Alpha is a six week course exploring the big questions of life. It’s for anyone interested in discussing spirituality, god and the christian faith, in a non-judgmental open-minded context. Each week there’s a great meal, a short talk, and discussion in small groups. People who come to the course are from lots of different backgrounds - no faith, other faiths, brought up christian, and agnostic. Everyone is welcome. Catch up on each week’s talk here.
Moses risks everything to pursue God’s presence. Even though God promises to deliver his people, to protect them from their enemies, and to bring blessing, that God’s presence won’t go with them is not enough for Moses. This never-ending desire for more of God is at the heart of what it is to be a leader. We follow Moses in this by admitting where we’ve lost God’s presence and doing everything we can to regain it. The reward is nothing less than the felt experience of God’s goodness.
By Ed Flint
Alpha is a six week course exploring the big questions of life. It’s for anyone interested in discussing spirituality, god and the christian faith, in a non-judgmental open-minded context. Each week there’s a great meal, a short talk, and discussion in small groups. People who come to the course are from lots of different backgrounds - no faith, other faiths, brought up christian, and agnostic. Everyone is welcome. Catch up on each week’s talk here.
In the 22 Days - by best guesses - that the Israelites took to travel from the Red Sea to Mount Sinai, a number of memorable events took place. Moses led the people through hunger, thirst and military attack - and God met their needs every time - before finally reaching the mountain. These are vignettes we may be very familiar with but it’s so good to remember God’s patience with us on the journey, his protection, his ongoing call to his people, and what these stories always pointed to!
By Hannah Flint
Alpha is a six week course exploring the big questions of life. It’s for anyone interested in discussing spirituality, god and the christian faith, in a non-judgmental open-minded context. Each week there’s a great meal, a short talk, and discussion in small groups. People who come to the course are from lots of different backgrounds - no faith, other faiths, brought up christian, and agnostic. Everyone is welcome. Catch up on each week’s talk here
We were delighted to welcome guest speaker Bill Dogetrom to speak and continue our series on Moses and the marks of a great leader. Bill brings all his years of experience to help unpack the famous episode of God delivering the Israelites across the Red Sea. Moses learns there are times when we need to be still in prayer, and others when when we need to move forward prayerfully. When we are grounded in God through prayer we can be a non-anxious presence when all around is chaos. And we’ll know when it’s time to stay still, and when it’s time to go.
By Bill Dogetrom
Great leaders learn from failure. Moses fails both by the world’s standards - he gives up all the riches of Egyptian royalty to be with his downtrodden people; and, he fails by God’s standards - he takes God’s justice into his own hands and operates from his flesh, murdering an Egyptian. Both failures lead him to the desert. But it’s in the desert that God does his redemption. It’s in Moses’ isolation that God works wonderful things for good. The same is true for us. Our desert experiences are often the time God teaches us and develops us in ways we could never experience normally. And his promise is never to leave us there.
By Ed Flint
One of the things the world is most in need of is great leadership. So, how can we know what godly leadership looks like, and how can we grow as leaders? Moses is one of the greatest leaders in the Bible. In his birth story we see the foundations on which great leaders stand. They know that, despite the turmoil of the world, God is good and God is in control. When you truly believe this you see that you’re no accident, there is a purpose and calling to your life; you won’t be surprised by what might happen, because nothing is a surprise to God; and you’ll know that in the end everything will work out well because Jesus has defeated all that might come against you. It’s these foundations that enable us to grow into godly leaders who impact and influence our environment for Jesus and his kingdom.
By Ed Flint
How are you coping? Culture tells us that life is what we make it. It’s down to us. And yet, Christianity says we’re not designed for self-realization, so the pressure to be someone or do something has lead to a crisis of identity. At Christmas, God says something different. Life is what He makes it. And in Jesus, God comes close to us - to tell us who we are, what we’re for, and to share himself with us. When we let the one true living God in, all our questions of identity and purpose find their resolution in him. We know who we are. And we know what we’re for.
In this talk, we look at the nativity story through the eyes of Joseph - the quiet, faithful carpenter, and adoptive parent of Jesus Christ. Even in the version that tells his side, Joseph functions like a “minor character”. He’s low on the call sheet. He sings in the ensemble. He’s an extra. He, very literally, has no lines. Yet Joseph never tries to take glory. He has all of the power, and still, everything he does shows kindness, humility, and obedience to God. Joseph goes to bed one night and meets with an angel in his dreams, telling him that the baby to be born is not only a supernatural work of the Spirit, but will be known as Immanuel, God with us. In revealing this to him, God shows that he is not only Immanuel, God with the world, but he is also Immanuel, God with Joseph. Immanuel is God seeing us, knowing us, and then meeting us exactly where we are. Not where we appear to be, not where we want to be, but where we are, with what we need.
By Tavia Grubbs
In the final section of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he thanks them for their generosity in supporting him financially. However he is at pains to show he’s more appreciative of the friendship and partnership in the gospel that their generosity reveals than he is with the money they have given. This is because, in God’s kingdom, people are more important than things. The gospel is more important than money. To have our priorities correctly aligned like this requires learning to be content in all circumstances. In particular it requires contentment in relation to money. We live free from the enslaving power of money when learn to treat it as Jesus taught - something not to be worshipped, nor fled from, but to be mastered and held lightly. Generosity, discipline and learning to give money away is one of the best ways to set ourselves free. At the end of this talk we consider why and how all of us, as integral parts of the church, can financially support the work of bread.
By Ed Flint
As a population we are becoming more and more anxious. We live in one of the most opportunity-rich nations on earth, and yet we worry more and more. In this context Paul’s command to not be anxious about anything seems particularly stark. And yet Paul has such a depth of relationship with Jesus that he knows this isn’t an anxiety free life is not a pipe dream. In Jesus we access to a peace that is so profound that it washes away every worry. The question is: do we want to let Jesus into the source of our anxieties?
By Ed Flint
Whilst the Philippian church is clearly doing very well - they are Paul’s ‘joy and crown’ - there is nevertheless some unresolved conflict within their ranks. Conflict is not necessarily a sign of dysfunction. In fact, biblical churches are marked not by an absence of conflict - it is inevitable - but by the presence of a deep desire to reconcile. Conflict exists because whilst the church is full of redeemed, Spirit-filled people, we still exhibit traits of our fallen nature. We always have a choice between living in one of two kingdoms: the kingdom of darkness which brings slander and unforgiveness and division and hate, or Jesus’ kingdom, which is marked by peace. Let us be a church that chooses the latter. And let us be people insistent on resolving conflict healthily, graciously, biblically, and regularly.
By Ed Flint
As well as persecution and conflict, it’s clear from this week’s passage, that the church in Philippi was also dealing with the age-old problem of false-teaching from within. Paul, who is never anything but crystal clear about how to deal with anything or anyone that would infiltrate, distract or dilute the central message of Jesus’ saving power in His churches, reminds his friends of who they are (making some fascinating tangential remarks about maturity, and what it looks like, along the way.) To a city built on a colonist’s mindset he makes the searing statement: You are citizens of heaven, NOT to keep their eyes focussed on future glory (in this instance) but to reverse that logic. It is your highest call, to bring the ways of heaven (its love, justice, and humility) to earth! To meet your universal human condition, wired for tribal belonging and expansion, with a totally other kind of existence. A challenge surely as relevant to us today, as it ever was!
By Hannah Flint
Paul warns against valuing things which squeeze Jesus out as being our supreme value. Culture puts a high value on success, money, fame, intelligence and beauty amongst other things. Religion values outward performance and empty tradition. From time to time we need to reevaluate our values. Our faith can slide into performance. Our hearts are always susceptible to going after culture’s values. Paul calls us to worship the living God as a safeguard and antidote to these. It’s in the presence of Jesus that we see him for who he is again. And here, we can both die to that which robs us of life, and be resurrected to the life of fullness that Jesus promises.
By. Ed Flint
Paul faces two outcomes: life or death. In the uncertainty of this situation he remains confident of one thing: his future is wrapped up in Jesus’ presence. This is the case with us in every uncertain and ambiguous situation. It’s in this light that Paul encourages the church - with its disunity and fearfulness - to continue to live out their faith because it is the Spirit that establishes us in Christ. So, in “whatever happens,” we can be confident that Jesus is the ground we can stand on. He supplies the Spirit and others as evidence of his present and coming kingdom.
By Raul Sandoval
Paul is able to rejoice in the most difficult circumstances. He’s a great example for us: He is certain that God’s purposes for the world will win out nevertheless and despite these trials (the Gospel is preached in and outside the prison); He recognizes that God’s purposes for his own life will win out through these trials (God is using them to deepen Paul’s experience of salvation); and He has one singular focus: ‘to live is Christ’. So career, family, relationships whilst important, if threatened, will not derail him. When we follow him in establishing our lives on these three foundations, we can live in peace and with joy even in the toughest of times.
By Ed Flint
As we kick off our series on Philippians, we find a powerful origin story of the church at Philippi in Acts 16: where two women of wildly different social statuses find deliverance through Jesus. Paul and friends are then thrown into prison, bound, and they worship the Living God deep into the midnight hours. In the midst of their worship we have a dramatic prison-break—an earthquake shakes them out of their chains. About a decade later, Paul writes to this small church in Philippi, reminding them of his love for them in Christ. Picking up in Philippians chapter 1, we will explore the power of the Spirit’s kind voice, resilient joy in suffering, and the insistence that Jesus will finish the work he began in us.
By Nelly D’Alessandro
We finished up our series on John’s 7 statements of Jesus’ I ams with arguably the most clear scene of Immanuel - God with us- in the whole of the bible. It shows Jesus operating in extreme truth, power, and messianic fulfilment but also reveals his profoundly loving humanity. It’s quite a scene to grasp, when we get to grips with how badly our english translations have depicted Jesus’ depth about his grieving friends at Lazarus’ tomb. It’s a bonkers concept to hold in tension: the God of the universe, on the throne, who was victorious in conquering all outworkings of death and destruction in our lives. And a God who became human, to show us how deeply he cares about our pain, grief and loss, and draw near to us in them; We can’t pick one Jesus or the other, the fact that he is both these things is life's work for all of us, as his followers, to hold together.
By Hannah Flint
