Throughout chapters one to three, Paul purposefully reminds us of all that God has already done. Now - he catapults the church into action. Paul urges the church in Ephesus (and us) to live a life worthy of our calling, and in true Paul fashion - he is unapologetically direct. Be who you now are. Identify and use your gifts for the Kingdom. Take off your old self. Unify with one another. Paul invites us into the freedom and maturity to be who we really are.
Ephesians 3: To Know Love & To Show Love
Ephesians 2: Message of grace
In Jesus, God has done everything to not only solve the problem of our alienation from Him, but also our alienation from one another. He destroys all barriers to peace. He’s done it for us so we can live free - in peace, joy, love and fullness with Him and with one another. This is the extraordinary message of grace.
Ephesians 1: Spiritually Blessed
The opening to the book of Ephesians was written to inspire its readers to worship. It’s a veritable kaleidoscope of the dazzling colors of the amazingness of this thing we believe in and belong to. Yet, how many of us - who were brought up with this stuff - can feel like these words have lost their meaning? Worse still - how badly have these upbringings caused us to misunderstand things? If you love a bit of demystifying and clarifying - all in massive puddle of grace, love and ‘it’s already done’ - then this talk is for you.
How can I be filled with the Holy Spirit?
What does the Holy Spirit do? The early Christians first experience of the Holy Spirit was powerful. In the book of Acts, there is an explosion of the Spirit's activity - violent winds shake rooms; tongues of fire appear; the disciples stumble out into the street like drunk people; Paul is blinded and knocked from his horse; the Holy Spirit falls in power on everyone - even the Gentiles.
Parables: Banquet - Nature of the Kingdom
Parables: Sower - Growing the Kingdom.
The parable of the sower is not really about four types of soil, but two; Those who welcome Jesus and experience the joy and abundance of His kingdom, and those who don’t. He wants everyone to experience the fullness of life that He brings and He won’t stop going after a broken world, liberally and recklessly giving Himself away to it.
Parables: Samaritan - Culture of the Kingdom
The parables have been reduced and misinterpreted when understood outside of their original context, so first we kicked off this new mini-series with a bit of a ‘what IS the deal with the parables anyway?’ before taking a closer look at The Good Samaritan - a classic in all ways, because we discover that Jesus’ listeners would NEVER have seen the point of this as ‘a story about the kindness of a stranger’.
Baptism Service: Made in the image of God
You, are infinitely significant because you’ve been made in the image of an infinite God. We all share something of his DNA, but we don’t always feel that special. The God DNA has been, and continues to be marred in us, but Jesus is on a mission to restore it all. If only we let Him. He uniquely has the power to make us new so that we can experience the infinite significance, infinite love and infinite purpose for which we were all created. Jesus is the one we need. The more of Him, the more we become fully ourselves.
2019: Be made new
You, are infinitely significant because you’ve been made in the image of an infinite God. We all share something of his DNA, but we don’t always feel that special. The God DNA has been, and continues to be marred in us, but Jesus is on a mission to restore it all. If only we let Him. He uniquely has the power to make us new so that we can experience the infinite significance, infinite love and infinite purpose for which we were all created. Jesus is the one we need. The more of Him, the more we become fully ourselves.
Thank God for Christmas
In a world where it seems increasingly difficult to know what to believe, and where life at times can feel stark raving bonkers, what we’re all yearning for is something real, true and dependable. We don’t need more words or speeches right now, we need universe-altering action. Christmas says God became a human. One of us. He showed us he knows exactly what it is like to be human and he showed us exactly what it is to be God. That’s action. He it is who makes sense of our world, even when the world seems to be losing its marbles. He is what we’re made for and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in him. Thank God for Christmas
Connections: Vision of the church.
Connections: To culture.
Connections: To one another.
The mysterious world of faith: faith and idols.
The mysterious world of faith: faith and resources.
The Adulterous Woman: One Forgiveness Step Too Far
The scandal of grace is more outrageous than we can ever know. The Adulterous Woman who is brought before Jesus in John 8, provides us with one of the most evocative and famous interactions in all of the gospels, but it’s also one that provides many questions. What did Jesus write in the sand? Why did the Jewish leaders walk away, and what can we take from what Jesus said to the woman, after he told her she was not to be condemned? There is SO much more to this scandalous interaction than meets the eye…
Head or Head? What did you even mean, Paul?
No male or female in Christ, Jesus? So what about 1 Corinthians then? Most of us agree that because our cultural context is so different we can ignore the specifics of what Paul writes to men and women about head coverings, but bigger questions need to be addressed about the relevance of the bible, and indeed, what God actually thinks about male and female today. Hannah has wrestled with these questions for a lot of years, as a wife, mother, feminist and co-leader of Bread. If we come back to Paul’s motivation we see this passage has its roots in the origins of gods plan for mankind: oneness. It’s not that gender is obliterated in the kingdom of God, but rather the division that broken gender distinctions have caused since the fall. This is the redemptive power of Jesus.