Here, at last, are the photos from our camping weekend. (If there are any which you find too embarrassing, let us know, and we’ll remove them and use them for blackmail.)

You’ll find the whole album here.

If you have more photos, please email Charlie for details of how to upload them.

Our book of the month/six weeks is Promoting the Gospel by John Dickson.  It will help us to think more about our Sunday Bible teaching this summer on the theme of ‘Salvation to the ends of the earth: God’s mission and ours’.  John Dickson writes in a conversational style, with helpful illustrations and pertinent applications, and this is a great book to read because …

• he agrees that we need to speak the gospel if people are to know about Jesus and the rescue he has achieved for us.  If we don’t speak the gospel, then strictly speaking, it’s not  ’evangelism’ we’re doing.
• he recognises that all Christians need to be ready to speak the gospel at every opportunity, to whoever we can.  But at the same time, he recognises that not all Christians are ‘evangelists’.
• he gives masses of practical thoughts about other ways that all Christians can ‘promote the gospel’, living our lives in such a way to join in God’s mision to reach all the world with the knowledge of his glory.  For example, by our prayers, with our money, through our Christian behaviour, through our public gatherings as a church, in daily conversation … these are all areas where we can and should be planning ‘the whole of life for the cause of Christ’, and this book will help you in very practical ways to make that desire to ‘reach out’ a much bigger part of your life.

Buy it at Emmanuel on a Sunday for only £8.50. 
If you’d like to read a longer review of this book, click here.

Here some things we learnt during our camping weekend from the story of Acts 9 when Paul met the risen Lord Jesus:

Paul the Persecutor
Nobody is so good that they don’t need Jesus: Paul thought he pleased God, and had more religion than you can throw a chasuble at … yet he came to realise that he was the foremost of the sinners that Jesus came to save. At the same time, nobody is so bad that they are beyond Jesus. Even though Paul hated everyone who was ‘a follower of the Way’, and persecuted Jesus, he wasn’t too bad for him.

Paul the Pardoned
What did Paul think about during those three days and nights as he sat blind in his lodgings in Damascus? Two things were to change his life. First he realised that Jesus is in the right … he really is who he said he was, shown to be the Son of God through his resurrection. Second, Paul realised that he is in the wrong … not just wrong in his opinions about who Jesus is, but wrong in the whole direction of his life.

Paul the Preacher
Jesus turned Paul’s life around, so that now it all centred on Jesus. It was him who sent Paul into the world, to be his special messenger taking the gospel out from Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, to the ends of the earth.