B&A Church Stories: Recent Episodes
BA Church
What’s God up to in the lives of the church family? We share ordinary people's stories from everyday life and hear thoughts from the team here.
On Monday, we shared this episode of More tea, Vicar? You can listen to it here:
INSERT LINK HERE.
On Tuesday, we shared Nicky Gumbel’s interview of Danielle Strickland. You can watch it here:
On Wednesday, we shared this worship playlist:
https://www.babristol.org/ba-worship/2020/7/30/bampa-worship-mixtape-vol2
On Thursday, we shared this talk from our series in Genesis. You can watch it here:
On Friday, we shared this link to the Worship for Everyone website. Many of us will have sung songs by Nick and Becky Drake, perhaps without knowing it. Check out their resources online here:
https://worshipforeveryone.com
On Saturday, we shared this worship playlist. You can list here:
On Monday, we shared this episode of the More tea, Vicar? podcast:
INSERT LINK HERE.
On Tuesday, we shared Nicky Gumbel’s interview with Francis Chan. You can watch it here:
On Wednesday, we shared this worship playlist:
https://www.babristol.org/ba-worship/2020/3/28/worried-playlist
On Thursday, we shared this talk from our series on Genesis:
On Friday, we shared a link to the Marriage Course website. We are starting a marriage course online in the autumn. Have a look at the resources here:
https://themarriagecourse.org/new-series
On Saturday, we shared this worship playlist:
On Monday, we shared this latest episode from the More tea, Vicar? podcast. You can listen to it here:
LINK TO BE INSERTED.
On Tuesday, we shared Nicky Gumbel’s interview of Bob Goff. You can watch it here:
On Wednesday, we shared this worship playlist.
https://www.babristol.org/ba-worship/2020/3/27/mixtape1
On Thursday, we shared this talk from our series in Genesis:
https://www.babristol.org/talks/2020/3/15/have-you-sold-your-birthright-for-a-bowl-of-stew-charles-auld
On Friday, we shared a link to the Care for the Family website. Care for the Family are a Christian organisation with a whole host of fantastic resources. Find out more here:
https://www.careforthefamily.org.uk
On Saturday, we shared this playlist:
On Monday, we shared this episode of More tea, Vicar?
https://www.babristol.org/mtv/2020/episode0-2tx25
On Tuesday we shared Nicky Gumbel’s interview with Ben Lindsay. You can watch it here:
On Wednesday, we shared this playlist:
https://www.babristol.org/ba-worship/2020/4/3/bampa-worship-hymns
On Thursday, we shared this talk from our series on Genesis:
https://www.babristol.org/talks/2020/1/13/trust-god-wayne-massey-1
On Friday, we shared a link to Parenting for Faith. Rachel Turner is a speaker and writer with a specialism in Christian parenting. Find out more by following the link here:
https://parentingforfaith.org
On Saturday, we shared this worship playlist:
https://www.babristol.org/ba-worship/2020/4/10/bampa-worship-good-friday-playlist
Wayne caught up with Judith to find out more about Boxes of Hope and ways we can all get involved and help out.
Click here for suggestions of what you can buy to go into a Box of Hope.
Here’s the digital resources that we’ve shared on social media this last week…
On Monday, we reminded everyone of the More Tea, Vicar? podcasts which started as we went into lockdown and have addressed a range of topics on theology, culture and life. You can have a look at them here:
https://www.babristol.org/mtv
On Tuesday we shared the link to the Focus at Home Sunday. if you missed it, you can watch it here:
On Wednesday we shared one of our worship playlists. You can listen to it here:
https://www.babristol.org/ba-worship/2020/7/29/bampa-worship-something-old?fbclid=IwAR24yrOBzJTJrcyObYWcC9sYyacMelRR20rx4llFSuOaJz0NZToErX7ouLE
On Thursday we shared one of the talks from our series on Genesis. You can listen to it here:
https://www.babristol.org/talks/2019/9/30/male-and-female-he-created-them-james-stevenson?fbclid=IwAR3qfPLLT5MQGXVrHyTkcAlOwPJ9TLHVUSMAzpzKtvOnUmQGH2TZmfvW0RQ
On Friday we shared a short video with some thoughts on parenting. You can watch it here:
On Saturday, we shared this worship playlist for people to ‘soak’ in.
This Summer we are encouraging everyone to think about how they can sabbath. If you want to find out more about what that means and how to think about it, have a listen here.
In this post, we are going to introduce five books and one podcast that have been shaping our thinking over the last 12 months. We would love you to explore at least one of them this summer and ask God what He’s saying to you through it.
Written by John Mark Comer, this is an excellent book a prophetic message for our time.
This is an excellent explanation of racial prejudice in the USA from an extraordinary Christian.
If you want to stretch your mind, this is your book. History speaking to the heart.
A really good, simple introduction to prayer that will nourish the new Christian and remind the experienced.
If you’re in leadership and wanting to know how to lead in uncertainty, this book has some answers to the questions you’re asking.
If you’re struggling to understand what’s going on in the world, listen to what these guys were saying well before COVID-19 came along Series 3 is a particularly profound interpretation of what’s going on behind the pandemic.
B&A StoriesPodcast\ 09.06.20 //episode 13: Parenting for Faith - Rachel Turner’s website with videos and handy links
Resources For Families
Last Sunday James and Wayne said that we believe that God is saying to us ‘Come Home, Repent and Let me Homeschool you!’. One of the ways we can learn in homeschool is by joining in with Christians around the world with the Archbishops’ Thy Kingdom Come prayer movement.
Download the app ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ to your phone or tablet, use the reminder to help you pray for your friends to come to know Jesus and use the other resources. You can find out more at www.thykingdomcome.global
We would love you to join in with Christians across Bristol and the South West on the evening of Sunday 31st May.
Recently we’ve been hearing snapshots of what God is doing in different Little Churches at B&A. In a new series we’re encouraging Little Churches to send in some photos and stories that help us to keep in touch and to hear what God is doing.
The Soul Food team will tell you that everything they do is rooted and grounded in prayer.
“Soul Food has adapted wonderfully and continues to serve those in need albeit in challenging circumstances. Meeting by Zoom every Sunday makes it feel very alive and it’s great to be able to catch up with each other and pray together. Now that I can get baking ingredients it’s lovely to be an active part of it again by supplying cakes for guests. ”
A screenshot of Soul Food meeting on Zoom on a Sunday.
“I’ve just found those Zoom times together so powerful as we’ve journeyed through grief, challenges and joy as a community over this short period of lockdown already.”
Beyond times of prayer, the team gather together to prepare a meal each Wednesday afternoon. The vicars have been appearing at Soul Food in the last few weeks and we are always greeted by a joyful kitchen team. They always talk of the joy of preparing food for people who wouldn’t otherwise have food or company.
Johnny gets to grips with the pastry in the kitchen.
The meal is served from around 5.30pm each Wednesday and people either sit in the courtyard or take it away to eat elsewhere.
Some of the guests gather in the courtyard at B&A Gloucester Road.
“Coming here is a real highlight of the week, for the food and the company. We really appreciate it”
“In the early days of lock down, Soul Food gave me structure and made me get out of the house. And it’s good to meet up with people”
“I was worried about coming back to Soul Food with Covid about, but the atmosphere is just so vibrant and positive”
But it’s not just a meal they’re being given. Guests have always been able to take food supplies away with them but now these are accompanied with a copy of Luke’s gospel. Last week Wayne talked to one of the guests who said he'd not been out since lockdown but felt he needed to as he loved the people at Soul Food because they are so full of peace. They chatted, he said he thought Jesus was a cool guy and let Wayne pray for him and pray for healing for something in his neck! And all from 2 metres!
As always though, God doesn’t want to do stuff to other people through us, he wants us too. It was moving to hear one of the team share of their journey in recent weeks:
“During the Coronavirus pandemic and ‘lockdown’ my work as a nurse in a GP practice has increased making it difficult to attend our Soul Food Wednesday community meals. I had one particularly wobbly week when I didn’t feel I could even join in our regular Sunday morning catch up and prayer time. In spite of this I have felt so supported by our Soul Food family - knowing I was prayed for meant so much to me and helped me know that I was loved and accepted even though I couldn’t participate. As a ‘doer’ it is hard to have to step back - but is also a good lesson in learning that God loves us because He loves us, and not because of what we ‘do’ for Him.”
The Church has always fed the poor and not just because God loves the poor, but because God loves the Church.
B&A StoriesPodcast\ 31.03.20 //episode 03: Wayne catches up with Gayle Bryant who tells him what it is like starting work with a new team on a new project, and from home and then on top that discovering you need to go into full isolation because you have symptoms! What difference does being in a Little Church make? What is God teaching you?
Hear about Rhys’ story in this video.
If you’d like to find out about about faith of baptism, get in touch info@babristol.org
Hear what God’s been doing through Jerry and others from the charity TREAD in India.
You can donate here: https://www.friendsoftread.org
Thank you so much to everyone who has prayed, fasted and given to the Everyone's Invited: Many Rooms project. We have been overwhelmed by your response and the response of others beyond. It speaks volumes of what God's stirring here and the affection with which we are held in the wider church. We have raised £250k so far. Amazing!
The PCC are in negotiations with the other parties. These negotiations are progressing and will pick up pace in the early autumn. We expect to be able to communicate more with you then. In the meantime, keep praying for God's solution.
The B&A Youth Centre And So Much More!
You don’t have to work too hard to imagine somewhere locals call the B&A Youth Centre. It is a space that is alive throughout the week. Most afternoons there is a drop in youth club with homework assistance for young people on their way home. At the weekends it is the home of Ignite Youth, a safe space for young people to hang out, make friends and discover Jesus.
But the space is so much more than that as well. On a Sunday morning you will find some of B&A’s ever growing kid’s church meeting there. During the week the building is also used for parenting courses, CAP courses and as a meeting place for some of the vulnerable in our area. In the evenings, Little Churches that have outgrown local homes meet there. It is a space that is alive with kingdom life and is truly a blessing to the community.
Over the past few years we have been working with the Diocese of Bristol in order to secure the site at 8 Walsingham Road (next door to B&A St Andrew’s Park) for the work of our church and the wider church across Bristol.
In order for us to pursue this opportunity we have identified that we need to raise approx. £300,000. We believe this figure enables us to complete the purchase and begin initial works.
This is a good sized figure for us! The Church Council recognised this figure represents an opportunity to grow in our faith and in our learning to seek God for his provision. It also represents an opportunity for us to grow as disciples learning to give sacrificially. The Church Council therefore decided to set aside a month for focussed prayer and fasting asking for God’s guidance and provision.
June 6th to July 7th
For one month we want to ask everyone to pray. To pray individually, in our homes, in our Little Churches and when we gather.
And we want everyone to pray two prayers.
God is it your will that we are able to purchase 8 Walsingham Road and would you move in power and provide all we need for this project?
God what are saying to me(us) about the sacrifice you are calling me(us) to make as part of this?
In the middle of June we have to present to The Diocese of Bristol our proposal for how we intend to purchase 8 Walsingham Road. If you are able before Sunday June 16th to give an indication of either a one off gift or a monthly gift over 12 months please email Lindsay Davey (lindsay@babristol.org) to let her know. Your pledge details will be kept confidential.
In March, we said to our Little Church leaders and their teams that we need five new Little Churches. Within half an hour we had one of those five. Charles and Jane Auld have since planted Third Man (https://www.babristol.org/littlechurch/third%20man) from Kings.
This last Sunday we heard about two new Little Churches that we are hoping to launch by September.
Beyond the Gate is an initiative we are hoping to launch with sixty-one (https://www.sixty-one.org) running a weekly hub for ex-offenders. HMP Bristol has a 70% re-offending rate and we passionately believe that God has a heart to see prisoners released and freed not re-incarcerated. To reverse that trend, ex-offenders need a safe place where they can re-build their lives. Beyond the Gate will be one of those places. Millie Cork, one of our ordinands is ready to lead this Little Church and sixty-one are ready to send people our way, but we desperately need a team to help lead this with Millie. If you are interested, contact james@babristol.org and he will send your details to Millie.
Bake & Bless is a little church that does what it says on the tin. Ann Tizzard is going to gather people to bake cakes at her house initially. Whilst the cakes are baking, the bible will be opened and the bakers will pray. When the cakes are ready, they’ll be given away to those God directs as a way of blessing others. So far, Ann has a team of three people, but for us, a Little Church team needs six people, which means that Ann needs more of a team to get going. If you’re interested in Baking, want to learn more or just love washing up, then email ann@babristol.org and she will be in touch.
Please pray!
Last Sunday at B&A we had the pleasure of hearing this story. And we love it. We hope you do too.
Over the last few weeks we’ve seen the people of B&A connecting with and serving the city in a Beautiful way.
On Sunday 3rd February, Bev Cavender and team hosted a Window Wanderland Workshop, open to all. People left with their own window displays and contributed to a display for our site on the Gloucester Road.
The Window Wanderland display at B&A Gloucester Road
The next day, Life Group hosted a Pan-Asian meal for about 100 people, most of whom were invited as guests to share in a fun evening. Between the courses a few of the international students explained why they love Life Group and Chiew Li shared why she is a Christian.
The next day it was great to welcome our new Bishop, Viv Faull to our 10.30am gathering as she helped us to begin our journey through John’s account of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion. It was moving to be a part of a church that got on its knees together in response to her word. Later that evening, guests at Alpha heard more about the good news of Jesus.
New life continues to emerge as the Christian Meditation course continues and as Soul Food Bristol edges closer to its launch. More on that to come…
Isn’t it wonderful to hear that a relative or close friend has just had a baby. Some of us will want to go and visit – that very morning if possible. For us this Christmas morning, it’s like the morning after the night before for Mary. And the visitors come very quickly – shepherds in her case.
But remembering giving birth myself, I couldn’t help wondering how she was feeling that morning. I remember how I was feeling - first I was adamant – I would never ever have another baby (although I did) and second, I could not understand why human beings couldn’t just lay eggs, like birds do. To be honest, I couldn’t have coped with any strangers arriving to see either me or my baby.
But the story doesn’t say that’s how Mary felt. We’ve woven some beautiful stories into the bible’s account of what happened at Jesus’ birth. Over the centuries people’s imagination has produced works of art as well as rather cute school nativity plays. And in the process I think we’ve often lost sight of the reality of it - the sheer mess of it all.
Some churches today balk at letting a real donkey in, in case natural processes take place which will need clearing up afterwards, and might offend churchgoers’ sensibilities. But imagine the situation in a stable.
And the smells. Even those shepherds – the muddy feet for a start They wouldn’t have stopped to have a good wash, change their clothes, before they hurried into Bethlehem to find this baby Jesus.
And there was Mary, this very young woman, who had heard such wonderful things from the angel - that her baby would be called the Son of the Most High; that he would be the king that the Jewish people had been waiting for, for centuries. The shepherds confirmed this with what the angel had told them – this baby was the Messiah – the Christ. How could she square this with the way that there wasn’t even room for him to come into the world comfortably? Surely God wouldn’t bring his Son into such a mess.
But yes – God did. We have no reason to think this was a bit of a mistake. Out of all the places Jesus could be born, not only did God not choose a palace for the birth, but he didn’t even choose a normal simple home. And out of all the people who God could have told the news to so it could spread widely, he chose shepherds who were generally despised and discounted by most of the population.
So much amazing glorious experience, so much awful confusing mess. And maybe that sums up for many of us, our story as Christians. The glory and the mess.
Perhaps for some of you here today, you find it hard to square your belief in God with the mess and darkness of the world – the politics, the conflicts, the disasters and tragedies whether on a grand scale or a personal one. Perhaps the way you cope on a day like this is to focus on the wonder of Jesus’ birth but block out any thoughts of our broken world or your own personal problems. Keep things in separate boxes. And then perhaps most of the other days, you have to focus on the mess that’s around – Brexit, problems at work, family issues, health issues, but then do you block out wonderment at our Creator God and his Son our Saviour.
But I think if Christmas tells us one vital thing – it’s that God doesn’t look at it like that. He didn’t avoid the mess and darkness of the world. He didn’t let his own utter holiness stop him choosing to enter into it. God embraced our human situation in all its brokenness and today he offers his love and presence in the midst of it all, not separate from it.
John says: God became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood. He became one of us, both to show us how to live and to be the Saviour that the world needed, because we couldn’t save ourselves. As he lived and loved, the mess got worse, not better. The religious leaders who should have recognised him as the one they had been waiting for, refused to do so. The darkness of the world closed in on him – that life-light – and on Good Friday that light seemed to have been put out for ever. But as John’s Gospel says ‘The Life-light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.’ Easter Sunday was the proof of that and it didn’t stop there.
In the ghastliest situations in our broken world, that light still shines – the darkness can never extinguish it. God is with us, at our darkest times.
So on this Christmas morning, you like me are offered a choice. Imagine it’s your stable and you realise who is lying in that manger. What are you going to do? Clean it up as best you can? Anti-bacterial liquids, buckets of boiling water, lots of clean straw. Get the animals put somewhere else. That’s one option. Or are you going to find the humility to welcome Jesus into the stable as it is. Into your reality. And just feel so delighted that God knew all along what the stable was like but that’s where he wants to be.
On Christmas morning God chose to embrace the mess and muddle to reveal his glory. Every day God chooses to embrace us in our mess and muddle so that if we will let him, he can reveal his glory as he transforms our lives.
May this Christmas be for you an experience of his transforming presence and love in the reality of your everyday life.
Souper Tuesday got some people together to sing carols round Good Shepherd Close, a supported housing block. Singing a carol in each corridor, we knocked on every door and gave the residents a Christmas card and a star saying ‘Immanuel God with us’. The card included an invitation to the afternoon tea and carols coming up on Saturday. It was great to talk with some of the residents and share with them some of the joy and celebration of Jesus’ birth.
On Sunday we heard from Jo Masters about Reach Little Church. Having studied the book of James they have felt prompted to collect for the Bristol North West Foodbank this Christmas.
In the coming weeks, you can bring the following items to B&A St Andrews Park on a Sunday and Reach will take the collection to the Bristol North West Foodbank:
Instead of doing our usual 10.30 gathering on Nov 11th we met in St Andrews Park at the Wellington Bomber memorial for an all-age act of remembrance. Well over 300 people gathered as we sang hymns and songs, listened to a reading, had short talk and a time of quiet prayer and reflection.
Was it just that we can’t fit everyone in at 10.30? Well, we may not be far off that point. The real reason we were outside is because Wayne and I read a very big book a few years ago and decided we needed to do something in response. The book is called ‘Paul, the Missionary’ by Eckhart Schnabel (Brilliant name, by the way!).
In something like 430 pages, Schnabel tracks pretty much every movement of Paul in the scriptures and lays them against the geography of the time. It is quite a read! His conclusions are that whilst there are variations in what Paul gets up to in different places, there are three common themes that appear in each place:
- The Public proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
- Showing people a new way of living in response to the gospel.
- The formation of new communities of faith.
We reckoned that our efforts at B&A to make disciples and to build Little Churches were the beginnings of an echo of 2. and 3. but we needed to do more to echo 1. So we decided that we would take the opportunity that the end of Christendom still affords us at the festivals of Remembrance, Christmas and Easter by heading into the park opposite the church building to worship and invite others to join us.
Last week Wayne preached the good news of Jesus, the one who can truly bring peace. Wayne didn’t get dragged out of the city and beaten within an inch of his life as happened to Paul, but there was an echo of Paul’s public proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Each week our gatherings are hosted by one of our Little Churches. For Adoption Sunday King’s Little Church were hosting amongst whom there are three families who have been involved in fostering and adoption.
Currently there are over 72,000 children in the care system in the UK. Organisations like Home for Good have been encouraging churches to play their part in reducing that number. For those of us involved, it isn’t just something we do to fulfil a need in our lives but an opportunity to obey one part of the biblical mandate to ‘look after orphans and widows in their distress’ (James 1:27).
One couple from King’s joined me on stage during the gathering to share a bit of their story.
It was really encouraging hearing how God has worked in their lives as a new family. There were tears as people listened to and watched their friends speaking of the relentless love of God with which they now love their children, despite how they themselves or the children might be feeling.
As a Little Church, we’re under no illusions about how difficult fostering and adoption can be but we are wholehearted advocates for it and for encouraging others to join us in this journey.
Will you join in?
At the beginning of August, I sat in a cafe at Focus with Simon and Rosie Satchell and asked them about how their Little Church (Kent Road) was going. Over the last six years Simon and Rosie have faithfully led the Kent Road community as a group of Christians of all ages most of whom live in the north Bishopston area. It has been a thriving community in which the Alpha Course has been run and a few people have become Christians.
I was expecting more of the same from Simon and Rosie when we met and was gently blown away when they began to talk of their heart to connect with and disciple the lonely and the vulnerable. They spoke of friends in Edinburgh who have run a ministry called Soul Food and talked about their desire to start a Soul Food at B&A Gloucester Road.
Here’s a link to the website: https://www.soulfoodedinburgh.org
Since early August Simon and Rosie have talked this through with Kent Road and begun to share the vision more widely with the rest of B&A. Our hope is that we’ll have a team in place to start Soul Food in early 2019. There’s loads to do and loads to pray for but God is on the move…
Are you spiritually hungry? Thirsty? In need? Jesus says come. Are you in physical pain? Experiencing emotional distress? Depressed? Weary? Broken? Hurting? Alone? Scared? Dying? Jesus says come. He calls us to come and encounter Him here and now as the only source that will fully satisfy us, whatever our state. Jesus, our healer; compassionate, tender and powerful beyond measure invites you and me to bring our brokenness in all forms before Him, right here and right now and see His Kingdom breaking into our lives for the glory of His name.
It astounds me that the lavishness of his mercy and love means that we don’t have to wait to experience Him, we get to have a foretaste now. In God’s Kingdom there will be no more death or crying or pain for these former things will have passed away (Rev. 21), so when we pray that God’s Kingdom comes and His will is done on earth as it is in heaven, we are asking to see the tears cease, the pain end and the sting of death gone now, in these very moments. We are asking for His Kingdom to invade the Kingdoms we have constructed and bowed to; heaven to touch earth. We are asking for a glimpse of what we know we will one day see in fullness, an advance on what is eventually going to prevail completely, a deposit, a guarantee, a sign and a wonder.
As Jesus went about performing miracles, healing the sick and casting out demons, He was ushering in the Father’s Kingdom, so lives began to reflect what they will fully reflect in the end. He commands us to do the same; to experience healing for ourselves and to pray for it to happen for others. So, as I walked home from the school run, my attention was drawn to a mum who I knew had ongoing back pain. I’ve seen legs grow, demons flee, sickness leave and emotional pain and trauma cease, but I was resisting the prompt to ask her if I could pray. Yet, the Lord is patient with us and after the third opportunity presented itself, I asked her how her back was. She said it was pretty much better ( ‘Phew’, I thought, ‘I’m off the hook’) but then explained her husbands back was really bad, (‘here we go…’ I thought, ‘game on!’). I garbled something about being a Christian and believing that God can heal today so could I pray for them. I was met with beaming eyes, an open heart and a big yes. We didn’t pray there and then, which I should have been bolder to offer, but I’m praying now and will continue to pray. That our God who loves to heal, will heal her husbands back as a sign of His power and and grace, pointing them to Him, the only one who can fully heal and redeem us.
From September we are hoping to start four new Little Churches. Here's Claire introducing one of the new Little Churches we are hoping to get going - but we need a team! So please pray for one to emerge.
Over the coming weeks there'll be some updates on the other Little Churches that we're hoping to start. For information about the existing Little Churches, check out babristol.org/communities or our Little Church board at B&A St Andrews Park.
Why not join in with Christians around the world and make a habit of praying the Lord's Prayer at 12pm?
Little Churches are starting to find ways to help each other, working to their own strengths.
A few months ago, members of Cromwell Road Little Church heard that Gwenyth (from SouperThursday) had a lot of tulip bulbs that needed planting – not something she was able to do herself. So they went round and spent half a day digging and planting. As a result Gwenyth now has a garden filled with beautiful tulips. And they helped her find a gardener who can keep the weeds at bay on a regular basis.
Last week Stacy from ‘Baby Steps’ organised a ‘Peppa Pig’s Muddy Puddle Walk’ round St Andrews Park to raise funds for Save the Children. The finishing point was refreshments and a cake sale in St Bart’s Hall, provided by members of Souper Thursday. It was great to see three generations enjoying themselves together – and all in a good cause too.
In Call 2 Prayer 2 we would love everyone to pick up more habits of prayer that last a lifetime. Here Adam explains how you can start the day in prayer.
Thursday 17 May@B&A church St Andrews Park 7.30-9.30pm.
Gathering as women is great - we share unique challenges and victories that others don’t naturally have or face, and in sharing, there’s so much encouragement. Come and hear personal stories of what God is doing in people's lives.
Speaker: Denise Ko Genovese. Denise moved to Bristol and joined B&A church with her family a year ago. She works part time as a financial journalist and is married to Mario. They have two children, Noah and Esther. Denise will be speaking on the theme of identity and where we are rooted.
All welcome, bring a friend. 7.30pm start for wine and nibbles.
Denise and the ladies from Kings Little Church
My mother has a sign in her kitchen that reads ‘Now what did I come in here for?’
Forgetfulness is part of the human condition. Written through the Old Testament is the forgetfulness on the part of the people of Israel of God’s kindness and intervention in their history.
The last words we hear from the cross in John’s gospel are ‘It is finished’. Again this is not simply Jesus giving us an update on how he was doing, but words of eternal significance. These words are here for us to remember the completion of the work of the cross. Not only was Christ speaking of the finishing of the physical sacrifice he was speaking of an end to the separation of humanity from God in sin. In Himself He had paid the penalty for sin and made a way for those who would believe in Him to return to relationship with the Father.
Sometimes in life events happen that make Christians feel like that moment in my mother’s kitchen - the sudden death of a friend, the moral fall of a respected Christian figure, the unanswered prayer. Clarity, purpose and assurance of God seem to evacuate in a passable impression of a sinkhole.
My friend and mentor reminds me that the world around us seeks personal peace and affluence. Often, in the church, we find people who import those desires into Christianity, people who are less inclined to hear the radical teaching of Jesus who offers neither as the world seeks them. Some of them have even made their way into pulpits and vicarages around the country. It is easy for us to slip into that way of thinking - as if bad things only to happen to us because God is not fulfilling his part of the bargain.
These words from the cross are an answer to that question ‘Now what did I come in here for?’ They remind us that Jesus didn’t come to bring us personal peace and affluence but salvation. I came to Jesus for salvation in both life and death. I know that I need to be saved from eternal death and I know that I need to be saved in my everyday life.
When I hear Jesus say ‘It is finished’, I know that the love of God can now be poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, the deposit that guarantees our salvation. And I know that nothing can separate me from the love of God for us in Christ Jesus.
One theologian said that if you want to understand the length of God’s love through history, read Matthew. If you want to read the depth of God’s love in Christ’s suffering and rejection, read Mark. If you want to read the breadth of God’s love for the whole of humanity, read Luke. If you want to see the height of God’s love, read John - it’s like being taken to a mountain top so you can survey the whole scene. Of the four gospels, John’s is the most poetic.
John’s description of events from 2000 years ago is rich in meaning. So when we hear the words of Jesus on the cross ‘I am thirsty’, we know that John is conveying something that Jesus said that had more meaning than simply a statement of the obvious. For John saw his friend as living a life of eternal meaning and significance. Jesus is the Word of God and therefore what he says and does is to be heard through history.
Earlier in the gospel, in chapter 7, we hear that ‘On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him”. By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.’
Using the imagery of water and thirst, Jesus speaks of a time, in which we now live, where we can come to Him and drink of the Spirit, in such a way that not only are we satisfied but it flows from those of us who have received towards others. This is, in essence, an invitation for us into the everlasting, abundant, overflowing love of the Trinity.
At the cross, these words of Jesus to ‘come to Him and drink’, find profound meaning beyond His physical thirst. The irony is that we are invited to come to the one who is thirsty and find streams of living water. How can this be?
Jesus put Himself in the place of physical and spiritual thirst to take our place in the consequences of our sin and separation from God. He thirsted so that we don’t have to. A sign of a Christian is one who knows their thirst for love is satisfied in God and from whom love flows into into a thirsty world, abundantly.
About this time a year ago I was asked directly ‘Why is Good Friday good?’ For many reasons, but here we see clearly one. He took may place and I no longer need to thirst for God’s love. In Him your thirst can be satisfied too and the thirst of the world.
When my first child was born, the first thing the midwife exclaimed was ‘he has a full head of hair’. Despite the fact that I had no reason at all to question my wife’s fidelity, I thought to myself ‘He’s no son of mine’. Being from a line of bald yet fleetingly ginger men, the sound of a full head of hair on my firstborn indicated a break in the line. (It didn’t take long for the anxiety about genes to dissipate!). Years later, thinking back on that moment, I realised that my instinctive reaction was really about me wanting a son in the ‘line’ I belonged to. Understandable in the light of my father’s recent battle with cancer. Whilst my reaction was quite specific, I know it's part of the human condition.
Deep in our bones is a need to find and keep our place within a family. Yet for many divorce, death and, for nearly 70 million people around the world, displacement dislocate us from the family in which we seek to find a home.
In divorce, death and displacement the natural response is to look for substitutes, replacements for what has been lost. At first glance, as He hangs on the cross, Jesus seems to be offering His mother and friend to each other as substitutes in His own impending death. ‘Woman behold your Son, Son behold your mother’.
Through the ages, Christians have always understood Jesus as saying something more than this. We understand Him to be saying something about Himself, the crucified Christ as the person in whom a new humanity begins, where human relating is reframed and renewed.
Which is odd because here hangs a bastard (a boy born out of wedlock), a bereaved son, a brother rejected by his siblings and a bachelor. Jesus seemingly had a poor track record in family relationships. Who is He to think that He can see Himself as the one in whom a new family begins?
Yet there is a paradox. The one with the poor track record is also the eternal Son, who has lived in perfect harmony with the Father and the Spirit. This is Jesus, who brings that perfect love into creation in Himself so that humanity’s imperfect love can be redeemed. This is Jesus, who describes Himself as the perfect bridegroom waiting with eager anticipation for the arrival of His bride, the church, at the end of time.
It is precisely because He is broken and yet perfect that He can be the one in whom a new family, a new humanity begins. When we come to the cross with our own brokenness, we find there one like us, who identifies with us in the pain of our broken relationships and yet we also find one there who relates perfectly and shows us another way. To Him we take our brokenness, our longings for a family and discover one like us. From Him we emerge, in His love, with a new family and a new way of relating - Loving one another as He has loved us. How?
At the cross we see that Jesus was willing to take the sins of the world onto himself and suffer the consequences. In exchange we have been allowed to walk free with His love in us. This is a love that satisfies the deep longing in our bones for family. And no just us, it satisfies others through us. Mary and John, became friends and were the foundations of communities in which that love met the deep longings of others. That story continues through the church today.
'Woman behold your son, son behold your mother'. Mary and John were never substitutes of Jesus to each other. Rather Jesus was a substitute for them and for everyone.
In January the PCC agreed on a new set of Partners in Mission for the coming three years. Each year we give a set amount to our Partners in Mission, we pray for them and seek to learn from what God is doing in and through them.
We are delighted to introduce formally, Upper Reaches, as one of our Partners in Mission. Upper Reaches' founder is a member of B&A, Colette Bewley. This is a Christian outpost of prayer, fellowship and witness in the heart of Temple Quay that has been running for five years. In October 2017 Temple Quay found a physical home in the shape of a barge moored on the waters right in the centre of Temple Quay.
The Upper Reaches barge, moored in Temple Quay.
Colette is ably assisted by a team of people. Already groups of people meet to pray at different times in the week on the barge, which is a beautiful space. With 20,000 people in close proximity, they have an amazing opportunity to build something that can transform such an influential part of the city of Bristol, and indeed the region.
A beautiful, prayerful space.
It was a joy to meet with her and Victor to consider their next steps and to pray for God's wisdom. Please join in those prayers as they seek to shine God's light and love into the lives of the people of Temple Quay.
Colette and Victor.
James and Wayne talk a bit about how we are going to respond to what God is doing in B&A as we continue the unfinished story of Acts in our day.
Mother’s Day. I could feel my cynicism about the whole thing. The predictable Facebook and Instagram posts of the cards, flowers, chocolates, breakfasts in bed and smiles; some capturing the rightful and genuine celebration of women who tirelessly spend themselves on their children, while others unwittingly an attempt to show the world how valued they are, or how good they are at valuing others..
Half of me wanted to engage with some of the pretentious fun; posting filtered pictures of the sweet handmade cards my daughters had given me, pretending that this wasn’t going to be a difficult day for me. Yet, as I thought about my own mother, and the mix of feelings this day also brought for her, I began to realise I may not be alone in the paradoxical emotional experience I was having.
I thought of a friend, whose child is too young to really bless her but whose husband will be busy working. Another, who has been a carer for her own mother since she was a teenager, and another who lost her mother when she was 13. I remembered the countless women who long for their own children but can’t conceive. The mothers who have lost children. The men effected by the same pain. The mothers who have made mistakes and whose children don’t want to or can’t see them. The mothers who ‘have it all’ but still feel empty. The children who’ve been hurt by their mothers or abandoned, or abused. Those who’ve been separated by war, famine and disasters. The list seemed endless.
As I shared these thoughts in prayer, self-pity and despair rapidly faded away, and I was reminded of the image of a mother hen gathering her chicks under her wings.
This image comes from a passage in Matthew’s gospel that talks about Jesus’ longing to gather Jerusalem’s children together. As I re-read it, it echoed this sense of brokenness and love simultaneously. Following a harsh rebuking of Pharisaic hypocrisy, and an outrage of the rejection of prophets who have come before ,and of Jesus Himself, He (Jesus) still declares his love and longing for Jerusalem;
‘How often I’ve ached to embrace your children, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you wouldn’t let me’.
I was reminded that here is clearly a God who is able to not only relate to the paradoxical emotional onset a day like Mother’s Day can trigger, but who has a true mother’s heart. After all that Jerusalem had done and was continuing to do, Jesus unashamedly and achingly pronounces love and welcome. I was struck that our God longs to tenderly gather on a dramatic scale all the Jewish nation; in their wanderings and from their mistakes and blindness, to offer each soul an intimate sense of belonging, protection and refuge.
I realised that on a day that is happy for some, painful for others and for every emotion in between, His longing is the same.
Therefore I pray that all may sense peace tomorrow in the call from the God of tenderness, might and perseverance, who has a perfect mother’s heart. Indeed everyone is invited. Happy Mother’s Day.
Praying at 3pm
Recently I was doing some reading for a talk on Acts 10. One of the early Christian theologians commented that the Angel came to Cornelius at the ‘ninth hour’ - the same time that Christ died on the cross. He then made the point that the completed work of the cross, through which all have the opportunity to return to the Father, somehow echoes in this angelic apparition. I quite liked this. It made me think about the cross more and I liked that.
And then something clicked in my mind. I remembered that there are seven ‘last words’ spoken by Jesus on the cross recorded in the gospels and that they could be matched with the seven days of the week. So now, each day, my phone alarm goes at 3pm and I remember the ‘word’ from the cross I’ve set for that day.
“Sunday: ‘Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit’ Luke 23:46
Monday: ‘My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?’ Matthew 27:46
Tuesday: ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise’ Luke 23:43
Wednesday: ‘Woman behold your Son. Son, behold your mother.’ John 19:26-27
Thursday: ‘I thirst’ John 19:28
Friday: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ Luke 23:34
Saturday: ‘It is finished’. John 19:30”
(If you’re looking to understand the logic - Sunday’s word has Spirit, Monday to Friday were a simple case of clear alliteration and Saturday is the last day of the week)
When the alarm goes I either say the word out loud or in my head and I try to think about what those words mean and what they teach us about the heart of God. Some days the phone alarm goes and I’m in the middle of a conversation and I forget to return to it. Other days I have had a genuinely profound experiences of God as the afternoon progresses. Most afternoons it is simply a short prayerful interruption. And something you could join in with or adapt?
Here's an update from Wendy and Tim about what's been going on in Kids and Youth and how we can be praying for our young people in the coming weeks.
It's March. March! Dean Martin and the sound of Christmas music has long since left our ears, but the snow has come and is coming. A brief trip to the local supermarket on Wednesday night revealed there had been a rush on Broccoli amongst other things... It seemed a tad premature.
Yesterday morning the staff team here set about calling the 60 or so elderly people who are a part of our church to check that they were ok. Many of them are already part of Little Churches, so they had a friendly call from their Little Church leader to see if they wanted any help or visits and to link them up with younger members of the congregation who lived near them.
Aside from it being lovely to talk to people and to hear their voices, it was heartening to hear that many of them were already being looked after by relatives, friends and neighbours. We also had a list of people offering to help out. It was the church doing what it does this morning really, working together and bringing about blessing.
One of our Partners in Mission is TREAD. They are Christians feeding and educating the most vulnerable children. We love to share stories of the wonderful things that they do in the name of Jesus. We don't often share the more troubling stuff, but today we are compelled to. They face constant opposition from people of other faiths.
We've recently heard from them that they would appreciate our prayers as they are experiencing persecution. Last night a very threatening letter was handed into a manager of one of the centres identifying Christians as potential targets of violence and cruelty in order to keep the supremacy of Hinduism in India. Shortly after this was received news came through that a Christian mother had been burnt alive in a nearby village.
Please pray for protection and boldness to follow Jesus in the face of opposition.
I love coincidences. They so often end up being God-incidences. This New Year, I decided that, if I was to make any resolutions, they had to be God-focused. So I decided to keep it simple and make just one. I pledged to sit silently for 10 minutes, at the start and the end of the day, to focus on God in meditation.
So when the ‘Call to Prayer’ was announced during a service in January, I felt that excitement which only Spirit-fuelled coincidences produce. My desire to find a way of spending time every day focusing on God was being echoed and reinforced through our life together as a Church. I loved the emphasis on sustainability rather than a one off week of prayer. An encouragement to build new habits. Habits that have a chance of taking root, maturing and producing fruit because they are relevant to my lifestyle, my situation and my journey with God.
Christian meditation aims at simplicity, silence and stillness. Sitting still and quiet for 10 minutes, repeating the beautiful word ‘Maranatha’ (‘Come Lord Jesus’ in Aramaic) over and over in your mind. And that’s it. Simple, right? Except the devil is literally in the detail. Our minds - encouraged no end by the enemy I am sure - do not like to be ignored. Distraction is unavoidable. ‘Do not evaluate your meditation’ is one of the clear instructions given by the World Community for Christian Meditation (wccm.org). So I have been sitting, twice daily since January 1st, trying desperately not to worry about whether I am ‘getting anywhere’.
But what is so encouraging is that, despite all the (myriad) distractions, something mysterious is occurring alongside the mundane. I am getting to know myself better - my thought patterns, feelings that bubble up to the surface in the stillness. Better than that, I am experiencing - for the first time - a tangible sense of being intimately known by God. Passages that I’ve read time and again in the Bible are taking on a more meaningful flavour. Prayer life within our Little Church is deepening. I am following the Bible in One Year app (take 3) and actively looking forward to the next instalment.
“God is on the move. Bring it on.”
Growing up, we didn’t really go to church. When I did go it was either to a cold nearly empty Anglican building or to my cousin’s baptist church where they took things very seriously indeed!
Whilst both churches were very different they had in common this one bit of the service where some serious people would come around during a hymn and pass around either a shiny brass plate (the Anglicans) or a bag with wooden handles (the Baptists). As the plate/bag neared, a grown up would lean over and hand you a coin. “Put it in there.” “Why? What for?”
Apparently this was ‘The Offering’; where it went and what it was for was a mystery to me!
For many of us this might be where we are regarding financial giving and following Jesus. So let me explain some principles and then suggest some things we can all do.
Our giving is not a tax; it is a gift given as an act of worship. A gift we give in response to the amazing gift we have received in and through Jesus. In choosing to give financially to our church we are choosing to worship God with our finances.
Our giving is not a membership fee; it is a gift to enable the work of our local church. When we give in worship we give primarily to our local church. Why? Because this enables us, as the local church, to fulfil the mission God has given us to to tell people about the amazing love of Jesus.
Our giving is not all the same; it reflects our individual situations and stories. God is not interested in the amount, but interested in how we respond from the heart given our own circumstances.
We are in a season of growth at B&A Church. It is amazing seeing people join in with what God is doing and discovering God’s love for them. Growing churches face many challenges. A common one is making sure we are structured for our new size, and that we are able to do all we need to do to fulfil our mission and God’s call. Key to meeting that challenge is growing in our giving.
Throughout 2018 we face a challenge to grow our giving across this year by approx. £2,000 per month. That means that by the end of the year our total amount of monthly giving needs to be £2,000 higher than it currently is. So each month we need to grow our giving by an average of £160. There are lots of ways we can do that; 12 new standing orders of £160, 20 new standing orders of £100, or two standing orders of £1,000. What will probably happen is that it will be a whole range of standing orders representing a whole range of situations and incomes.
“So what can you do?
You can pray & you can give! ”
This is for all of us, every amount counts. So if you are a member of B&A and you’ve not yet set up a standing order why not pick up a form at the back of church, fill it in and get going on this amazing way of worshipping.
We know that for some people money can be a really difficult subject. Some of us may be struggling with managing finances, debts and keeping our heads above water. If you want help, we have people in church who would love to chat to you confidentially and help you begin a journey out of your difficulties. If that is you, please do speak to one of the clergy.
We want to invite you to join us at Focus 2018.
Each year we encourage people to make time in the summer to attend Focus, a Christian holiday for churches from the HTB family. We love it! It's a great time to get together as members of B&A, to spend time with God and to hear stories of encouragement from around the country of what God is up to.
Follow the link to the website to find out more details: focus.htb.org
The Kids and Youth work is fantastic. Year after year we hear of how God has been at work amongst our young people. We also know how good it is to serve on the Kids and Youth teams.
It's not just a campsite in the north of the New Forest. It's a beautiful venue with cafés, food stalls, a bar and much more.
The early bird rate ends soon, so we'd encourage you to book soon, if you haven't already. There's a 20% discount for anyone coming for the first time and there's already 50 of us signed up to go.
We’re a few days into our Call To Prayer. Last night we held our first worship and prayer night at B&A St Andrew’s Park. The evening began focussing on 2 Kings 6 and a great story about Elisha (there are lots of great stories about Elisha), this one involved the eyes of Elisha’s servant being opened to see the Lord’s army surrounding and supporting them and then the eyes of the Arameans being first blinded and then opened leading to peace for Israel. Our prayer last night was that across this week God would open our eyes to who he is, what he is doing and then open the eyes of those we seek to share the love of Jesus with.
There were words given last night that we believe are for us as a church family in this prayer week. So we thought we’d put them up on the stories page for you to read and pray into.
Someone saw a picture of something that looked a bit like a child’s toy. It was like a rock, plain and unimpressive but when it opened up and unfurled it became something life like and very different. There was a sense that in being vulnerable and in being open to God and others we will find ourselves becoming more and more full of life.
There was a reminder that God is with us and that when we come together he is there.
A word was given about railway tracks. In some ways railway tracks can feel constrained, but they enable the train to get to where it needs to go. God invites us to give ourselves to the track he has laid out for us.
Someone had a picture of an adjustable spanner. The sense here was that the spanner is made the way it is for a specific purpose, that each of us is made for a purpose and we need not to worry about what we are not but focus on who we are and what God has for us.
In Isaiah 40:28-31 we are reminded that strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord. Time spent in worship, in prayer and in waiting on God is never wasted time. It is in encounters with god that we find the strength for life and life as he has it for us.
Jesus words from Matthew 11 were read to us:
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Why not take time as you read this article to pray and ask God if he is speaking to you through any of these words, images and Scriptures.
Then take time to pray these in.
We’re back in B&A St Andrew’s Park tonight and tomorrow at 8pm. Why not join us.
As a church we say we exist to put church within touching distance of people’s lives and to lead them to encounter the Lord Jesus. A key part of this is growing a culture in which everyone is empowered to lead people to Jesus. Seeing lives transformed and leading people to faith in Jesus is the great adventure God has planned for each and everyone of us.
This year we are focussing on how we grow as people who are empowered to lead people to Jesus. The sermon series in Acts is designed to help with that. Teaching about the early church and the truths of who we are in Jesus and who he calls us to be today. We are also encouraging people to take part in the MOVE training sessions and to go along to the Fruitfulness On The Frontline series.
And all of this brings me to the Call To Prayer. We’ve just had January’s ‘Fruitfulness’ session, it was entitled ‘A Spirituality For The Frontline’. The focus was how can we best ensure we are effective and distinctive witnesses to the love of God on our frontlines. The answer was not a series of suggestions of what to do but rather a suggestion about who we should become.
The thesis was very simple, transformed lives on the frontline will transform lives on the frontline. To be light and salt in the world is not something we do but what we are. And that is the very life of Jesus in us.
Jesus’ promise in John 7 was that if anyone thirsts they would find what they need in him. What is more they would find a river flowing out from them to others. This picks up Ezekiel’s vision of a river that flowed from the temple and wherever it flowed there was life. Being fruitful on the front-line is about having our thirst met in Jesus and letting that river flow from us to those around us.
The challenge given at the session was to be people who go to Jesus to have our thirst quenched, to be filled so that we may overflow.
“And the key to this? Time with Jesus.”
We were encouraged to consider how we were wired and how we best met with God. Some of us are thinkers, some are feelers, some of us are reflective, and some of us are activists. But all of us can connect with God.
But whoever we are and however we are wired there are still key things that we can all do to meet with God. We were reminded of the great sermon by John Wesley called Means To Grace. In this sermon Wesley highlights key things all followers of Jesus should be doing in order to have their thirst for him met.
We should be praying. Just as Jesus did, we should seek to set aside time to be with God. We should be people of the word. We have been given scripture to guide us and teach us. We should be people people, sharing lives and faith with one another and coming together to worship and celebrate who God is and all He has done.
Practising these means of grace means we can be filled by the Holy Spirit and the promise Jesus makes in John 7 is that from us, God’s love and Spirit will overflow into the world.
I have been to all of the LICC sessions. In each session we hear a story, or two, of how a Christian has made a difference in someone else’s life and how as a result that person has found faith in Jesus. Interestingly it doesn’t seem to matter what sort of church that Christian attended or what that church’s exact mission strategy happened to be. What really made the difference was that the Christian was full of the love of God and from them that love overflowed.
Paul Harcourt, who heads up New Wine, made a similar point recently. We can talk a lot about why we do mission. We can get everyone thinking right - orthodoxy. We can also talk and teach a lot about how to do mission - orthopraxy. But unless we want to do mission we won’t. What makes us want to do mission? New hearts, the love of God poured into us by the Holy Spirit.
And to be those people who want to do mission, we need to be with Jesus.
This is why we are holding a Call To Prayer. Not because it is a new year and a good thing to do but because it is the most important thing we can do.
A Call To Prayer: Daily Prayer
At the heart of our Call To Prayer is the challenge to grow as a person of prayer. Our hope is that what we choose to do for a week will become the habit of a lifetime.
Morning: praying using the 1,2,3 format.
Midday: praying The Lord’s Prayer.
Evening: praying as our day ends.
Morning Prayer: Praying 1/2/3
Encountering God through Worship, the Bible and Prayer.
Worship
There are a number of ways you can choose to worship God. Here are three suggestions.
Worship Songs
Take time to listen to/sing along to a worship song(s) or hymn(s). Play these from Spotify, YouTube, a CD etc. Create a playlist of worship songs that you can turn to easily.
Psalms
Read aloud a Psalm. Our suggestions are as follows: 24, 66, 100, 126, 130, 136, 146, 148, 149, 150.
Prayers of Praise
Choose a specific theme to praise God. Suggested themes: God’s love, righteousness, power & might, creative acts, salvation, lordship, faithfulness etc!
Pray prayers thanking God for specific things he has done and for answers to prayer you have seen.
Bible Reading
We recommend the Bible in One Year (bibleinoneyear.org). You don’t have to read everything. If this is new for you, why not read just the New Testament reading.
If you are not using the Bible in One Year here are gospel readings for each day of the Call To Prayer. These readings take you through the Sermon on the Mount.
Sunday: Matthew 5:1-12. Monday: Matthew 5:13-20.
Tuesday: Matthew 5:21-30. Wednesday: Matthew 5:31-48.
Thursday: Matthew 6:1-15. Friday: Matthew: 6:16-34.
Saturday: Matthew 7:1-14. Sunday: Matthew: 7:15-29.
As you read the Bible ask yourself these three questions:
- What does this passage reveal to me about what God is like?
- What does this passage reveal to me about what I am like?
- Where in this passage do I see either a command to obey or an example to follow?
Pray about your answers.
Prayers of Intercession
Intercession is simply speaking to God for and on behalf of others and asking for God’s power and provision into different people’s lives and situations.
5 Knots
Pray for those people you are committed to praying for to encounter Jesus as Lord. Ask God if there is anything he wants you to do with or for any of these people.
Your Day
Think about the day ahead. What tasks do you have? Who will you be seeing? Pray about these. Ask God for strength, but also ask him if there is anything he would say to you about the day.
Bristol & The World
Pray for the needs of our city and the world. Using the news is a good starting point. If anything has struck you about what is happening, take time to pray for that situation.
Monday
Kids & youth will feel welcomed and will look forward to church.
will get to know and encounter Jesus.
will be excited and encouraged to tell their friends.
Mission TREAD (friendsoftread.org)
Pray for financial provision for TREAD’s ongoing work.
Tuesday
Young Adults For growth in numbers who are making B&A their home.
That they come to faith through our church family.
Mission MOVE (movements.net)
For their work training Christians to be able to share their faith.
Wednesday
Seniors To feel welcomed and find a home at B&A.
That they come to faith through our church family.
Mission Tree of Life Manenberg, South Africa (treeoflife.org.za)
For Pete and Sarah Portal leading Cru62 working with young men.
Thursday
Little Churches To grow as communities of love and welcome.
To be a blessing to our wider communities.
Mission Upper Reaches (urtq.org)
Pray for connections with Christians & others in Temple Quay.
Friday
Sundays For newcomers to feel welcome.
For believers to be built up in their faith & Jesus to be glorified.
Mission Changing Tunes (changingtunes.org.uk)
For the teams working in different prisons across our region.
Saturday
Diocese Pray for the appointment of the next Bishop of Bristol.
Pray for the Senior Team in the vacancy.
Mission Beloved (beloved.org.uk)
Working with women in massage parlours in Bristol.
Sunday
Little Churches For Little Church Sunday to be fun, and for those we are inviting.
Mission St James’ Lockleaze
For the church family as they gather for worship.
Midday Prayer: The Lord’s Prayer
We are asking everyone to pray the Lord’s Prayer each day as close to 12.00 as possible. We can’t all do 12.00 on the dot, but we can all try to get as close to 12 as possible!
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen.
Evening or Night Prayer
It is good to end your day in prayer, committing the day that has just passed to God and asking for his blessing as you sleep.
Bible Reading
We suggest beginning with a reading from the Psalms. Our suggested Psalms are as follows: 1, 8, 23, 67; 91, 121, 131, 134.
Prayers
Begin by praying from the reading. What struck you about God from the Psalm. Thank him for that.
Take some time to review your day, thank God for the specific blessings you remember, pray to him about any worries or concerns from your day and ask forgiveness for any areas where you fell short of how God would want you to live.
Ask God to bless your night’s sleep. You may wish to finish with this prayer from ‘Night Prayer’.
Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who wake, or watch, or weep this night,
and give your angels charge over those who sleep.
Tend the sick, give rest to the weary, sustain the dying,
calm the suffering, and pity the distressed;
all for your love’s sake, O Christ our Redeemer. Amen
Call To PrayerJan 28th to Feb 4thThe Call To Prayer week is nearly upon us. Please do make sure you have the dates in your diary and are thinking about what how you can pray that week. We are asking people to commit to a rhythm of praying three times in the day (Morning, Midday, Evening), to think about how prayer can grow at home (if you share your home with others) and in our Little Churches. In addition we will be holding some events for us all to come together in prayer.
Details are on the Stories page of the website. Over the weekend a prayer sheet will be available in church and online.
The whole church events are as follows:
Prayer Ministry Training
B&A St Andrew’s Park,
Sunday Jan 28th, 7.00pm - 8.00pm
Prayer & Worship Evenings
B&A St Andrew’s Park
Tuesday Jan 30th, Wednesday Jan 31st, Thursday Feb 1st, 8.00pm - 9.15pm
Little Church Sunday
Sunday Feb 4th
The Seven
B&A St Andrew’s Park
Sunday Feb 4th, 7.00pm
We’d love to see as many people as possible at these events. Our hope is that over the course of the week we will all make some changes that will last a lifetime.
Today is Blue Monday. Apparently it is ‘officially’ the most depressing day of the year.
In 2005 a travel company came up with a great marketing idea for selling holidays after Christmas. They worked out using ‘science’ that Blue Monday is each year’s most depressing day. It is the Monday closest to the middle between Christmas and the January pay check. Debit cards bills are arriving. The days are still dark, cold and wet. It seems summer is a long way off. So what better time to book a holiday!
For Christians as we read our culture what does the fact that we ‘celebrate’ the fast turn around from the high of Christmas to the low of Blue Monday tell us about the world we live in?
The search for happiness is a dominant theme in culture. If we can find our ‘happy’ then all will be well. Of course people have always longed for happiness but a culture ruled by feelings and emotions has made happiness a dominant theme far louder than fulfilment, success, service etc.
One cause of this may lie in Post Modernity’s critique of Modernity. Modernity was characterised by the quest for certainty and truth by reason alone. Post Modernity is characterised by the rejection of absolute truth and instead locates truth within the individual. This promotion of the individual has caused us to look inward for what matters in life.
You can see it when you watch reality TV shows about people wanting to become pop stars. It does not matter what experts think, what matters is what I believe about myself and what I think I can do.
But the problem with looking inward is what we find.
Writing in the seventeenth century the French Philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote about a tension and contradiction that exists within each of us. The contradiction between what is wonderful about us and what is also tragically wrong. He wrote that we suffer from both greatness and wretchedness.
As Christians we understand this as what it is to be made in the image of God and to have fallen under the curse of sin. For Pascal it follows that as a result, we all seek happiness. We were made to be happy in God, and having lost that we seek it elsewhere. Pascal comments that we all strive towards being happy and no matter how much happiness we find, we still all complain. Why? Because our search for happiness is rooted in that tension of being both great and wretched. We suffer from ‘the wretchedness of a disposed monarch’. We have lost the most amazing thing and anything less than getting it back will not satisfy.
Pascal himself found the solution to this tension. After his death a piece of paper was found sown into the lining of his jacket.
“The year of grace 1654,
Monday, 23 November, feast of St. Clement, pope and martyr, and others in the martyrology. Vigil of St. Chrysogonus, martyr, and others. From about half past ten at night until about half past midnight,
FIRE.
GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob
not of the philosophers and of the learned.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.
GOD of Jesus Christ.
My God and your God.
Your GOD will be my God.
Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except GOD.
He is only found by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Grandeur of the human soul.
Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
I have departed from him:
They have forsaken me, the fount of living water.
My God, will you leave me?
Let me not be separated from him forever.
This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God, and the one that you sent, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I left him; I fled him, renounced, crucified.
Let me never be separated from him.
He is only kept securely by the ways taught in the Gospel:
Renunciation, total and sweet.
Complete submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Eternally in joy for a day’s exercise on the earth.
May I not forget your words. Amen.”
He is said to have been reading of the crucifixion when he was suddenly overwhelmed with the nearness of Christ. Pascal meticulously transcribed the night of his conversion, his “night of fire,” sewing it into his jacket where it would remain beside him until his death eight years later.
True happiness is found in God alone. This is the Christian message. This is what Pascal discovered. God in Jesus Christ has removed the barrier of sin. We can return to the relationship for which we were made and there we can discover the true happiness that exists between a loving creator and us, the crown of his creation.
Our task, as the people of God, is to reveal the true source of happiness to our culture. To show that we have a ‘happy’ that is not dependent upon the weather, job satisfaction, health etc but is rooted in the love of God. A love that he longs to share with everyone.
We are conscious that, as we call people to prayer, we are calling everyone towards pain. Inevitably, as we pray more we will have to embrace and not gloss over the needs of those we love as we pray for them. Furthermore we will have to come to terms with our own unanswered prayers.
We fully recommend 'God on Mute' by Pete Greig and 'Walking with God through Pain and Suffering' by Tim Keller as really good books on the relationship between prayer and suffering.
We've heard a lot about the 'nearness' of God as we've thought about prayer over the last year or so. In my experience, the journey with God through unanswered prayer involves an experience of both the nearness and the distance of God. We need to know His comforting presence near to us as we come to terms with the pain of unanswered prayer. Crucially, and often forgotten, we also need to come to terms with his 'otherness'. Often I have been reminded that His thoughts are higher than my thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9) and this helps me to trust in Him when I cannot see for myself.
So as we respond to the Call to Prayer in the coming weeks, prepare to embrace pain, your own and others and remember that this God is both near AND far.
As we look ahead to answering the Call to Prayer, James and Adam talk about changing our habits for a week and, more importantly, keeping those habits for a lifetime.
How would Jesus vote?
Recently debates have emerged about whether it is possible to be an evangelical Christian and support Donald Trump. Not so long ago Tim Farron resigned as leader of the Liberal Democrat, finding it ‘impossible’ to continue while “living as a faithful Christian”.
Even as a local vicar, I often find others willing for me to give some kind of ‘blessing’ to their political viewpoint. Their error is not only that I am unable to give some kind of ‘blessing’ on behalf of the Christian faith but also that somehow God can be reduced to the level of supporting a particular political point of view. These conversations begin with the unspoken premise that ‘we all know who Jesus would vote for!’ as if the King of Kings and Lord of Lords could ever be envisaged in a polling station putting a tick in a box next to someone else’s name. God simply cannot be reduced to political systems and ideologies. That doesn’t mean He’s a cross-benching deity. He is bigger than all of them!
So, how do we respond? Both with our own vote, when it comes, and with the influence we carry amongst our friends, families and colleagues.
Here are some very simple principles for political engagement as Christians. Firstly, we can engage with the understanding that no one party can monopolise Christianity. When we give support to any particular political party or person that support is given in the knowledge that our allegiance, as Christians, is first and foremost to Christ. Secondly, the manner in which we conduct ourselves in those conversations should be generous and loving, respectful of opposing views and understanding of the potential flaws of our own views. Thirdly, and finally, it should lead us to cross-party unity when addressing issues of justice such as human trafficking, child abuse and foreign aid.
How would Jesus vote? In His death and resurrection He voted for us to be making the appeal to others as we engage with this world. So He wants us to engage with the political sphere in His name but without aligning His name with a party or ideology.
Jan 28th to Feb 4th is the launch week for our Call to Prayer. Over a number of posts we will be sharing what steps we need to take to get ready for the week and the ongoing call. Step 1 is simply to put the dates in your dairy and to determine to make prayer your priority that week.
Step 2 is focussed on our own prayer lives and what we can be doing that week to grow in prayer and to put in place practices that will help us in the future. In schools, teachers use something like core, stretch and challenge with the kids to make sure the right kids are learning at the right level. Core is what we should all be capable of. Stretch is, as the term says, stretching ourselves in order to learn and grow. And challenge is simply that, taking on something challenging. So here is core, stretch and challenge for our own prayer lives for this first week of the Call to Prayer.
Take time to consider what you will do that week.
Core
A daily rhythm of Morning Prayer, Midday Prayer and Evening Prayer.
Morning Prayer
Using 1,2,3 setting aside time (6,15,30) for worship, Bible and prayer. This is at a time of our choosing, but the idea is that beginning our days in prayer is something the church through the ages has recognised as a good thing. What time will you set aside? Where will you pray? And for how long? Make it sensible and achievable so that you will be able to do it. Setting your alarm an hour earlier may work for a week, but in the longterm? What time can you carve out that will continue?
Midday Prayer: Lord’s Prayer
We are inviting everyone to set aside time as close to midday as possible in order to pray the Lord’s Prayer. This should take a matter of minutes but in the midst of our busy days stopping to pray will be good to reorientate us to God and his love.
Evening Prayer
As your day draws to a close can you take time to reflect prayerfully on the day? Pray prayers of thanks and commit any concerns etc you have to God?
Stretch
Practices to help you grow in prayer.
What’s Next Prayer
As you pray for your five knots (those people we long to come to Jesus) ask God for one person; 'Lord what’s next for me and them?’ Then do what it is you think God tells you to do. It might be simply meeting for a coffee, sending a text, or it may be inviting them to Little Church or a Gathering or sharing something of faith with them.
Listening To God
If during your day, or in prayer, you sense God bringing someone to mind or asking you to do something. Do it! And let someone know that’s what you have done. I know someone who if they see someone who looks like someone they know they pray for the person they know and also get in touch with them. You’d be amazed at how often this has had an impact.
Offer To Pray For Someone
Find yourself in a conversation with someone at work, school gate in the street and they tell you about that needs prayer. Well ask them if you can be praying for them. You don’t have to pray there or then, but let them know you will pray.
Listen To Or Watch A Talk on Prayer
Take some time in your week to listen to or watch a talk about prayer. We’ll make suggestions available for you to choose from.
Challenge
Going that bit further and maybe even scaring yourself a bit!
Offer To Pray There And Then
Taking offering to to pray for someone to the next level. Asking ‘do you mind if I pray now?’ And then doing just that, praying for them.
Fasting
Fasting has always played a key role in the life of people of faith. Can you commit to fasting during the week? It could be for part of a day, a day or a few days. We’ll make available advice and tips on how best and safely to fast.
Read A Book On Prayer
Why not skip TV for the week and read a book on prayer. Again we’ll make suggested reading available. If reading is not your thing you could ‘box set’ the Prayer Course!
“Step 3 will be looking at how we pray as families, households and communities.”
Over the past year we have been encouraging one another to grow as people of prayer. We’ve been doing that using our Prayer Cards and saying prayer is as simple as 1,2,3. Asking people to commit to praying for 6, 15 or 30 minutes, with three sections, worship, Bible and prayer.
I thought I’d share some thoughts on the Bible section and how you can get the most out of it.
Each day I read from the Bible In One Year. I have a hardback book I have been reading for the past few years and now is well worn and held together by gaffer tape. For days when I am not at home I have the app on my phone.
I also have a 2018 diary. As I read I write down the verses that jump out at me from all the readings. When I am done I look back over what I have noted and write a sentence summing up the theme and challenge from the morning. I also take note of one word that I will take with me through my day. I will use these thoughts to help direct my prayers for me, and for others.
“It’s good not to simply read the Bible and move on but take time, let it sink in, challenge you and then use that as a basis for prayer.”
After this I have decided this year to read ‘My Utmost For His Highest’. This is a Christian devotional classic that I turn to every few years. Compiled after his death, ‘My Utmost’ contains daily readings and teachings from Oswald Chambers. Chambers died in 1917 and people have been using this book since the 1920’s and still today it remains challenging and popular. After reading the day’s thought, I pause and pray about what has struck me.
Another good habit is to let the wisdom of saints speak to you and teach you. With the Bible In One Year you can use the commentary by Nicky Gumbel. Or like me you can choose to use a daily devotional alongside your readings. In our house we have devotionals written by Chambers, John Stott, Charles Spurgeon, Isaac Newton and others. Having a number means you can spend time in the company of a number of different saints over different years.
Have you set what your Bible slot looks like? God has given us his word to teach, correct, guide and encourage us. Not to be using this amazing gift daily is to miss out. God has also placed us in his family, spending time learning from the saints who have run the race before us is also an amazing privilege that each of us can enjoy.
For me my slot is early in the morning, before the house wakes and before the day gets going.
There are a number of ways you can access the Bible In One Year.
You can buy it as a book at the Eden Bookstore.
You can sign up for a daily email or download the app via the Bible In One Year website.
There is also a website for ‘My Utmost For His Highest’ which tells you more about Chambers, his life and work and also gives you each day’s reading. Like the Bible In One Year you can subscribe to a daily email.
If like me you like a book to hold you can buy it at Eden when you buy your Bible In One Year!
May God bless your Bible reading in 2018.
January 28th to February 4thAt the end of January we are taking a week to launch the Call to Prayer and everyone's invited. We believe that God is asking us to commit to praying for breakthrough in 2018.
The New Testament clearly teaches that prayer is a foundational aspect to the life of any follower of Jesus, both as an individual and as part of a wider church family. We believe that God is inviting and challenging us to seek breakthrough in 2018 as a people of prayer.
“Unless the Lord builds the house,
the builders labour in vain.”
This invitation and challenge applies to us as individuals, as families and households, as Little Churches and as a whole church community.
We are therefore setting aside a week to pick up the Call to Prayer. This will be an opportunity for us all to take the next steps in prayer. We are asking everyone who is a member of the church family to make some changes to enable growth in prayer. We hope and pray these will be changes that last a lifetime but for now we are specifically asking you to make some changes for a week.
We want to focus on developing rhythms and patterns of prayer that will last beyond one week and therefore we are inviting everyone to respond firstly as individuals, secondly as families and households, then as Little Churches and then as the wider church family.
But first can we simply ask you to get the dates into your diary? That’s step one!
Can we also ask you to settle in your heart to make that a week when you make prayer your priority?
“Step Two is next…”
Tired?
The week after Christmas can feel like that moment after the athlete crosses the line when they go from running with beauty and strength to collapsing in an uncoordinated heap on the ground.
The first antidote is sleep and as much of it as we can get before we see in the New Year, losing yet more sleep. The yearning for sleep continues.
Then we turn to thinking about how we can get away, what our holidays might look like in the weeks and months ahead. Warm weather and no work are the next antidote to the tiredness we feel.
But how much is enough?
I grew up in a culture that esteemed efficiency and durability. Whilst it was still fashionable to be tired, nobody actually talked about how to deal with tiredness beyond sleeping and holidays. In recent years I’ve woken up to the age old Judaeo-Christian tradition of the Sabbath. Not in the sense that there’s one day when I don’t shop or don’t work or have a list of other ‘dont’s’. What I’ve begun to discover is the beauty of setting aside time to ‘rest in God’ on my Sabbath (which just happens to be a Friday as my one day of work per week clashes with the Christian Sabbath).
Just spending a bit longer on that day in worship, reading the scriptures and praying as well as spending time talking about what it means to follow Jesus is a beautiful and renewing way of life.
Am I still physically tired at the end of a demanding term? Yes. Have I managed to keep each Sabbath? No. Changes in our family circumstances have seen to that. Am I resolved to live life differently in the new year? Yes. Do I believe that keeping a Sabbath, resting in God, is vital to our sense of wellbeing as humans? Absolutely.
Now you can claim that such practices are for those set apart such as the clergy, but you’re going to struggle making a case that the ten commandments only apply to them. What I know to be true is that with every command God gives, there is a provision of how to fulfil it. I know it’s true that we are all called to live a life with Sabbath rest in its rhythm but I don’t know how you are going to live it. He does. So will you let Him show you?
I guarantee it's a lot cheaper than Mauritius in the spring.
I rush to pick up the phone and then there’s the pause from the other end of the line. I’m then invited to receive help with my Microsoft computer. I need to open it up which is fine except that I don’t own a Microsoft computer and haven’t since 2010. When I tell them this, the line goes dead, leaving me to conclude that this wasn’t a Microsoft employee with the wrong number.
Sometimes the message comes from a faulty source.
Have you ever had to explain how Santa Claus and Christmas are related to each other? Recently I had the opportunity to explain the message of Christmas to someone from a distant culture who has come to live in England. Doing this involves unpicking the cradle and the tree, the shepherds and the seasonal songs, the wise men and the sales. For a long time Christmas has not been purely about Christ.
Sometimes the message can be confused.
What of the message we hear this Christmas? What does it say of itself?
“In the beginning was the the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. ”
— John 1:1
John’s clear message to the rest of history is that his friend Jesus is the Word of God. Jesus is the message from God the Father and Jesus has been with the Father since the beginning. In fact, He is One with the Father.
John wants us to know that Jesus is neither a message from a faulty source, nor a message confused along the way.
This view has been challenged by scientific endeavour, philosophical argument and critique of the reliability of the Bible. None of these challenges have stopped the spread of the message of Jesus across the world. Through the ages the message, otherwise known as the gospel, has primarily been relayed and received through the story of Jesus being told and lived through His people.
The church are the people who allow Jesus to live in them, the ones who have prayed and still pray ‘be born in us again today’. It is to be in as if ‘He were making His appeal through us’. 2 Corinthians 5:20.
If you know that you’re not a Christian or you’ve persuaded yourself that you’re hedging your bets, I invite you to examine the life of the Christians around you. What do you see in them? Do they sound like the fake Microsoft call - a message from faulty source? Or do they sound like Christmas in our culture - a confused message that’s really hard to decipher? Or does their life sound like an echo of Jesus?
If you think of yourself as a Christian, then amidst the celebrations of Christmas remember the good news that God has been born your Saviour in the stable and that He wants to make His appeal to the world though you. Your task is simple: remember the message, live it and pass it on.
Here are some recommendations for post-Christmas reading.
If you are asking questions about the nature of God....
If you're looking for encouragement about the growth of the Church around the rest of the world...
If you are looking to be encouraged by the faith of the persecuted church...
If you want to hear more about how God is answering prayers around the world...
If you want to understand more about the refugee crisis...
If you want to understand more about historical injustice...
It seems half of Bristol is celebrating this morning. Why? Last night Bristol City defeated the might of Manchester United in the quarter finals of the Carabao Cup. The last time the two teams met was in 1980, and United ran out 4-0 winners. Since then there has been a lot of history at Bristol City; relegations, bankruptcy, rising from the ashes and now this.
Credit: Bristol City Football Club (www.bcfc.co.uk)
What struck me as the dad of an avid Bristol City fan is that last night’s victory is everyone’s victory. When the team wins, everyone wins.
And I was reminded of another famous underdog victory. For Lee Johnson (Bristol City manager) vs José Mourinho read David vs Goliath. You can find the story in 1 Samuel 17 (the Bristol City match report is here!).
Two armies face each other and each day the giant warrior from Philistine camp emerges to challenge the people of Israel. ‘Who will fight me?’ It’s a simple challenge; whoever wins, wins everything. If Goliath wins then Israel become subject to the Philistines, but if an Israelite wins then the Philistines become subject to Israel. High stakes indeed.
If you know the story you’ll know that no one dares fight Goliath until David, the Shepherd boy, turns up. David’s states this is not just about two armies, the very name and honour of God is at stake. Goliath not only challenges Israel but he defies the living God himself.
And so David, armed with only five smooth stones, defeats the mighty Goliath. David does not do this alone, he does it in the strength of God and says the whole world will now know there is a God in Israel.
And once David has won, all of Israel has won. The victory of the shepherd boy becomes the victory of an entire army and the victory of a whole nation.
When thinking about this story it is tempting to misread this text. To place ourselves in David’s shoes and ask ourselves where are the Goliath’s in my life, what are my five smooth stones and how can I defeat Goliath?
But the point of the David and Goliath story is not that we are Davids but that we are Israelites. We are crouched behind our defences, scared and unable to defeat Goliath. Goliath represents the depth of our sin, our failings, our pains and sorrows.
“Jesus is our true and better David”
David represents Jesus.
It is Jesus who wins the victory. But it is not just his victory it can become ours.
This is the heart of the gospel. We faced a Goliath, sin and death, and could not win. But Jesus came and defeated Goliath and now his victory is ours. And this power is at work in our everyday lives. So when I face struggles, when sin gets hold of me, when my weaknesses come to the surface, it is to Jesus I must go.
So often when I find myself crouched behind my defences this is the last thing I remember to do. It takes discipline to remember that I need to bring all the stuff of my life to God in prayer. That is why we have created the 1,2,3 Prayer cards. A simple formula to help us pray and challenge us to bring everything to God. If you’ve not yet got your hands on a card, pick one up in church. If you are not yet into the habit of praying 1,2,3, can I encourage you to begin.
Last night was a famous victory. 11 men on a pitch won the match. But their victory belongs to everyone else.
Jesus is God’s victory. And his victory can belong to everyone.
If you want to find out more about our Partners in Mission, Changing Tunes, follow the link below. We think they are amazing!
https://www.changingtunes.org.uk
Nicky and James Stevenson share thoughts on how we can love our children, as parents, relatives and family friends this Christmas using the Five Love Languages, originally developed by Gary Chapman.
Here are some useful websites if you want to explore more:
http://www.5lovelanguages.com
https://www.lovingonpurpose.com/parenting/
The Christmas season gives us more opportunities to be in contact with more people. Whilst there can be plenty of 'comfort and joy', there can also be moments of awkwardness, sometimes extreme awkwardness. How do we respond as Christians when it gets awkward?
Human instinct leads us to seek to protect ourselves by either avoiding or attacking, neither of which are very loving. Instead we need to connect and forgive. Neither of which we can do in our own strength but both of which we can do in God's.
So when someone says or does something that's upsetting, don't fly off the handle or slope off and keep a record of their wrongdoing! Try instead to find a way to communicate to them that you love them and ask God to help you to forgive them just as you have been forgiven. It's simple really, so simple that it's almost embarrassing that we're not better at it. Let's love as we are loved, even when it gets a little awkward. Connect and forgive.
This week we've been getting ready for Christmas with three Carol events.
A slightly drier venue for Pop-up Carols
Pop-up Carols had to relocate from the centre of the park to B&A St Andrews Park at the last minute due to heavy rain. A lot of relieved faces emerged through the doors along with some wet apparel. The lights and the dry venue made for a more 'romantic' setting. After some readings and carols Adam Smith spoke about getting ready for Christmas.
A more sedate approach to Carols on Saturday afternoon.
On Saturday afternoon we had the second of our carol events, Afternoon Tea with Carols. Spread amongst the carols and readings were some beautiful solo items from Alexandra Stevenson and Simone Bonnici. Adam then encouraged us to think about where we place our hope at Christmas. The afternoon ended with the local scout group serving afternoon tea.
There were no live animals at Family Carols. The closest was Tim Martin.
The next day we had a packed house for Family Carols. Tim Martin led the singing and the story telling with videos and readings. Adam then invited us to think about how the perfect Christmas is found in the perfect One who can perfect the rest of our years.
And so onto Christmas weekend!