At the start of this new season together we take a look at the account in John 13 of Jesus washing his disciples feet and consider what it means to serve one another, following the example of Jesus.
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Many of us loved to dress us when we were younger; it was so fun to pretend to be someone else… someone better, stronger and braver than ourselves. As we get older, we still dress up or put on a mask for others because we can feel unhappy or uncomfortable with who we really are. In this message Benj shares some simple truths about who we are now that we are born again Christians, comparing our new supernatural lives with the life of Superman!
This week explores what it means to be a faithful sower and asks the question, what can we sow today? How can God use us in our normal everyday lives and cause the ordinary seeds we sow to grow into something extraordinary?
After spending 40 years wandering in the desert of Sinai, the people of Israel were now on the eastern banks of the Jordan. Their challenge: take the land of Canaan, the Promised Land. In this message Stephen shows us how the description of the complete obliteration of Jericho was recorded in Scripture in order to teach us several lessons, most importantly that obedience, even if God’s commands seem foolish, brings victory. When we are faced with seemingly insurmountable odds, we must learn that our Jericho victories are won only when our faithful obedience to God is complete. Jericho situations require Jericho victories, which requires Jericho obedience.
In a sneaky look ahead to the teaching series coming this Autumn, we look together at ‘The Prayer Meeting’ and seek to answer the question ‘Why do we do that?’
The apostle Paul tells us that the church – the Body of Christ – will be healthy and growing when each member plays their unique part in its life (Eph 4:16). And in his letter to the Corinthians he expands our understanding of the parts of the Body and how they should work together (1Co 12). In this message we consider what all this means in practice and encourage every member to count themselves in, to stir up the gifts of the Spirit, and to serve our mission in whatever ways they can.
In Joshua 4:1-8 we read about memorials that were built by the people of God to remember and commemorate the goodness, blessing, salvation and protection of the Lord. In this message, Stephen shares with us how we can all build memorials in our lives, but often they are not positive and can actually restrict our walk with God. However there is one memorial that we can all look to with great hope and thankfulness – the cross; a memorial that not only reminds us of our sinful condition but also the incredible love and grace of God, turning tragedy into triumph, failure into success and death into life!
This week we look at the life of Caleb. There is much that we can be inspired by as we consider his pioneering spirit, his confidence in the promises of God and the legacy he left not just for his own children but for thousands of pioneers for the Kingdom of God who would come after him.
When we read the account of the Israelites’ journey to the promised land, we see the tragic moment where they become too afraid to take what God has promised them; they’re faced with an opportunity to step out of their comfort zone, but instead ask if they could go back to Egypt where things were more familiar… more comfortable. But Joshua is a man who is willing to get out of the comfort zone, trust God, and ultimately inherits all the promises 40 years later. In today’s message we look at this account and how we can be a church who is willing to step out of their comfort zones in order to see all of God’s promises today and not in 40 years’ time.
On this Fathers’ Day, Pete, Stephen & John talk about the blessings of fatherhood, sharing both personal testimony and biblical principles.
This week we look in Joshua 2 and consider how God and His people had a reputation in Jericho, the parallel with Jesus’s life as ‘news about him spread…’ at the start of his earthly ministry as a result of the filling of the Holy Spirit and finishing with an encouragement to dream and bring into being a time when Jesus is the talk of the town in Market Harborough.
Joshua is repeatedly commanded and encouraged to “be strong and courageous” as he leads God’s people into their inheritance, and the same simple phrase is spoken into the lives of several others at different times in the Bible. What does this mean for us today? What is God calling us to that requires great strength and courage, and on what grounds can we be strong and courageous, brave and fearless? We pray that this message will bring fresh confidence to you and your church as you serve the Lord together…
At the cross, Jesus Christ’s body was broken and His blood was shed. His broken body has brought us into eternal unity with one another and his blood poured out has purchased for us life in new covenant relationship with God. We can’t just sit back, however, expecting to enjoy all of the goodness of these great truths. We are called to stand shoulder to shoulder, soldier to soldier and lay claim of our wonderful inheritance – just like Joshua and the Israelite army!
Everything about being a Christian and walking with the Lord depends on Faith but what exactly is Faith and what difference does it make? This message looks both at Hebrews 11 and at what Jesus said about the power of faith showing that it is never blind. It aims to encourage Christians to use the faith that they already have to fan into flame all the gifts of the Holy Spirit and to live life with a miracle mentality. It highlights seven things that faith does in our lives enabling us live a life of power and demonstration of the Kingdom.
Success and prosperity are often misquoted and misunderstood, but the word of God clearly states that by following God’s word we will be successful and prosperous. Joshua 1:8 encourages us to “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful”. As believers it’s important that we know how to define success and prosperity, especially when it can seem like the world is obsessed with greed, status and position. In this message we discover what the word says and how it applies to us as followers of Jesus.
Today we look at God’s eternal principal of the tithe; how we see it practiced, defined, enshrined in the law and affirmed by Jesus, before we consider the practicalities today as we worship God by the bringing of the tithe and the giving of offerings.
As we share bread and wine together, John 13 introduces us to Jesus’ most lavish hospitality as we gather around His table. So here we are – invited by our Host, Jesus, announced as His ‘Loved Ones’, named and placed at His generous table, washed and cleansed to the core and free to feast on His abundant provision. What a banquet!
Paul concludes his letters to the Corinthians by commending the church to “The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit”. In this message, Arne Skagen explores what this means for us practically: How do we enjoy a close relationship with the Holy Spirit? How does He lead and guide us day by day? And how do we play our part in this wonderful fellowship with Him?
We read in Ephesians 4:16 about how God is building His church: “He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.”. As we look at this further we discover that the Church that is being built is not made of bricks and mortar, but of people! It can be easy to become focussed on physical buildings, but as we develop our understanding of the Church, we see how each person fits in to the whole ‘building’ and how we can make room for each of us to be shaped and cut to size, in order that God’s Church is built according to His plan and purpose.
This week we consider Paul’s description of the believer – not controlled by sinful nature but rather in radical relationship with the Holy Spirit. We think about how the Holy Spirit confirms our adoption, identity and inheritance as children of God and we take a look how Paul’s ‘theory’ found in the book of Romans played out in practice in his real-life care for the churches.
Romans 13:8 tells is about one ‘debt’ that you will always owe and can never pay off – the debt of love to others. As we explore what this means together, we see how we will never be able to reach the point where we can say “now I love others as much as I should”! No matter how much we have grown as a Christian, we still have room to grow in love.
This week we turn to Romans 7 and examine the Radical Redirection that comes by asking the question ‘In the light of God’s free gift of righteousness to believers, what was and is the point of the law as given by God to His people in the time of Moses?’
As we read through Romans 12, we see what our ’new life’ should look like. Paul encourages us in this chapter that we are no longer bound by sin and death because Christ has been raised up and we sit alongside him in heavenly places. In this message, Stephen unpacks what this means for us and gives us some practical ways that we can enjoy our new life in Christ.
In Romans 6 Paul describes believers as being ‘dead to sin’, but what does actually look like? Today we look to answer the question ‘How can I be set free from the power of sin in my life?’
