This morning we presented two of the three baptised last Sunday with their certificates.

Samir (pictured on the right) who was baptised during an Easter open air service in the city centre was also presented with a certificate.

Samir’s certificate also bears the signature of the Archbishop of York as he had agreed to baptise candidates from all the churches which took part in the event with their own leaders. This was to be the first time in known history that the primate of England was to conduct baptisms with leaders of other churches.

Steve Redman did such a good job at reviewing this event on the One Voice website I won’t bother reinventing the wheel and just redirect you there! I have added some text from the City Council website here just to give you a bit of info about the office of Lord Mayor. Enjoy!

“The Lord Mayor is Chairman of City of York Council and the first citizen of the city. It’s an appointment made by the council each year in May, at the same time appointing a Sheriff, the city’s other civic head. York’s Lord Mayor is second only to the Lord Mayor of London in precedence and its Sheriff holds the oldest office of Sheriff in England and Wales.

The Lord Mayor chairs meetings of full council and together with the Sheriff, represents the city on ceremonial occasions, welcomes international visitors and attends events organised by local people and community groups.

The Lord Mayor also hosts formal and informal functions at the Mansion House which is the Lord Mayor’s residence during their year of office. The Mansion House is also available for tours and private hire.”

Praise God for another fantastic International Church Lunch! I think I speak for all who were there when I say I was blown away by the quality and variety of Indian Cuisine provided by our Indian brothers and sisters. Perhaps we could ask them to do us an Indian Church Lunch every month?? Well maybe not but we’ll look forward to next month’s theme scheduled for the 2nd December, East Asia.

Thank the Lord for providing Soul and Bissy with a new job in Clyde Bank, Glasgow. We pray that He will watch over and bless them both.

On the 3rd of November a few of us got together in St Laurence’s for some toasted marshmallows and bit of a riot with sparklers. What will it be like next year, when we have fireworks?!

For the past year or so, on the first Sunday of every month we’ve been having free Church Lunches and a Wesley Owen book stall. This has proved to be a popular combination. For the first four church lunches of the new academic calender we decided to have themes that reflected the different ethnic groups represented in our church. Last Sunday we kicked things off with and an African church lunch. We had folk from: Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. The African cuisine went down a treat and all in all it was a lovely afternoon! Look out for our next Church Lunch on Sunday 4th November, it’ll be Indian!

This time it is my daughter Zoë who has her news featured here as someone who went out from this church to pursue her adventures.

Zoë married Jonathan Joyce on 31 August in Neath, South Wales. She met him at Fraisthorpe Camp when he was one of the youth leaders there. After her time at Reading University she moved to Wales to be near him. He’s great, they are so well suited.

Thank you to all who prayed for the event. It went really well with good weather. The car carrying the bride’s maids broke down but that was after the ceremony and on the way to the reception so it was not too bad.

To see the official photos go to this link. The photographer was very good and worked so hard. You may notice that the first photos were taken at the start of the day and she was still working in the evening when it was dark.

James and Vicky Barton brought their son Matthew for dedication to the Lord, on Sunday. Many of their friends and family turned out for this happy occasion which was followed by a lovely buffet at Huntington Community Centre. We pray God’s blessing on them as family.

Just because Fraisthorpe Camp was cancelled that didn’t stop us having our customary middle weekend BBQ! It was held a bit nearer to home on this occasion though, in the gardens of St Laurence’s. St Laurence’s is destined to be our new church home, and currently our office is based there, so we invited the congregation of St Laurence’s to join us. Our invitation was warmly accepted by many of them and it turned out to be a very nice afternoon indeed.

We were determined to organise a baptism even though it was only for one. First there was George, then Joanne, then that very morning Carl. Then Kings Church joined in as they had someone wanting to obey Jesus in this way.

Thanks again to Priory Street Baptist Church kindly allowed us to use their building in the afternoon between their meetings.

Friends and family came along to support.

Congratulation to those baptised.

Click a photo for a larger image.

Saji and Sujoy brought baby Jonathan Elim to be dedicated to the Lord on Sunday morning 1st July ‘07.