Fruitfulness: Pruning | Clare Thompson at 11am | 12 July 2020

12 July 2020 - 11am Service

Fruitfulness

Today we are looking at FRUITFULNESS and John 15 with a message about pruning from pastor Clare Thompson. Tim and Izzy are hosting and we've got some special worship from April, Colse, Jo and our Woodlands worship team. It's Global Partners Sunday and we'll be taking our monthly offering, so Tim caught up with Dennis & Charmian in Peru and Joy leads our prayers for the world.

Remember, our new 7pm service is being live-streamed from Woodies tonight! So do be sure to tune in later...Rachel Riddall will also be preaching on the topic of pruning.

STUDY NOTES

Introduction 
Here are some questions you might want to reflect on about 'fruitfulness' - read John 15:2.

A gardener prunes a tree or a bush to enable it to be fruitful, not to waste nutrients and growth in producing leggy stems or branches. Fruitfulness, not size is the goal. Pruning looks like a painful process- equivalent perhaps to 'discipline' in Hebrews 12: 11, a discipline that feels unpleasant at the time but produces a 'harvest' (fruitfulness). What elements of pruning might we be experiencing individually and corporately?

1. Pruning helps us prioritise; the vital over the urgent or extraneous. In your life where is the 'urgent' getting in the way of the 'vital'?

2. Pruning simplifies where life gets over complex. What could you helpfully simplify in your life?

3. Pruning humbles, where we have grown over-confident in size rather than fruitfulness. What has this season helpfully challenged for us as a Church as well as individually?

4. Pruning leads to growth. (In church life it energises and gives capacity for people). What do you have renewed appetite for right now?