Obedience - a word destined to elicit a whole bunch of feelings in people, not usually positive ones! Nevertheless we’re called to obedience to Jesus. Yet so often what obedience is and how it works has been misunderstood. For many it seems impossibly onerous. But true obedience flows from intimacy with God - the more we are connected to him, the more we necessarily follow his guidance. So our prayer should be not ‘help me be more obedient’ but ‘help me be more connected’. As we draw closer to him, his commands stop being burdensome.
1 John - This is the Message - Of Truth
What does truth even mean anymore? It’s personal. It’s relative. Yours is none of my business and mine none of yours. But if who Jesus is, and what he did isn’t ‘true’ true, then what are we even doing here at church? This actually isn’t such a new conversation. As it spread across the region, early churches were rife with those who wanted to change or own it it make it a bit more like their own beliefs. Sometimes it’s quite important to ask what the difference between being true, and being right (because the funny thing with grace is… it never ever needs to be right)
Ruth - THE story of love.
Concluding our series on Ruth, we consider the role of hesed in our lives. Hesed is not just being kind- it’s an extraordinary, risky, honourable loving kindness that is so potent as to change people’s circumstances forever. We can all be and are called to be people of hesed. God acts through our kindness to one another. But to grow in it we must receive it too- the more we receive Gods life changing kindness the more we can give it away to those in need.
Ruth - a 21st century model of what now?
Ruth arrives in Israel - having pledged her life to Naomi - not just as an outsider, not just as a destitute woman, but as a Moabite, she is despised. As a loyal, self-denying woman she may seem like a role model of immigrant subservience we don’t really need right now, but looking a little deeper we see her courageous leadership is what opens the door to everything else. Ruth is called Woman of Valor (the OG OT highest praise) before any of her circumstances actually change though. So this story teaches us about how god loves to do that, and how he loves to use the ones everyone else rights off, and how his loving-kindness is to be the fuel of everything we ever do as christians.
Alpha Return - Be Filled
Wrapping up Alpha weekend, we see that Jesus immerses us in the Holy Spirit. When filled with the Spirit, we know ourselves as God's beloved children and his joy. From that place we are empowered to do what Jesus did and so much more. God shares himself with us so we can be the 'little Christs' that we are in our communities. Anything that holds us back can be left by the wayside as we come to him however and wherever we are. We were made for this.
Money Talks - part 2
Money in the bible is depicted neither as being all bad nor as all good. There is both a light side and a dark side to it. Christian maturity is about holding these sometimes paradoxical sides of money’s power together in tension. Used in the right way, money can actually bring us closer to God. As we give away what God has given us we are in fact giving something of ourselves back to him and we can enjoy his nearness, freedom and pleasure in turn. We want bread to be a community of reckless generosity in all things. Generosity is good for us and it is good for our world.
Money Talks
Why is it so many of us find it uncomfortable talking about money in church? Because we’ve had bad experiences with church ‘fundraising’? Because we don’t like what we’ve been taught before? Or because thinking about our relationship with money in church makes us feel uncomfortable things? Probably a bit yes to all those. (NB if you are one of the rare fish who LIKES money talks, teach us your ways!) Jesus taught about it a lot, because he knew it’s power over us, and like all power that isn’t his, he wants us to know how to be free from it. And like always always always, it starts with knowing his goodness.
How to Return - to the Kingdom
We’re all made for purpose - none of us is just a human being, we’re also human doings. And our god-given individual purpose in life is as unique as we are. But all of us also share a universal purpose- it’s the most fulfilling life giving, transformative and meaningful work we can ever be involved in. It is to be part of and extend the kingdom of God. This talk is about that kingdom, what it looks like and how we play our role.
How to Return - to the Spirit
Pentecost is the moment God's promise to fill his people with the Spirit was fulfilled – this marked the birth of the Church. The Spirit is core to our faith but is often missed, forgotten, or even rejected. We can do all the Christian things and yet miss the Spirit. In this talk, we are challenged to return to the One who refills us, who renews us, and sustains us so we can be the people God has called us to be. This all happens as we experience the Spirit again and again.
How to Return - to Worship
Right from the start, coming together to sing songs of worship has been central to the practices of the people of God. Worship can take many forms, and it certainly doesn’t have to be done altogether. But being able to sing songs as a community is central to our ethos as a church.
It can be powerful and transformative, but to get there we need to be real about where we’re at, to bring our hopes and fears to God, and to acknowledge that he’s the only one who can satisfy. When we declare who He is, that’s when we can make sense of our lives and our world, and see him, and receive his love and power. We thought a bit of a recap on what it’s all about might be a good idea.
How to Return - to Community
This is a mini-series looking at Jesus’ various appearances to his disciples, after he was resurrected. This week is the account in Luke 24, to 2 unknown disciples, on the road to Emmaus. It shows us a lot about what can happen when we discover our preconceptions of who Jesus is, and what he looks like, don’t turn out to match up to the Jesus of the gospels. We may well have been on a painful road of learning all this ourselves during the pandemic, but Jesus is still here, still the same, and still wholly passionate about our togetherness.
The Antidote to Division
Concluding our series, we look at the final bad thing: division. Two divisions that have touched every part of our existence is the divide between God and humans and the divide between people. In Jesus, these divides come crashing down as one new humanity is created, a humanity that is one with God and others through the Spirit. So when we choose to follow where the Spirit flows, we live heavenly lives that are no longer marked by division. Let's choose the Spirit, division leaves us feeling afraid and alone.
The Antidote to Hate
The Antidote to Self-Serving Power
What is the church for? An antidote to self serving power. As Christians we have access to the most powerful force in the universe. But the gospel is power unlike the world has ever seen. It is selfless power, power for the other, power to be given away. Let’s us be powerful people- empowered by the spirit - for the sake not of ourselves but everyone else.
Grace over Greed
Carrying on our series on what we can learn from the brand new church in Acts, we’re looking at the antidote to greed today. For many of us, greed is that icky thing we've picked up as means to survive. It tells us the more we possess, the safer we will be but ironically, it leaves us feeling more empty and it almost always hurts others. None of this is new, and if we want to be who Jesus has made us to be, we'll need to look inward ourselves and be oriented towards grace just like the church in Acts did . When we trust the Spirit and lunge into community, we rob greed of its power and become open handed people engaged in kingdom activity.
What's So Bad About Individualism?
Our own personal identity in Jesus. It’s what some of us spend our youth chasing after. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be clear on who he made you, what he’s calling you to, and we will NEVER stop talking about how much He loves you. But we’re pretty clear that there is a real imbalance in Western christianity right now. That our culturally indoctrinated lens of individuality has invaded our church spaces, to very damaging degrees, and that we need to talk about what we’re called to. When we receive what Jesus has for us, it changes how we think about self, and other, and power, and peace and ever needing to win again.
What Difference Does The Church Make?
Why is it that sometimes it’s difficult to point to the positive impact church has had - not just in our personal lives but on society in general? The church has unlimited potential. But the degree to which we see goody fruit and godly impact will always be dependent on the degree to which we become people of his spirit. The fruit of his spirit affects our personal ethical life, the gifts of his spirit affects our corporate societal life. Let us open ourselves to both as much as we possibly can; for our sake and for the sake of a world in need.
Good Grief!
As much as we want to be looking forward to what lies ahead this year, we believe God is speaking to us about grief. Life is, of cours, full of beauty and wonder, but it is also - start to finish - full of loss (It’s hard to imagine there are many among us who haven’t lost something meaningful in the last 12 months!) Jesus’ life shows us that there is only one holy and right response to loss, and it is grief. There is no way to bypass or shortcut this often painful process, but we must fight the cultural lie that sadness is shameful, and mourn, like Jesus mourned, for what has been lost. At the end of it all, it’s not just about our recovery or healing, it’s about what He can plant in the fertile soil that grieving tills.