This past week, our church was blessed with the visit of members from the Sovereign Grace Presbyterian Church (SGPC) in Charlotte, North Carolina (USA). Our visitors were Ben Thomas, assistant pastor at SGPC, Henry de Boer, deacon at SGPC, and Joel and Alice Parker, who are retired missionaries. They spent over a week in the UK, visiting Presbyterian churches in Oxford, Lincoln, Salford and here at Solihull. During this time, our bonds of love and fellowship were strengthened in various ways.

On Thursday, we had a wonderful fellowship dinner before our regular prayer meeting in one of our member’s home, which was followed by teaching from Henry de Boer about the diaconal mission of the church. On the following day, the men of our church joined with members from Presbyterian churches in Oxford, Salford and Cheltenham to a workshop about the diaconate, with preaching by Ben Thomas and practical exercises with Henry de Boer. We parted company after our Lord’s Day worship, on which Ben Thomas preached for us in our morning service.

We are grateful to the Lord for the support we received from these brothers and sisters across the ocean, and we look forward to seeing them again face to face.