The new year is on us. 2020 was not the year that any of us expected. There are so many things we would have chosen to be different, as well as surprises and blessings along the way. As a church, we had to adapt and find new ways to live, to gather and to serve others around us. The world has changed, and so have we, but God never has and never will!
This year, we have chosen a ‘Verse for the Year’, a sentence from the Bible to anchor us no matter what comes our way in 2021. It embodies one big decision – that everything will be for God, not for us – which will then help us to make all the many smaller decisions we will face this year. And here it is:
Why this verse? And why now? In Stephen’s message on the last Sunday of 2020, he shared around this verse, and you can find that here.
We will return to this verse again and again this year. We will do that as a whole church, but if you consider yourself part of Gold Hill then we want to encourage you to make this your prayer this year too. No matter what you face, face it for God. No matter what you do, choose to do it for God. No matter what praise you get or discouragement you receive, turn it all to God.
Not for us, not for us, but for God!
This will be the year that we step into our new facility, as the building of the Hub is completed in the centre of Chalfont St Peter and we begin to operate from there and begin to live out all the things we’ve been longing to do from there. It has been a long time in getting to this point, and there are many people who deserve much thanks, but we haven’t built it just for ourselves. It’s about far more than that!
Not for us, not for us, but for God!
Make this verse your verse!
We can let this be our collective prayer for the year, but how much better if we are all coming back to it time and time again throughout 2021? We have some things that might help if you want to do that.
We have made some fridge magnets with the verse on, and next time you’re in the Gold Hill building you can pick one up for free!
Or alternatively, right here you can download some images designed to be lock screens for your mobile phone. There are a few different designs. We can all pray this one prayer, but we have different styles and preferences, so take your pick! (Just right click – or press and hold on your phone – on the image to save it, then set it as the lock screen image on your phone.)
