Week 2 – Education Sunday – Acts 2: vs 42a All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching,
This weekend sees many churches celebrating Education Sunday – an event originally established in 1848 but for the last 10 years has taken place on the 2nd Sunday of September as a celebration of thanks for the work done by teachers, mentors, educators and all involved in education. It fits well at this time of year as so many people return to the new school year, or prepare for further education or even for our very young start school for the first time This year the theme is ‘Living Well Together’ and how nicely that fits in with the passages I am using this month from Acts 2 and also links to the service I shared about in last week’s message that we held in Bolton.
At our WOW service I was asked to reflect briefly on verse 42a and the importance of us learning together, specifically as we were coming together as one circuit and represented many different church families – Bolton is a town of great demographic and cultural differences and here we have an opportunity to all learn together as one fellowship of believers. In my message I shared that in my last 20 years working in the NHS I had worked in an education capacity with a vast array of health staff and even though my qualification was in nursing I supported and helped develop students and educators from a variety of Allied Health Professions – physios, occupational therapists, speech and language, dietetics and others all came under my sphere of work. While we all had differing knowledge and skills from our individual qualifications what we did all share was professional and ethical values and the same expectations of quality assurance and leadership skills – all parts of my role. How much I could therefore relate this to all our different church communities learning and working together – we all come with different cultural, economic and social backgrounds but we all have same basic underlying needs and beliefs – that reminder that we are all one fellowship of believers, one family together, all caring for each other in this vast and often difficult world. In Ephesians 4:11 we are reminded that ‘some are prophets, some evangelists, some are shepherds, some are teachers , ALL for the building up of the body of Christ’
Loving Lord, We thank you that we all have the capacity to learn, to learn from our surroundings, from each other and from you. Give us not just the space to learn, but also the curiosity, the hunger and the enthusiasm to learn more about You and help us to share with everyone we meet. Open our eyes, our ears, our minds, and our hearts to hear your word for us today. Amen
Philippa Hill
Vice Chair MWiB
