Why go to church?

If you're spiritually alive, you're going to love this! If you're spiritually dead, you won't want to read it. If you're spiritually curious, there is still hope!

Why Go To Church?

A Church-goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday.

"I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."

This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:

"I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this.. They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!"

When you are DOWN to nothing... God is UP to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible! Thank God for our physical AND our spiritual nourishment!

All right, now that you're done reading, why not share it with somebody, I think everyone should read this!

"When Satan is knocking at your door, simply say, "Jesus, could you get that for me?"

Mothering Sunday 2009

We would love to see you at our Mothering Sunday Holy Communion Service

Lest We Forget - Remembrance Sunday 2008

We look forward to welcoming you to our Service of Remembrance in Cómpeta on Sunday 9th November at 5.30pm.

The Last Post & Rouse will be sounded live by a former Member of HM Forces who now lives in Cómpeta

Friendship Recipe Book published

You will be pleased to know that the long awaited Friendship Recipe Book has now been published & is available for purchase.

Priced at a give-away 8 euros, you can get your copy (or perhaps even copies) from Jean Roberts by emailing her on jean.mike@telefonica.net.

This book will make an ideal Christmas present & should be on everybodies list of 'must-haves' for 2009.

Sales of the book will support Chaplaincy funds.

So - don't delay, email today and order your copy.

Songs of Praise - Programme 1

So the day arrived, and we all settled back in our chairs to watch the first of two programmes recorded earlier in the year for Songs of Praise.

We all joined in lustily with the hymns and did some people spotting. And who made the centre stage - yes Paul Gath!! and not once but twice!

Paul will now be accepting invites for personal appearances, supermarket openings & after dinner speeches on - How I was on Songs of Praise from Fuengirola! He will also be signing copies of the service sheet next Sunday, which might make a nice Birthday or Christmas present for that person in your life who has got everything else!!

And then to finish off the day - Spain won 4-2 on penalties!

Catholic Priest asks for information to be put up in his churches

When Paul Gath went to the Church the other day to collect something from our cupboard, the Catholic Priest was working in the vestry & had a chat with Paul.

It seems that the priest has been asked by people if & when there is an English Service in Cómpeta, and so he has asked us if we will produce some posters - in English - to be put on the notice board at the entrance to the church.

But it is better than that even. He told Paul that he also looks after the Catholic Church in Cannillas, Archez & a satelitte congregation somewhere else close by, and if we let him have more posters he will put them up in those churches aswell!!

So, we have produced the posters, laminated them to make them look 'posh' and left them in the Church Vestry last night for the Priest.

We are really pleased about this development, because - it spreads the word about our congregation and our services; it is a good example of both faiths working together, and it is a cracking example of ecumenicalism at work (ecumenicalism - big word eh!).

Hopefully, the word will spread in other Catholic Churches, and they will soon be following Cómpeta's lead - where Cómpeta goes today, the rest will follow on later!

Well done Paul, and thanks for practising your Spanish with the Priest!

Chaplaincy Council

The Chaplaincy Council met yesterday, for the first time since the AGM last month. There were two new members of the Council - your own Congregational Warden - Adrian Wilkinson & Stuart Smith from Torre del Mar.

The agenda for the meeting was a mixture of routine business, such as Minutes of the last meeting, Treasurers report, when Mike Smith presented several spreadsheets showing the current state of the Chaplaincy finances, along with new items such as the times of the summer services & a look at priorities & plans for the future.

Rather pleasingly amongst the financial figures was a comparison of offertery giving by each congregation year on year, and Cómpeta for the first 4 months of 2008, showed a 58% increase in its giving compared with the same period last year.

The Council agreed to move forward on a plan to have a look at the publicity for the whole of the Chapliancy , and a small sub-committee is being brought together to produce some proposals.

The Chaplain gave an upbeat Report to Council on his work and progress that he has made with things, such as involvement in wedding & funerals, which had been something of a difficult area to get into. This he told Council had allowed him also to become more involved in each of the local communities that form the Chaplaincy, and to begin to extend his pastoral ministry.

A discussion also took place about the development of the congregation at Torremolinos, which is part of the St. Georges Chaplaincy, and a wide ranging number of views were exchanged, which will in due course allow the Council & the Chaplain to move forward again in this part of the Chaplaincy.

The meeting close with the saying of the Grace.

If you ever want anything to be discussed by the Chaplaincy Council - why not have a word with one of your Congregational Wardens, and ask them to have it put on the Agenda.

Remember - this is your Chaplaincy - your congregation - and TOGETHER we shall move forward in the service of God.

More from 'the blogger' soon!