Rehoboth Baptist Church

Stirred by God’s Spirit to do His will

Andrew — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 16:46:46 +0000

Then the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson; and the child grew up, and Yahweh blessed him.

And the Spirit of Yahweh began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

— Judges 13:24-25 (LSB)

“How do I know if it is of the LORD? If He is moving me, not merely my own desires?” “Often, there is a restlessness; a sensation that God is moving you on. ” This is a conversation I once had with a friend, about knowing God’s will, and more narrowly, how to discern my will from His. At another time, another friend recounted a conversation he had had with, I believe, one of the Elders of his church: “Can you place your head on the pillow, while thinking of those people?” “No. ”“Then you must go! ”There is more to it than this when it comes to determining God’s will; the specific thing He wants you to do. Some of these things are very simple: read His revealed will in the Word, and simply obey. But when it came to uprooting our lives in order to go to another mission field, I wanted to minimise the subjective elements of the ‘where’ to obey God’s will: to make disciples of all nations.

It was last night (I’m writing this on 24th June), reading the passage above to my family, that it arrested me: Samson’s public ministry began when “the Spirit of Yahweh began to stir him”. I immediately made the connection to the conversations I mention above.

Let’s be clear: this is a historically unique instance. Samson prefigures Christ (read the whole of Judges 13) in striking ways. When I think about my ministry, I was called to the UK, then to Madeira, to serve Christ and His people.

These are not everyday experiences. Yet: is your spirit not stirred daily to follow your Lord? Is He not stirring you to obedience, in small and big things, even against pressures from colleagues, family, and friends? Can you rest without doing His will? As Christians, we must obey the Lord we love and Who has saved us. If you know nothing of this, I don’t believe you are saved; then that’s what you need to sort out first. The presence of the Spirit of the Lord is the sign of life in Christ.

“For as many as are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” — Romans 8:14 (LSB)

Calix

July 2026

Fellowship News July/ August 2026

Andrew — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 16:35:51 +0000

Fellowship Prayer Hour - it was good to have a number of folk in the Fellowship joining for the hour of prayer on the 1st of this month. If you haven’t managed to get along to one of these times on the first Wednesday of the month, do make it a point of importance to pray together and plan to join us next month on the 5th August. To quote an old hymn, it is a ‘sweet hour of prayer’!

Praying & caring for the Community:

JULY – Victoria Street, Trinity Square, Stanley Walk, JWs meeting in Kingdom Hall.

AUGUST – Oxford Road, Devonshire Road, Cambridge Road

Preaching out in July:

5th S Beadle – Slinfold pm; 19th D Ansell – Hailsham am & pm

26th DA Copthorne am; Slinfold pm; CF – Funchal am (Zoom); SB – Appleyards am

Preaching out in August:

2nd DA – Smallfield am; 9th SB – Rudgwick am; SP – Smallfield am;

R Smith – Dorking pm; 16th DA – Rudgwick am; 23rd DA – Wivelsfield am

Awayday 2026

Andrew — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 16:33:22 +0000

Connect asked Gill Beadle to share about the Church Awayday:

I’ve jotted out a few thoughts about the away day and hope these can be of use to you . What a good day we had.
On Saturday 6th June many of us attended our away day at Dalesdown, with our speaker Gareth Jones . The day was entitled “Teach Us How To Pray”. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t very kind to us , but that didn’t dampen our spirits or our desire to hear more on the topic of prayer.
Gareth asked us to consider a number of questions regarding prayer which we answered using an app from our devices and allowed us to respond in anonymity, or aloud if desired.

One particular question we considered was “ Why Do You Think The Disciples Asked Jesus “Teach Us To Pray””. It became clear that they had witnessed Jesus praying and wanted to learn to do the same to strengthen their relationship with
Jesus and God, as their Father, and with each other.

We all learn a lot from each other when praying TOGETHER, …..in unity, becoming more mindful of each others needs, assuming a collective ownership and common purpose while forming a deeper relationship with God as our Father.
Gareth was also clear in his message “Ask big “ – “ Don’t be vague in your prayers; ask the Holy Spirit and he will provide if it is God’s will “. We must trust Him with our needs today and tomorrow, always giving thanks for what we already have.
”God is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work in us.” Ephesians 3 v 20

Fellowship News (June 2026)

Andrew — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:58:57 +0000

Praying & caring for the Community this month – Bedford Road. Arthur Road

Preaching out this month:

14th C Furus – Hitchin (GBM Dep); S Piggott – Smallfield am;

21st D Ansell – Rudgwick am; CF – Liverpool & Southport (GBM Dep);

28th CF – Madeira (Zoom) am; DA – Slinfold pm

Please make sure you’ve signed up for the Church Awayday (6th) & the Church BBQ (7th)

Deaconate Testimony

Andrew — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:48:36 +0000

At a recent members’ meeting, the church were happy to appoint
Rich Smith as a deacon at Rehoboth. Here is a testimony from him:

One of the greatest blessings I have had in my life is a continuous, lifelong exposure to the gospel. By God’s grace, I have had limitless opportunities to pray, meditate and contemplate his glory and majesty. While there have, inevitably, been extended times when my faith in God has been sideswept or smothered by pressures and distractions of life, there has never been a time when I have not believed. There has also never been a time when I can remember not knowing Rehoboth.
My foundations lie first and foremost in a strong and loving Christian family. I have had consistent involvement in church life from under the table at Sunday School at Abbey Baptist Church in Abingdon, to youth clubs at Whittlesey Baptist Church, baptism at Dorking Baptist chapel in 2003, a larger church experience at Chessington Evangelical Church and now a blessing to join the deaconate at Rehoboth.

I gave my life to Christ in 2001 at Pioneer Christian Camp after hearing a talk on the joys of heaven. Throughout my school years, those ten days were in hindsight a much-needed pool of Christian fellowship and teaching in what could be very arid times spiritually in school. After nine Pioneer Camps, the Lord led me to Royal Holloway Chris-tian Union where I was handed the role of Prayer Secretary which took me back to basics on un-derstanding prayer and leading a strong prayer life. At that time, I also linked up with Christ Church, Virginia Water. These were particularly blessed times as April was at university only an hour away and was able to join me at Christchurch on a regular basis and started to integrate herself into Christian fellowship for herself, culminating in her conversion at Rehoboth on a rainy New Year’s Day in 2012. How’s that for a start to the year…

April and I joined Rehoboth in 2016 and were blessed from the outset with a loving church family with whom we felt we could not only worship the Lord but also serve with and work amongst. We are particularly grateful that we have managed to find our own grooves to serve in the church via piano, pulpit, PA and pottering in the kitchen (I had to make that four ‘p’s).

With a background in music, Steve invited me to join the piano rota, and this set me in a more public, up-the-front presence in church. I do believe that regular worship involvement gave me a strong foundation for being at the front of the chapel and led to serving the Lord from behind the piano to behind the pulpit. I am acutely aware of the need for consistent service and for working with the church body tending the vineyard.

I am most blessed and humbled to be elected as a deacon. I pray that I will be able to take the tools that the Lord has blessed me with and bring them to a deaconate level and serving the people of God at Rehoboth.

Rich
May 2026

We are God’s handiwork (Thought for June 206

Andrew — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:38:33 +0000

As I write this, I am in the company of the Craft and Chat group where several are busy with their hands creating various em-broideries, cross stitches and other craft-works. We can also see the skilful work of the Banner group displayed around the walls of the chapel, and all these remind me that it is good to be busy with our hands.

In recent times as well as establishing these groups, there have been visits to view the tapestries created for the ‘Threads through the Bible’ exhibition, and I also remember a fascinating visit I made to Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire where Bess of Hardwick, the countess of Shrewsbury was largely respon-sible for a collection of magnificent tapes-tries including 13 in the Long Gallery telling the story of Gideon. Well worth a visit if you are up that way.

There is a beautiful story in the bible of the disciple named Tabitha also known as Dorcas who, we read ‘was always doing good and helping the poor’ (Acts 9:36b). However, when she was taken sick and died, the apostle Peter being nearby was sent for. When he arrived, he was taken up into the room where the crying widows showed him all the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them (v39b) Here was a lady who had kept herself busy using her skills to do practical things to help the poor. Gloriously, after Peter prayed for her, she was restored to life.

Jesus was brought up, the son of Joseph the carpenter. We can only imagine what skills he might have used in working with wood as Joseph may have taught him, but his far greater skills were in the use of his hands which he laid on many people to bring about healing, his words of comfort, his prayers of intercession and his open arms, displayed on the cross which invites all to come to him for forgiveness of our sins. It is only through Him that countless lives have been restored and counted righteous in God’s sight.

There is a line in that well known hymn ‘My Jesus, My Saviour’ which reads

‘I sing for joy at the work of your hands’ Every time we sing that, it is good to remind ourselves of the Saviour’s handiwork in shaping our lives free from the curse of sin.

At the same time, however skilful we may be, it is not our craftmanship that will save us, as the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus ‘For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works , which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)

Our God is the maker of all things, the provider of all our creative talents, and so may we always, through the work of our hands, seek to glorify Him.

Stuart

Elder

June 2026

Grace Baptist Mission – Week of Prayer

Andrew — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:29:48 +0000

Do you sometimes feel that your Christian service – including your efforts to share the gospel and obey the Great Commission – is yielding little fruit?
Missionaries can struggle with such doubts as well. The world seemsso Hard; the task so big; the workers so few and fragile. Yet God’s victory is sure! The Lord Jesus Christ has conquered death and broken the power of sin. Our enemy the devil is a defeated foe. How can we be certain? Because Jesus has been gloriously raised from the dead and is seated at the Father’s right hand!
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain. ! Corinthians 15:58

Please join with GBM during their Week of Prayer—Sunday 7 to Sunday 14 June, to pray with this great hope in our hearts. Each day will focus on the work of different missionaries in a Zoom prayer meeting.

Sunday 7 June – 4pm – Andrew & Marea Cook – Serving Today radio ministry
Monday 8 June – 1pm – Calix & Bea Furus – preparing for Madeira
Tuesday 9 June – 3pm- James Hammond in Bordeaux, France
Wednesday 10 June – 8am – S & A in Belgrade, Serbia
Thursday 11 June – 12pm – Aries & Jodith Liboro in Valenzuela City, Philippines
Friday 12 June – 4pm – P & S in Central Asia
Saturday 13 June – 9am – Adrian & Abigail Yeboah in Amsterdam
Sunday 14 June – 4pm – Andrzej & Monika Kempczyński in Legionowo, Poland

You can register to join the prayer meetings at:
https://www.gbm.org.uk/week-of-prayer-zoom-prayer-meeting-registration/

You can find out more about the week of prayer in GBM Herald Magazine or on

The GBM website https://www.gbm.org.uk/events/week-of-prayer/

Rachel

Mission Secretary

The sheep with their little lambs passed me by on the road… (Thought for May 2026)

Andrew — Mon, 11 May 2026 16:40:44 +0000

The sheep with their little lambs passed me by on the road

So reads the song ‘All in the April evening’. Well, it’s May now, but as we travelled around last month, we saw many sheep with their little lambs in the fields of Sussex and Kent.

And, surely we all think the lambs look so sweet, frolicking and gambolling, don’t we?

I’ve often mentioned about the time my big sister, Mim, when she worked as a children’s nurse on a farm near Bucks Green, falling in love with an orphan lamb the farmer brought into the house, and cared for it (as well as the children). The farmer gave the lamb to Mim and she brought it home one day on the bus. It was a sweet, innocent little lamb.

Of course, it’s the sheep, the ewe sheep that would have borne the lamb. And on our jour-neyings we saw fields full of sheep with their lambs.

The Bible mentions lambs many times. Checking on my Bible Gateway site, they are mentioned 191 times. The two books that have the most are Numbers, where the many offerings that were required by the Lord involved male lambs. Meanwhile in the New Testament the book of Revelation mentions the word lamb 31 times – but each time it’s Lamb with a capital ‘L’. That, of course is because this Lamb is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ.Himself.

All those lambs being offered in the Old Testament, under the old (Mosaic) covenant were in fact a picture of the One Lamb who would be the final sacrifice for all our sins, effective for all eternity.

It always amazes me when I read the incident recorded in Genesis chapter 22 where Abraham, at God’s command, takes his beloved son, Isaac to sacrifice him on an altar. The understandable enquiry from the boy – ‘Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’ is met with the answer from his father, ‘God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son’. We know the rest of that story, but the significance of that reply was not just for Abraham and Isaac’s benefit, but for us all, that God would provide the precious Lamb, which was His own Son to be the only possible offering to give His people full forgiveness of their sins.

We often quote John 3:16, that ‘God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son ..’ God would provide for himself the lamb. Aligning ourselves with the Jewish people of the day, we killed Jesus (Acts 3:15), the author of life, but God Himself provided the sacrifice for us. What a wonderful God and Saviour we have!

I mentioned seeing the sheep and lambs in the fields. Isn’t it so gracious of God that through the sacrifice of His Son, the Lamb of God, we are counted as the sheep of His pasture

(Psa 79: 13CSB) ‘Then we, your people, the sheep of your pasture, will thank you forever; we will declare your praise to generation after generation’.

And, as Jesus said of himself, ‘I am the good Shepherd’, so it’s His flock we’re a part of, if we have responded to His voice.

I could go on, but just a reminder that Jesus instructed Peter, who assured his Shepherd that he loved Him in John 21: 15-17, ‘Feed my lambs; feed my sheep’.

May we care for one another, and particularly for the lambs – the young physically & the young spiritually in our corner of His pasture.

Steve

Elder

May 2026

Fellowship News (May 2026)

Andrew — Mon, 11 May 2026 16:37:37 +0000

Fellowship Awayday @ Dalesdown

Please be sure to book June 6th in your diary, when we look forward to an interesting day thinking about the prayer life of the Lord’s people. Should we ever feel entirely satisfied with our personal prayer life? Do we need to enter more deeply into communing with the Lord?

Do come to the Church Awayday at Dalesdown. We look forward to a visit from Gareth Jones, pastor at Pantiles Baptist Church, Tunbridge Wells to encourage us in our thinking on prayer.

Please keep Calix, Bea & the family in your prayers as they prepare for serving the Lord in Madeira.

Praying & caring for the Community – Oakhill Road, Barrington Road, Burford Road

Preaching out this month:

3rd S Beadle – Slinfold pm;

10th DA – Copthorne am; S Piggott – Rudgwick am;

Wed 13th C Furus – Three Bridges;

17th DA – Smallfield am; SB – Copthorne am; SP – Kirdford am;

24th DA – Slinfold pm; CF—Bromley am & pm;

31st DA – Hailsham am & pm; SB -Slinfold pm; SP – Copthorne am

My Testimony

Andrew — Mon, 11 May 2026 16:30:41 +0000

The testimony Jacob Polson gave at his baptism on Lord’s Day 12th April 2026
As most of you know my faith journey began with growing up at Rehoboth, and this gave me a great groundwork of faith and knowledge of the right way to go. I remember think-ing “why can’t I get baptised” (or if that was something I should do) at a young age. I also enjoyed Pathfinders and the different things we did and enjoyed learning through that. But then I grew up and my priorities changed, and an opportunity to play football for Horsham on Sunday mornings meant I stopped coming to church.

I remember during the initial period, where I’d stopped coming, feeling a darkness in my life, that I was only able to see the cause of clearly, looking back. After this period of my life I moved on, and although I never stopped believing in Jesus and what I had been taught, I gradually got more caught up in the world. I always knew when I was doing something wrong, but I did it anyway. I would come to God when things felt tough, and was still guided by the Christian principles I had been brought up with. I also still felt God in my life, and relied on his comfort in difficult moments.

Over the next 6 years or so, I was gradually feeling further and further from God however, with the passing of time. I remember thinking that my faith was something I would sort out later in life. Fast forward, and after some tough moments that had caused me to begin to think about the direction I was headed, I found myself at home during Covid, which gave me time to think. A few months had passed, and I was watching apologetics videos with Isaac, as that was something he was keen on. Not long after that I felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit, that I should give my life to Jesus.
I knew who Jesus was and why he came, after growing up in the church but was yet to take that step of receiving the forgiveness he has to offer. At this point I was feeling further from God than at any point before, and had begun to feel the weight of my sins. This then culminated in me calling upon the name of the Lord on 16th September 2020, during a work shift delivery driving, and I was saved. I knew instantly that I had been forgiven. I was so overcome with emotion in the moment and i’m glad that not long after I was sent out on a delivery run, so I was on my own.

It had been roughly a year at that point that I had started to think about things more, and had become aware of how in the world I was, although it hadn’t necessarily been at the front of my mind. I think God slowly walked me to that point. I’m thankful for Covid, in hindsight as well, as I think only something like that happening would have given me the chance to slow down and think. Once I felt the weight of my sins, I knew that it was only Jesus who I could call upon to save me.

From the point of receiving his forgiveness onwards, it has been a slow process of change, as God has been working in my life. Some of that has involved drifting back to the world at times, and expecting things to change quicker than I would like, but God has been exceedingly gracious and merciful in walking with me and helping me to understand certain things, and comfort in moments of distress.

He has shown me his faithfulness. I hope that me publicly declaring my faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour today, and the mercy, love and grace God has shown me, if you haven’t already, prompts you to put your faith in Jesus and be saved too.

Jacob Polson