Time: 5.00 pm – 6.30, FOLLOWED BY HARVEST SUPPER
Your are welcome to bring food, packaged, tinned or fresh for the harvest display. The chapel will be open on Saturday morning, October 3rd, so the display can be put in place and for any additional items to be brought. The display is then donated to the local local Food Bank afterwards. There is congregational singing as well as, either visiting or local choirs. After the service, a substantial Harvest Supper is provided by the church fellowship.
The Service is a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge God as the Creator of the universe, who upholds everything by His power (Hebrews 1:3) and gives us the breath that we breathe (Job 33:4). Derbyshire is a beautiful rural county that has been farmed for centuries. Local farmers especially enjoy this opportunity to praise God for His blessing in the successful harvesting of crops.
It is also a reminder of the harvest that is yet to come – not of crops, but of souls. In God’s eyes, the physical, temporary things of this world are of much less importance than the spiritual and eternal. Jesus said ‘unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it produces much grain’ (John 12:24). He was referring to His own sacrificial death and resurrection. Jesus commands all those who follow Him to prioritise things that are spiritual, focussing their life upon spreading the gospel and obeying the Word of God (Matt.6:33). More important than any bountiful crop of wheat, is the assurance that, because we believe in Jesus, our name is in the Book of Life so that we will be gathered up to heaven for eternity (Rev.20:11-15).
‘While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer and day and night shall not cease’ (Genesis 8:22 ESV).