This weekend is graduation week for our new discipleship course ‘Quest’. We launched the course 5 weeks ago and saw a regular attendance of 15 people each week. We had a great time studying and searching the scriptures as new believers were strengthened and built up in their faith This weekend the graduates will be presented with a certificate to mark the completion of the course.

As the church continues to grow with more turning to Christ we are having another baptismal service on Sunday the 23rd October, as part of this weekend Bill Wilson from Metro Ministries will be with us on the Monday night of that weekend.

When Kids Church Co-ordinator, Aaron Foley heard John and Becky Kinge talk about the muscle wasting disease that their 6-year-old son Ethan is battling he knew he had to do something. Ethan Kinge, a bright and courageous little boy who is never without his contagious smile, was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy in 2007. One hundred children are born with this genetic condition every year. These young people have to use wheelchairs by 13 years of age and if not supported by best medical care can die as young as 19 from breathing and heart complications. Ethan and his parents travel to the best hospitals and conferences all over the country to learn of the latest advances in the fight against this disease, last month they spent two days of tests at the renowned Great Ormond Street hospital in London.

When they shared their plight one Sunday morning with our church, Aaron immediately set to work coordinating an epic 16 mile sponsored run which they will be completing on June 30th. He and his friend Graham Betty have planned a local route that will certainly be a test of their endurance. Aaron, a keen runner regularly runs in Cwmbran but with little Ethan’s battle in mind is determined to tackle our local more mountainous roads in a bid to raise funds to aide the research into finding a cure for this disease. “We want to raise as much money as possible to help people who have this disease, it’s not much, but if we can all do something to help it will make a difference.” Ethan and his family travelled to London on the 15th of June to hand in a petition to No 10 Downing Street as part of the UK wide battle to ensure children with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy get the care they need.

On June 22nd the Action Duchenne support group will be joining together to lobby the Welsh Assembly to make sure that delivering standards of care for Duchenne continues to be a priority. John and Becky have said “We are so very grateful for the support that has been shown to us in our church, and would like to thank Aaron and Graham for undertaking such a huge challenge to help all those suffering with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy”. For more information about this disease see www.actionduchenne.org.

Please join with us as we pray for this precious family as they battle this disease, we are standing on the promises in the Word of God and believing in Jesus’ name to heal Ethan.

If you would like to sponsor Aaron in this please see him or one of the stewards in Victory Church or contact the Victory Church office on 0845 4092449.

The Church diary tells us that tomorrow we celebrate pentecost, here’s what it’s all about;

Feast of Pentecost
PENTECOST: THE FEAST OF WEEKS
As the Greek term Pentecost suggests, the annual Feast of Weeks, or Shavuot, took place 50 days after Passover began.
Considered the second most important of all of the ancient Jewish celebrations, and one of the three occasions on which all males were required to appear before the Lord at the temple.
This joyful festival marked the end of the grain harvest.

It was also a reaffirmation of Yahweh’s covenant with his people, for the successful harvest proved that he had taken care to sustain them through the previous year.
Following the Old Testament injunction for a “cereal offering of new grain,” two loaves of leavened, salted bread were offered at the Shavuot ceremony.
The use of yeast, unique to this ritual in Hebraic practice, suggests an origin as a Canaanite agricultural festival adopted by the Israelites when they gave up their wanderings and settled down to become farmers in Palestine.

After the founding of the Christian church at Pentecost, and especially after the temple was destroyed in AD 70, the interpretation of Shavuot gradually changed.
Since it was believed that Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Sinai 50 days after the original Passover in Egypt, the feast became a commemoration of the giving of the Torah and the Covenant of Sinai.
For Christians, Pentecost celebrates the miracle of the birth of the church, a dramatic affirmation that God’s plan of redemption applies to all of the world’s people, not the Jews alone. The gift of the Holy Spirit that day was considered to be the dawn of a new age in which believers then and now were enjoined to become missionaries until the Gospel message is heard “to the end of the earth.”

Over the next few months on a Saturday night Pastor Richard will be speaking on Kingdom life. In this series we will discover how counter cultural the Kingdom of God is in relation to the kingdom of this world.

The series will deal with huge number of issues including authority, leadership, destiny, finances and much more. Last week Pastor Richard launched the series by establishing the differences between God’s kingdom and this world’s kingdom.

To catch up look us up on itunes for the latest podcast HERE