Top Ten - April 6

If you’d like to help out in some area in the church contact Pastor John at john@northgatefmc.com.

If you’re interested in a small group, contact Angelique at angelique@northgatefmc.com.

1. Easter Schedule – Easter is coming quickly – just days away.  Here’s the schedule for the services we’ll be holding during Holy Week…

• (Tonight) Maundy Thursday Service, April 6 at Arbor House – A self-guided stations of the cross event. Come anytime between 6 and 8pm
• Good Friday Service, April 7 at Arbor House at 7pm
• Saturday night service at North – 6:00pm
• Easter Sunday sunrise at the North Campus pavilion – 6:30am
• Easter Sunday Celebration at North – 9:30/11am
• Easter Sunday Celebration at Arbor House – 10am

2. Flower City Work Camp – Please keep in prayer the youth and adults from Northgate and all the other churches who are involved in the Flower City Work Camp this week. These folks are giving up their Easter break to share the love of Jesus in tangible ways in Rochester. May God bless them and be a blessing to others through them!

3. Prime Timers – The next gathering of the Prime Timers group is on Thursday, April 13 at noon in the Café at North. This will be the traditional dish to pass lunch with a program by Gabriel Geiger from Life Span on "Financial Fitness for Aging Gracefully." Hope to see you there!

4. St. Paul’s School – Are you familiar with St. Paul’s? It’s a Christian school at St. Paul’s Lutheran church here in Batavia. Several Northgate families send their children to St. Paul’s and our own Susan Wakefield is the principal. St. Paul’s offers education from Preschool through 6th grade and the curriculum matches or exceeds New York State standards. If you’d like more information about St. Paul’s and how this school might benefit your family and your children, you can contact Principal Wakefield at 585-343-0488 or stpaulbataviaprincipal@gmail.com.

5. Save the Dates – There are some events coming up for which you may want to save the date.

• The “IF” Gathering will be held here (by video) on Friday April 21 and Saturday April 22; Registration is available on the Northgate website
• A young adults picnic is being planned for April 21 at the Pavilion/North
• Phyllis Sorter – a Free Methodist missionary who survived a kidnapping in Nigeria, will be with us June 21 at 6pm to share about her experience
• Family Life Network Youth Theater Camp – At Northgate June 26-30
• Kid’s Summer Camp at Northgate will take place from July 17 to July 21  

6. Baptisms/Dedications/Membership – If you are interested in joining Northgate as a member, or being baptized, or having a child/infant baptized or dedicated, please contact one of the pastors and let them know. We are planning a weekend of baptisms/dedications on April 15/16 and will schedule a membership class as needed.

7. Pray First! – Over 100 people of our church have joined in to read Pray First by Chris Hodges this Lenten season! Angelique also wants people to know that there is a Pray First app that you can download, and she has begun a Pray First Facebook group which anyone can join. To find it look for Angelique Spring and “friend” her or email her at angelique@northgatefmc.com.

8. Midweek Group Will Be Discussing “The Chosen” – On Wednesdays, Robin Woodam’s midweek Bible study will be viewing and discussing episodes of “The Chosen.” Please note this is a women’s only group. If you’d like to join them, they meet at 2pm in Room 1 at North. And for more information you can contact Angelique at angelique@northgatefmc.com.

9. Listening to the Language of the Bible – Rick and Sara Kent are leading a study of some Hebrew words that Jesus would have used, which, by understanding their meaning better will enrich our understanding of the Bible. This is a fun and informative study and it meets on Sundays at 9:30. For more information contact Angelique at angelique@northgatefmc.com.

10. Phyllis Sorter is Coming to Share Her Story – Phyllis Sorter was serving as a Free Methodist Missionary in Nigeria in 2015 when she was kidnapped. She was eventually released and is sharing the story of how God looked after her throughout her ordeal. She will be doing that here at Northgate on Wednesday June 21. We hope you’ll join us for a wonderful time of worship and testimony at 6pm that evening!

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You Can Count on This – Philippians 1:9-10 – And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. (Read Philippians 1:1-30)

What a wonderful prayer for those we love and care about. Maybe think about using this prayer of Paul’s as inspiration for your prayers for yourself and others. Pray that our love for others may increase. I think it’s unlikely that we will reach the perfection of our love for one another until we get to heaven, so pray that we all will grow more and more in our ability to love others.

And pray that our love will be grounded in knowledge and understanding. That is, that our love for each other will be based on a good understanding of how God wants us to love one another. And pray that followers of Jesus will become more and more proficient at knowing how to discern right/wrong, and beyond right and wrong, what is best among all the choices that may be right! Pray that we may all be received as pure and blameless on the day we meet Jesus!

And in addition to all of this, pray for those who don’t know Jesus to come to know Him, soon!

When you’re not sure what you can count on in the world around you, know this: You can count on God keeping his word.  So read what God has to say in scripture!  And count on it.