are part of a team and need to pull your weight too.

Take time to consider this – are you passing up on an opportunity to receive your blessing?  ……….

Schools Work

It has been a good start to the term in the lunch time clubs and the numbers, particularly at Blatchington Mill 6^th Form, have been great. The response to the teams going in has continued to be very encouraging and the schools are becoming more and more open to the support of Christians helping in the schools.

Jon and Carl are doing an assembly at St. Mary’s Hall on Monday (6^th October) where they will be speaking about the magnitude and diversity of God. Please pray for Jon and Carl and that the young people will all leave with a fresh view of God.

Along with other Christian ministers in the city, Jon, Beccy and Carl have also been invited to take part in the imminent whole school mission at Cardinal Newman Catholic (Secondary) School. The mission will be to over 1,600 11 to 16 year olds; it starts on Monday, 20^th October and runs for four days. Carl is helping to mentor young worship leaders in the school whilst Jon and Beccy are leading workshops under the title of ‘Diving In’, challenging the students about faith being a relationship and going deeper with God.

… and it’s goodbye from him … a personal note from Carl

It is with great sadness and yet excitement for the future that I announce I am leaving the ministry of Turning the Tide.

I have been working for Jon and Beccy for exactly three years and we all believe now is the right time for me to move on and explore what else God has for me. So in two weeks I will be joining the ‘Off the Fence’ schools team to continue working in the lunchtime clubs and to look at the possibility of building a ‘boy’s group’ ministry within the schools that they currently have contact with.

Although I shall miss working for Turning the Tide, I will continue to support the ministry in whatever ways I can and hope you can all do the same. What Jon and Beccy are doing continues to be a great and important ministry for our city and indeed for the whole nation. I aim to keep up the partnership between Off the Fence and Turning the Tide and I am looking forward to seeing what God is going to do through both ministries.

I want to take this time to thank all those who have been faithful in supporting me both financially and in prayer and although I am moving on I would like to urge you to continue to support TTT.

I hope that I can still keep you updated through Jon and also Off the Fence as to how the schools work is going so that you can continue to pray for this crucial ministry in our city.

Thank you again and God bless

Carl

‘Jon’s Journey’

As you can tell, there are some big changes happening at TTT. Beccy is getting very excited about joining the work, whilst we are aware that Jess is very soon to leave us for Uni. God continues to watch over us all as a family…

I am pleased to be able to say that you will shortly be receiving a fuller letter through the post, which sets out our up-to-date vision for TTT and its ministry.

Comments and Suggestions

Your feedback is extremely important to us.  If you have a compliment, suggestion or concern about TTT, please let us know; we’d love to hear from you.

And last but not least…

Please don’t forget our next Prayer Morning; it’s planned for next Wednesday,

(8^th October), from 10 a.m. until noon, at St Luke’s Church, Old Shoreham Road, Brighton, BN1 5DD. You are most welcome to join us for some or all of this time.

Please would you pray anyway, even if you can’t join us?

Thank you.

Thank you so much for your support; we are more aware than ever how important our prayer partners and supporters are. Without the prayer, we could do nothing!

We are very grateful for all who pray for us regularly and who share our vision for the rising generation. May many, many of them find their purpose and destiny in the Lord Jesus.

Thank you for partnering with us in the Gospel.

Jon and the rest of the TTT team – Carl, Mel, Beccy

A fuller, illustrated version of this prayer letter is available on our website – www.turning-the-tide.com. Please do check it for latest news and resources.