“The Moment,” was the focus of Elmslie Memorial Church’s Watch Night service.

The congregation all joined together for the first hymn, ‘Saviour Like a Shepherd Lead Us.’

Joan Wilson read the scripture, from the New Testament, 1 Corinthians Chapter 13, verses 4-13:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Preacher, Dr. Yvette Noble-Bloomfied preached on the theme “The moment.”

That moment was one of decision, of making a new commitment to Christ through a process of introspection and self-evaluation, she said.

“I don’t know why some of us want to come to church tonight – maybe it is out of a tradition. Maybe it is out of a yearning to be with God. Maybe it is because you could not afford the parties.

“But whatever your reason for coming, God wants to spend this moment with you. And God calls each of us into a moment of time when we can be reconciled with God, when we can begin to understand what it means to be obedient to God and to be faithful to our covenant with God, and a moment in time when we can know his the blessed assurance that God is with us and we need not fear.

“It is also a moment with yourself. Many of us are afraid of being with ourselves. We must be constantly surrounded by activities, by conversation, and music and noise, and we are afraid of zeroing in and looking deeply into our souls,” she continued.

“It has to be a moment before God and before self, where we can look at our integrity, look at our consistency, look at our spiritual disciplines, look at how we are with ourselves, and I would hasten to say, it is a moment also with others,”

“We must come to recognize that many times when we act we act out of selfish motives, that we tend to enforce on others our desires, and these are some of the things which destroy relationships. Sometimes even in the church we can force on others our own selfish desires under the guise of being ‘a word from God,’” she said.

After the prayer ministry session, when members of the congregation are invited to come forward for prayer, the final hymn of the evening was ‘O God Our Help in Ages Past’.

Everyone joined in the countdown to the New Year, before joining in a chorus of ‘Auld Lang Syne’.

Photos by: Christopher Tobutt