IF YOU THOUGHT...

…that people no longer dress up to go to Church, you would be very surprised if you came to Gorse Hill Baptist Church!  You may remember that I have “done” banners, hair and even shoes, but today I saw so many beautiful dresses that I thought these would make a good Blip for today.

Mr. HCB and I were doing our first stint as Door Stewards - and I think we “passed”.  The stewards are the “welcoming face” of our Church - the first people you see when you come through the door and it is always good to see a smiling steward - especially if you have come to Church feeling a bit down, or lonely or for many, maybe you haven’t spoken to anyone earlier that morning because you live alone.  We have always appreciated those “on the door” so today we were able to welcome many through our Church doors -coming to meet up with their friends but primarily coming to worship God.

The photographs in my collage today are just a small selection of the lovely dresses we saw, not forgetting the sandals and shoes - most of them worn by little girls - who were happy for me to take their photograph - and they are here - with permission from their Mums.  The exception - and not a little girl - but one of the Mums herself - is the middle shot at the bottom - as worn by Abi, the wife of our Worship Leader, Matt.  I guess at some point I need to take some shots of the boys and even Dads and their tee shirts - wouldn’t want them to feel left out!

The lovely sunflowers were on the table in the foyer and certainly brightened up the area as people came in.

It was a great service with an interesting sermon about Holy Communion - which was celebrated at the end of the service - some great songs and there was even a “Golden Oldie” entitled "In Moments Like These..." played whilst the bread and wine were distributed.  

I mentioned to Joanna, the lady who had played it on the grand piano, that I knew the song - she told me she liked it, so decided to play it, but didn’t think anyone would know it.  I told her I remembered it well and even knew the words - and thought it had been played and sung during Billy Graham’s “Mission England” campaign in 1984.  I decided to look up more information about this song and found it was written by David Graham in 1980.  The story of how it came to be written is HERE - and is a lovely story, if you have time to read it.

We are having a lazy afternoon indoors before going back to Church this evening - it’s far too hot to sit outside - so Mr. HCB is starting a new jigsaw puzzle and I need to sort out some of my photographs - so nothing too strenuous.  Hope you all have a great week.

P.S.  It would have been my father's birthday today - and as, sadly, I never met him, thought I would put in, as an extra, the only photograph I have of him.