New Year's Eve Service on blessing, Focus on the holy family again this Sunday, Thanks and Happy New Year!

Dear members and friends of St Peter's, Hobart.

I hope you are enjoying this quieter period after Christmas. It is one of my favourite times of the year. I often find it a good time to relax and reflect.

Reflection is something that often accompanies New Year with resolutions and the like. However, we need much more than what we will. We need God and his blessing! At our short New Year’s service (with communion) this Friday, 31st of December at 7.00pm, we will focus on blessing, and in particular the Aaronic or High Priestly blessing instituted by God and found in Numbers 6. This is a blessing that most of us are very familiar with and that is spoken over the congregation at the conclusion of most of our services. It goes ‘The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you with favour and give you peace’. What a way to begin our focus on the year ahead, with our God and his desire to bless at the centre!

This coming Sunday, the 2nd of January, we will continue our look at the amazing story of the holy family with Jesus at the centre; their joys, adventures, challenges and Gods wonderful provision to them and through them to us. Worship as usual at 10.00am. All of our services are streamed live and can be accessed through our St Peters Lutheran Church Hobart website, along with previous streams. 

Our Christmas services were greatly enhanced by the contributions of quite a number of people. Max re-joined us and participated in the children's service and with singing, both doing lovely parts with his mother and the choir. The choir under choirmaster and conductor David were magnificent both on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day Sunday. Gundars and Melissa wrote and produced a lovely Christmas Eve narration which was very well led by the children present. Thank you and congratulations all around for your participation and the behind the scenes input of various others. 

Finally, a happy and blessed new year to you all. No matter what we face, our Lord will be there with us to bless us and to lead us through the trials of this fallen age to our ultimate Shalom or blessing and wholeness in the age to come. As the confirmation hymn ‘Lord take my hand and lead me’ puts it: ‘For when it seems you’re hiding your saving might, still you are safely guiding me through the night’. 
 
Yours in joys and sorrows,
 
Warm regards,
 
Pastor Mike Steicke.
Saint Peter's Lutheran Church, Hobart.