A BEAUTIFUL BANNER IN OUR CHURCH

We had a great service at Church this morning when the visiting speaker, Jamie Reeves, from a local Baptist Church preached a great sermon and there was plenty of “food for thought”.  Jamie preached about what is happening in our world and said that we are on a downward spiral and in dark times - but as Christians, we have to stay connected to Jesus in order to survive ourselves and for the Church to survive.  Obviously there was  much more “meat” to the sermon, but it was certainly a reminder that we are living in dark times at the moment but as Christians, we need to be, and to stay as, beacons of light to all those around us.  

During the service, we could hear the rain lashing down and once again, when we went out for coffee, we could see that the rain was of Biblical proportions - perhaps we need to start building an ark!

Realising that we wouldn’t be going out driving after Church, as we normally do, I decided to look around at the various banners that adorn the walls and others that “stand alone” in our Church and found this one, which was a new one to me and was beautifully stitched.

Banners were used in Bible times and one mention of a banner that I particularly like is in the Song of Solomon where it says “His banner over me was love.”  Looking at all the beautiful banners in our Church, it amazes me that people can produce such beautiful things.  I can knit, but am not really a needlewoman, so I admire people who can sew - and am reminded of our dear friend, Deanna, who was a wonderful needlewoman and produced such beautiful quilts and other things for her family and showed them on many occasions on Blip.  

I did ask Shirley, the lady who actually made this particular banner, about it when she said that it depicted the tree that has its roots in the river, has plenty of leaves and brings forth much fruit - and our preacher made reference to that this morning from verses in Psalm 1.  In fact, when I spoke to Jamie afterwards, I said that I wanted to shout out to him “It’s behind you” because this banner was just behind him to his left!  However, you will be pleased to know I did refrain from doing that!!  Shirley said that she didn’t know that Jamie was going to make a reference to those verses, but that she had chosen the banner - and changed it from the usual quite randomly - but God obviously had a hand in it!

I’m sure that the various banners in our Church show all those who see them how God uses the artistic skills of others to create beautiful things, so thank you to all who have made or been part of the making of such banners.  Those of us who don’t have such talents can only be amazed and look in wonder at them.

“He brought me to the banqueting house,
     and his banner over me was love.” 
Song of Solomon 2:4 King James Version