Come, Join In Our Services of Thanksgiving!
Sunday 11th October at 11.30am
Sunday 11th October at 6.30pm
Special Harvest Offering to Building and Renovation Fund
God’s love leads us to look upwards and outwards – to show our praise to Him, and to share His goodness with all.
In the lead up to our Harvest Thanksgiving Services, we will also be able to share with others by collecting non-perishable foodstuffs for foodbank donation – these can be left in the vestibule on Sundays.
Via Wings foodbank has identfied a list of the foods that are most in need of at present: tea, coffee, long life milk, sugar, custard, rice pudding, tinned mixed fruit cocktail, tinned peas, tinned sweetcorn, tinned soup, tinned tuna, tinned ham, corned beef, tinned meals, gravy, pasta ‘n’ sauce packets, cuppa soup/mug shots, pot noodles, biscuits, dilute juice, toilet roll. (There are currently good supplies of good supplies of tinned baked beans, dried pasta and rice.)
“Summer and winter, and spring-time and harvest, sun moon and stars in their courses above join with all nature in manifold witness to Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love. Great is Thy faithfulness.”
We are coming to the time of year when there are more hours between sunset and sunrise than there are between sunrise and sunset. In other words, the year is on the wane. The signs of autumn are in evidence. The leaves are turning; the birds are migrating. There maybe a few more days of warmth, but the summer is ended.
The hymn-writer picked up on the rhythm of “summer and winter, and spring-time and harvest” in nature. He drew on something found in the Bible’s account of Noah. After the flood, the LORD said in His heart, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease” (Genesis 8:22). What the Lord decided and declared, He decreed and delivered. He has sustained all things by His powerful word. Great is His faithfulness. As September turns into October, by long-standing custom we celebrate the faithfulness of God. This year, our services of thanksgiving for the harvest will be held on Sunday 11th October, at 11.30am and 6.30pm (d.v.). The Very Rev Dr David Bruce will be the guest preacher at the morning service, and the Rev Robin Brown on Sunday evening. Dr Bruce served as moderator of PCI’s General Assembly in 2020 and 2021. He also served as secretary to the Assembly’s Council for Mission in Ireland and, before that, as the director of Scripture Union in Northern Ireland. Dr Bruce’s work for the Lord has taken him far and wide throughout the world, but his roots are in the Lurgan-Banbridge area and it is our privilege to welcome him back to Donacloney Presbyterian Church. The Rev Robin Brown ministered in Belfast, West Tyrone and Randalstown before being called to First Portadown. During his time there, he guided Waringstown Presbyterian Church through the process of calling the Rev Mark Haugh, and preached at one of the united services of the churches in Waringstown and Donaghcloney. The Presbytery of Armagh continues to look to Mr Brown to provide experienced leadership in its vacant charges. We are blessed that he is able to share in our harvest thanksgiving.
Do plan to attend these harvest services, morning and evening, on 11th October. Your presence will be an encouragement to the guest preachers and to all who come to share in our thanksgiving. Together we will lift our worship, praise and thanks to our faithful God. You may wish to contribute to the special Harvest Offering. You also may wish to give towards our collection for the Food Bank operated by Via Wings in Dromore. The Food Bank is in particular need of tinned foods – other than baked beans – and for coffee, tea, diluting juice and biscuits. Donations for the Food Bank may be left in our church meetinghouse on any Sunday up to, and including, our Harvest Thanksgiving. As we acknowledge how “All [we] have needed [His] hand has provided,” we can use these opportunities to be the means by which the needs of others also are met, in the faithfulness of God.
“Great is Thy faithfulness” was composed in America by Thomas Chisholm just over 100 years ago. Chisholm grew up in north Kentucky. His first job, in his late teens, was to teach the children in the same school he had attended. He went on to become a newspaper editor but, after he was led to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in his late twenties, he followed a path into ordained ministry. He only served as a church pastor for a year before he had to resign because of ill health. After a long convalescence, he worked in insurance in the neighbouring state of Indiana. Chisholm based “Great is Thy faithfulness” on Lamentations 3:23, but he also drew on other Bible verses such as Genesis 8:22 and James 1:17. He could not have known it when he wrote them, but his words proved timely when the USA was plunged into the great depression after the Wall Street Crash of 1929. No one could have predicted the societal, political and economic earthquakes that lay ahead, nor the horrors of the world war into which America was drawn as the 1930s gave way to the ’40s. Those were days when people needed to remember that God’s “compassions… fail not.” In our times too, with the uncertainties of the present world, it is good to know that God does not change. Great is His faithfulness.
The last verse of the hymn has these words:
Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth; Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide; Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow; blessings all mine with ten thousand beside.
The Bible tells us that “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purity us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). The cross of Christ still bears its fruit. The Gospel calls all of us to the Saviour who, by His coming, living, dying, rising and interceding, is able to save us from all that we in our sin deserve, and for all that He in His grace bestows. The promise of pardon and peace is genuine. They are found in Christ alone. Precious too are the blessings Chisholm singled out for mention. In the Lord Jesus, we find strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow. He is the One who bids us come to Him and to live our lives for Him. He promises that He will be with His people for as long as this world endures and that, at the last, He will bring in the new world at His coming. The years may move on, the seasons change and the days and nights fly by, but He always remains true to His Word. His steadfast love never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. Great is His faithfulness.
The One who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.
1 Thessalonians 5:24
