“The song we wrote, Paul [McCartney] and me, “Money can’t buy me love,” it’s true. The point is this, I want happiness. I don’t want to keep up with drugs […] Explain to me what Christianity can do for me? Is it phoney? Can He love me? I want out of hell.”

I don’t know what prompted Lennon to write those words, nor what kind of answer he received. But I sometimes wonder what I would have done if I’d received that letter? What would my response have been, and would it have provided the answers for which he was looking?

These are the words of a man searching, not just for answers to an abstract set of questions, but for something full of power and vitality; a God that not only satisfies the longings of the mind, but also of the heart; in short, a faith that really works.

In his first letter, Peter writes that Christians should ‘always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.’ (1 Peter 3:15)

I find this verse to be a challenge and a provocation. It tells me at least three things:

Firstly, the hope given to me by my faith should be evident enough that others might ask me about it. Am I living in such a way as to exude a sense of hope? And would I be ready to explain it when asked?

Secondly, my hope should not be some vague, experiential thing with no grounding in reason. I should be able to articulate and defend it when asked. Are our answers reasonable and compelling?

And thirdly, not only is the content of my answer important, but also the tone. Do my words and my attitude communicate with a unified voice?

Over these next couple of months, we want to provide a number of ways to help those of us with a Christian faith learn to communicate it better, and those who are still exploring faith, to hopefully find some answers.

Come to our Sunday services in May and June, when we will be teaching on how to have effective conversations about spiritual matters, more information here. Invite friends along to hear Professor Alister McGrath (2 June) and Michael Ramsden (16 June), as they present some of the most compelling reasons to take God seriously. And check out the recommended resources list for books to help you grow in communicating your faith.

If you’re new to ChristChurch London, you may have a load of questions about what we stand for, where we’re heading, and how you can get involved. We are starting a course, designed to express what really matters for us as a church, and to help you make the most of your time here at ChristChurch London. We will explore this over three sessions and helping you identify how you can use the gifts and passions that God has given you to make a difference in this city.

Each session will run on a Sunday in the Queenhithe Room at the Mermaid Theatre, from 13.30-15.00 and will include some teaching, an opportunity to meet others, and plenty of time to ask questions.

Sun 19 May – I: An Invitation to God’s Mission

What is God’s mission? And what role does ChristChurch London have to play in working for the spiritual, social and cultural renewal of this city?  

Sun 2 Jun – II: Identifying my Contribution

God has given each of us a unique combination of passions and abilities. How can we identify the things God has made us to do, and how to use our gifts the way He intended? 

Sun 7 Jul – III: Making a Difference in my World

How can we be effective in serving God wherever He has placed us, contributing to the flourishing of this city, and helping people explore questions of faith? 

We think that the Introduction to ChristChurch London course will really help you to understand us as a church and to grow as a follower of Jesus. Where possible, we would encourage you to do the whole course sequentially, and we anticipate that we will run these seminars at regular intervals throughout the year, so you can move through the course at whatever pace suits you.

Visit the booking system to register. Please book a ticket for each session that you wish to attend. For more information email: office@christchurchlondon.org

Just Walk Across the Room – Bill Hybels

A down-to-earth, accessible book on how to share your faith in a way that is natural and enjoyable. Full of helpful stories and simple suggestions, this book is really practical and highly recommended.

Speaking of Jesus – Carl Medearis

Many people find speaking about faith difficult and nerve-wracking. Medearis argues that maybe we’re thinking about it all wrong. Sharing your faith is not about defending difficult theological ideas, but speaking of Jesus, and when we do that, he says, people love to listen. Check out David Stroud’s review here.

No Perfect People Allowed – John Burke

Some people love Jesus but are a little put off by his church. Let’s be honest, the church has not always been known as the most welcoming of places! This challenging book looks at how to create ‘come as you are’ communities that genuinely help people explore questions of faith.

The Art of Neighboring – Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon

Jesus told us to love our neighbour, yet most of us living in big cities don’t even know the name of our neighbour… let alone love them! This book is written for an American audience, and whilst not everything quite translates to this side of the Atlantic, much of it is challenging and helpful. Check out Jennie’s review here.

The Reason for God – Timothy Keller

Timothy Keller is a New York Pastor who has spent years grappling with the questions, needs and longings of people in his city. In this book he tackles some of the biggest objections to the Christian faith, before presenting some of the most compelling reasons to believe in God.

If God Then What? – Andrew Wilson

In this book, Andrew Wilson ‘wonders aloud’ about ten key questions which anyone and everyone should be asking, regardless of their faith position; questions about human origins, the nature of knowledge, and the problem of suffering. Witty, engaging, and brilliantly written, this book is highly recommended. Check out Liam’s review here. You may also enjoy his previous books Deluded by Dawkins?, which responds to The God Delusion, and GodStories, which explores many different aspects to the gospel.

Mere Christianity – C.S. Lewis

This book may be 60 years old, but it’s still a brilliant explanation of why Christianity is highly reasonable. Lewis argues that Christianity is not based on blind faith and just-so-stories, but is grounded in rational thought, and is the best answer to our longings for justice, morality, truth and beauty.

The Dawkins Delusion – Professor Alister McGrath

In this excellent and accessible book, McGrath responds clearly and powerfully to the atheism of Richard Dawkins, particularly as expressed in The God Delusion. Alister McGrath will be speaking at ChristChurch on the morning of 2 June. If you want to read more by McGrath check out Dawkins’ God, which addresses questions of science and faith, and The Twilight of Atheism which offers an account of the rise and fall of atheism in the modern world.

The End of Reason – Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias is one of the best Christian communicators in the world today, and he speaks all around the world presenting compelling reasons for believing in the Christian faith. This book particularly addresses the arguments of the New Atheists, but also worth reading are Can Man Live Without God? and Jesus Among Other Gods.

Is God a Moral Monster? – Paul Copan

In this much-needed book, Paul Copan addresses the charge that the God of the Old Testament is wicked and unpleasant, particularly considering the passages of Scripture in which God commands seemingly-immoral actions. If you’ve ever wondered how to answer difficult questions about the bits of the Bible that sound gruesome or just plain weird, this book will help. Check out Liam’s review here.

The rise of social media has only increased this phenomenon. People all around the world tweet, like, photo, blog and share things in an instant. One author has recently argued that we’re all in sales now. Not just the big corporations with their professional ‘evangelists’, but everyone is regularly trying to persuade and move others to see things as we do. To sell is human.

But when it comes to conversations about faith, many of us feel ill-equipped and out of our depth. We worry that our friends might not want to hear what we have to say, or that we won’t be able to answer their questions or objections. We know that people hate the idea of being preached to (or preached at?) and none of us wants to be labelled as ‘that guy who just keeps banging on about God.’

We’ve all seen things that make our skin crawl; preachers on soapboxes – literal or metaphorical – spouting thoughts on behalf of a God who is probably hanging His head with embarrassment. The well-meaning but ineffective evangelist, delivering a finely-honed message that might have gone down well in a different place or time, but sadly feels out of touch and reinforces every stereotype people already hold about Christians.

No wonder many people would rather just stay quiet about questions of faith…

But deep down I think we all want to share things that matter to us. And for those of us for whom faith is an integral part of our lives, we really do want to be able to explain it in a compelling way. We want others to understand this thing that has made such a difference in our lives, and hopefully experience it for themselves.

Jesus was outstanding at this. He seemed to have worked out how to communicate clearly and effectively in his day and age. Crowds flocked to hear him, leading teachers came to seek his advice in the middle of the night, and many commented on the unusual level of wisdom and authority with which he spoke.

We want to learn to do this better. In May and June, we will be preaching a sermon series called Faith Conversations: Talking About Things That Really Matter. Over eight weeks, we will explore how we can learn to communicate our faith in such a way that we help people take a step towards God, not three steps back!

We will look at a range of subjects, including how to talk normally about spiritual matters, how to answer some of the most difficult questions about Christianity, how to keep your message relevant, and how to help people take first steps in exploring God.

We are thrilled to have two guest speakers coming as part of this series. Professor Alister McGrath will speak on the morning of 2 June, looking at the challenge posed by the New Atheists, and how Christians can seriously engage with their questions and arguments. And on 16 June, Michael Ramsden, who is to my mind one of the best Christian communicators in the country, will speak at our dedication and baptism services, explaining why Christianity provides a compelling answer to our deepest needs and questions.

I hope this series will help us to be confident and competent in communicating about our faith. For more information about the subjects we’ll cover visit the preaching calendar, and check out this blog for recommended resources.

The Meaning of Marriage - Tim and Kathy Keller

In this book, Tim Keller gives a strong biblical basis for marriage, with plenty of challenges for us in the 21^st Century. He and Kathy share their personal experiences, as well as their experiences pastoring people over the years. Possibly the greatest theme of the book is the importance of friendship, and so it’s accessible for whatever stage of life you’re in. Make sure when you read it that you pay attention to the footnotes at the end of the book. They are well worth reading and some of the best gold nuggets of wisdom are found there.

A Celebration of Sex for Newlyweds – Dr Douglas Rosenau

A short but very practical book that explores many of the challenges that newlyweds face when they begin life together. It’s mainly focused on the physical aspects, but has a professional, psychological approach, which helps you to engage emotionally as well as physically.

The Five Love Languages – Gary Chapman

So… is it words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, gifts or acts of service that really communicate love? This book is very helpful for identifying the different ways we approach love. You will probably find yourself subtly adjusting how you behave towards your spouse once you have read this book, as you hopefully begin to recognise the languages that he/she responds to most. It’s not really a thrill-a-minute page turner, but it is helpful, as is some of the author’s other work, though this is the best starting point.

Fit to be Tied  - Bill and Lynne Hybels

This is a really helpful, practical read by the Hybels’ on how to make your relationship work. It is written for those considering marriage as well as those already married and has lots of insightful and really helpful comments about marriage. Bill and Lynne are honest about their arguments, the challenges they faced – particularly in the early years of marriage – the pain, the cost and the joy. Highly recommended particularly for those just starting out, or in the early years of marriage.

Buy the books online:

Let me illustrate how vision integrates with God’s broader purposes – in our lives, the life of the church and the world – by using the story of Israel at the time of the Exodus. I will also use the seven basic English interrogatives of where, what, why, how, when, who and which (something I refer to as The Right Questions) as a framework to bring the ideas together.

Where are you and where are you going?

‘Where’ is all about situation and vision; where we are now and where we are going. For the Israelites in Egypt the facts of their situation were pretty brutal. They were slaves being worked to death and they could see no way out; they had lost their vision.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish” Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)

“Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint” Proverbs 29:18 (ESV)

Both of these translations of Proverbs 29:18 show how serious it is not to have a vision. The vision motivates us to keep on track; without vision, or when people reject vision, people do ‘cast off restraint’ with disastrous consequences (think about Israel and the Golden Calf, or their response to the spies coming back from Canaan).

Enter Moses into the situation in Egypt, a man who had encountered God at the burning bush. God knew the situation and he broke in, using Moses, with the vision people needed:

“Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey” Exodus 3:7-8

‘A land flowing with milk and honey’ is wonderful, evocative language and an excellent example of a vision statement. This short sentence evokes a wonderful picture of a better future; it is the thing of dreams, but God makes those dreams real.

What is the mission and what does success look like?

Connected to vision is mission, but a mission statement is often less flowery in its language. That is because a mission statement does the important work of defining what success looks like.

For Israel the mission was seemingly brutal but also very simple:

“You shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded” Deuteronomy 20:17

The mission was the driving out of the evil people who resided in Canaan. It may seem harsh but there was great wisdom in what God had said; the roots of failure were in not following this mission to the letter.

Why are we on this journey anyway?

The ‘why’ of vision is the purpose behind it, the principles, values and motivation behind why we are pursuing a vision or mission. These values become our plumb-line or compass; helping to keep us on track when we make decisions.

For Israel the values they had were outlined in the law and particularly in the Ten Commandments that set God’s children apart from other nations. As with any good set of values they could also be summed up in a few words. Jesus summed it up like this:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40

How are we going to achieve the mission?

‘How’ is all about the plan and the means by which you achieve your goal. Something of the broader plan for Israel can be seen here:

“I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land. And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you.” Exodus 23:29-31

Here we see God telling Israel that getting the ‘land flowing with milk and honey’ is not going to be easy; it will take time and if approached in the wrong way or at the wrong time then the mission could fail.

Who is the team called to fulfil this dream?

Israel was no small group by the time they left Egypt. They numbered hundreds of thousands and any organisation – especially one of that size – needs structure to enable the organisation to fulfil their mandate. Israel was divided into twelve tribes but the increase in numbers meant this structure needed to be refined. Interestingly it was an outsider, Moses’ father in law Jethro, who came up with the answer. I like to think of Jethro as the first management consultant! He said this to Moses:

“Look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And let them judge the people at all times.” Exodus 18:21-22

Hence a more effective structure was created that facilitated daily management and the communication of decisions.

When is the best time to achieve the goal and how long will it take?

It is no surprise that ‘when’ relates to timing; the best timing to fulfil the mission coupled with the length of time it will take to achieve the vision. The fact that the vision was going to take time was indicated in Exodus 23, as already referred to in ‘how’ section. But timing was also vitally important.

God gave Israel a chance to achieve their mission early on but they lost the first opportunity when they gave into fear. They had to wait forty years for another chance. This is a salutary lesson in being obedient to God when He says it is the right time rather than trusting our own judgement on timing.

Which route do we take and which risks do we face?

There are many roads we can choose to travel by and ways to achieve our aim. The question ‘which’ is about this selection. When we choose our course of action we look at the major risks. There were many risks that faced Israel; after all they were going to take the land by force.

“You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.” Exodus 23:32-33

Ultimately, the children of Israel failed in achieving the vision in Canaan because they did not heed this warning. Fortunately for all of us God has a larger plan for bringing his Kingdom through Jesus, but we should also remember that obedience is vital if we are going to achieve the goals God has set before us in this life.

What does this mean for us today?

Hopefully this demonstrates that vision, mission and values are important to us all. No matter what our involvement with the church, our roles and actions (both inside and outside the church community) are all connected to God’s plan. The lesson of Israel is that we all need to be faithfully engaged with God’s vision if the church is going to be successful in it’s mission; the ushering in of the new promised land, God’s Kingdom.

_____

Simon is passionate about turning dreams into reality and equipping people to be more effective, and he has recently written his first book, The Right Questions. Find out more about Simon and his work at therightquestions.org

Over the past four weeks we have run our first March for London, in which thirty-one students have been engaging with five different projects; serving dinners to the homeless, collecting donations for Vauxhall Foodbank and helping out at the Goals for Glory after-school football club. Our Global students are also planning a week writing letters of support to persecuted Christians overseas.

A main focus of our events was two nights helping to run the GrowTH homeless night shelter in Bethnal Green, which provides dinner, beds and breakfast for up to sixteen guests every week. The students helped to set out beds for the night, served food and some were brave enough to take on the catering as well! Some of the students who helped out wanted to share their experiences:

Steph wrote: ‘At 19:30 when the guys came in, we started giving out tea and chatting, learning each others’ names and nationalities: a surprising number were from outside the UK (Poland, India, Bulgaria, Portugal). We ate with them and chatted some more before bringing out Uno! We taught a couple to play and others just joined in, it was great to see how much fun everyone was having.

The main misconception I had was completely shot down by how normal the guys were. Many had gone to uni, and were more than happy to talk about their lives. I guess I had expected some resentment at how blessed I am to have a home – two if I count my parents’ house – but it felt much more like we were equals. One guest absolutely insisted on helping us clear up. Everyone was genuinely lovely to talk to, we didn’t want to leave.’

Lydia described her experience: ‘I hadn’t done anything like this for ages, and it was so refreshing.
It was humbling to be reminded how blessed I am. As if the Gospel wasn’t enough, I have a home, education and money for food, etc.
The Holy Spirit reminded me of God’s love and utter compassion for these people, and I was really challenged that this is what Church is about; loving those in need. It’s not just about fancy church services, but sharing what we have – the grace, mercy and love God has shown us – with those that really need it the most! We can’t hold back such a good gift.

So, it was a wake up call for me; the Father showing me the people He loves. And it was just so much fun, those guys made me laugh so hard and honestly I can’t wait to see them again!’

Another student, Miranda, wrote: ‘Taking part in the meal for the homeless was such a great experience, I brought my sister and two friends along and they all agreed with me that it is such a worthwhile thing to do. It was amazing to be able to just sit and chat to the guests  - they all had so many interesting stories to tell you as they had come from all different walks of life. I’m very excited to make it a regular activity of mine.’

Seeing all the ways the students have been able to reach out to the city this month has filled me with hope. Because when we take some time to connect to those around us, love can be found in the small act of making someone a cup of tea or finding out where they’re from. And it’s not out of a sense of obligation – the laughter and friendliness which characterises so many of these events is a natural result of God restoring us to the way we were designed to be: in community with each other. So if we can be generous to others with our time and a few small actions (even when we’re shut inside the library) we can see God working to change our whole city.

But of course (childish-hyper-literalism aside!) it’s true that there is a correlation between our diet and our healthiness. The things we eat shape us – literally! And if its true for us physically, I would also suggest it’s true spiritually. The things we put into ourselves, invest our time in, and allow pride of place in our hearts, shape the person we become. Therefore, if we want to be spiritually healthy, we need to cultivate a lifestyle that includes habits and practices that will nourish our souls and help us connect with God at a deeper level.

Starting on Sunday 7 April we will be preaching a short sermon series called Soul Food: Simple Habits for a Healthy Life. You can find out more about the series in David’s recent blog post, and all the details of the talks can be found on the calendar. But in case you want to dig a little deeper, here is a list of suggested resources to accompany the series:

Sacred Pathways – Gary Thomas                     

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to find prayer effortless, but you find it hard work? Have you ever watched others enjoying time with God in ways that you find baffling? Or have you ever tried copying someone else’s approach, hoping to find a silver bullet, only to discover that it doesn’t bring the results you’d expected? Well quite simply it’s because each of us is different – God made us different. And this book will help you recognise the pathways that will help you best engage with God.

The Me I Want to Be – John Ortberg

Similarly to the previous recommendation, this book will help you to determine how you can engage with God in a way that resonates with your passions and temperament, and how to become the best possible version of you. Alongside the great stories and witty examples that are typical of Ortberg, you will find a number of exercises, questions and practices to help you craft a fulfilling and engaging spiritual life.

Renovation of the Heart – Dallas Willard

It has been said that ‘the heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.’ If that is true, then change – on a personal and global level – will require us to undergo a transformation that begins in the heart. In this book, Dallas Willard looks at how ‘the spiritual disciplines’ will help to form our character and our thinking, making us ever more like Jesus.

A Celebration of Discipline – Richard Foster

This book is a classic that explores various disciplines, which will help us to engage with God: prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, worship, celebration… and many more. At times you may find it a little dry, but there are plenty of gems to be found.

Prayer – Richard Foster

This is a brilliant book on prayer: what it is, what the Bible says about it, and how to do it. It looks at the wide range of types of prayer – rest, confession, adoration, contemplation, petition, intercession – and gives helpful insights into how you can build these forms of prayer into your life. Very helpful!

How to Read the Bible for all its Worth – Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart

Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start with reading the Bible. So much of it feels quite unlike any other books we might choose to read, and it can be difficult to work out how to cross the gulf of time and culture that stands between the original context and ours. This is a great, practical handbook. It’s written in an accessible style, but gives you the tools you will need to unlock even the most difficult passages. Highly recommended!

Why Trust the Bible? – Amy Orr Ewing

If your question is less how to read the Bible and more why you should bother, then this little book may help you. It’s short and accessible and looks at a number of objections to the trustworthiness of Scripture. If you’ve ever wondered when, why and how the Bible was put together, then you will find this book helpful. It won’t answer every question, but it will make a good start…

Scripture and the Authority of God – Tom Wright

Still short, but a little more meaty, this book looks at what is meant by ‘The Authority of Scripture.’ How should the Bible shape our thinking and our lives? What is its story and purpose? And how should we approach reading it?

Money, Possessions and Eternity – Randy Alcorn

This book takes a look at what the Bible teaches about money and material possessions. It is a thorough and balanced approach to a subject that many people find difficult to talk about, and it explores how developing habits of giving and generosity do us good.

You may also want to listen to talks from some of our previous series. For more on handling money and learning to give, check out the Enough series. Or for more on prayer, fasting and persistence, listen to talks from our Teach us to Pray series.

Buy the books online:

One of life’s grumpy old men, invariably when I first approach someone that I don’t recognise, they will tell me that they have been in the church longer than David Stroud. Also, with the best will in the world, it is difficult for anyone to be entirely at ease when my 4-year-old son decides it is amusing to appear from nowhere mid-conversation and head-butt me.

On the odd occasion that I do manage to introduce myself to someone, it is becoming increasingly common for them to say “you’re that guy from The City aren’t you”? In fairness, I see their point. In the last year or so I’ve organised 4 trips to the cinema, 2 Ceilidh dances and more pub lunches than I care to remember. Even I’m getting sick of the sight of my face. The reason I continue however is simple. I believe in community.

Community is a word that we have heard a lot about in recent weeks. As part of the Cross Roads sermon series, we have looked at how the church can be an inclusive community in a pluralistic society. As part of Vision Sunday and in a recent Broadcast article, we have been challenged to live in a way that looks ‘Up’, ‘In’ and ‘Out’. Community is important because it’s important to God, but more than that, it’s a part of who God is and the reason that He made us.

In John 17 we get a glimpse of the life God had before creation. In verse 5 Jesus refers to “the glory I had with you [the Father] before the world began” and again in verse 24 that “you loved me before the creation of the world”. In John 1:1 this relationship between Father and Son is made more explicit where we learn that “the Word [Jesus] was with God [the Father], and the Word was God” (emphasis added). In Genesis 1:2 we see them joined by the Spirit of God who “was hovering over the waters” and later on in verses 26 and 27, we overhear this God who is both one and three decide to make human beings – “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness… So God created mankind in his own image” (emphasis added). Again in John 17 we see their motivation, where in verse 26 Jesus asks “that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them” and in verses 22 and 23 “that they may be one as we are one – I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

In creation we see one God who has existed for all eternity past in a loving community of three, who out of the overflow of that love decides to create in order to share it. Even when that relationship is broken in the fall, we see God the Father send the Son in the power of the Spirit to redeem His lost people and adopt them back into His family. Community and family are expressions of the very nature of God.

I also find it striking that Jesus chose to launch his ministry at a wedding banquet (John 2:1-12), that he was known as one who came “eating and drinking” (Luke 7:34) and who enjoyed having parties with “sinners and tax collectors” (Mark 2:16). In his teaching, Jesus describes the Kingdom of God as a wedding feast to which all are invited (Matthew 22) and formulates the mission of his fledgling church in terms of relationship (John 13:35). Even at the end he chose to bookend his death and resurrection with a final meal with his friends (Luke 22) and a beachside barbecue (John 21).

All of this is to say that for me, the act of organising social occasions isn’t an afterthought. In creating space for people to relax with one another and have fun, friendships are built and bonds are formed. In these environments the masks we wear come off and we open up. People who are new to the church can quickly feel a part of something. People who have been around a while can save themselves from retreating into narrow cliques. They are spaces where our friends from outside the church can feel welcome and part of the crowd, without fear that someone is going to club them over the head with a copy of the King James! In essence, when we’re enjoying ourselves I think we’re advancing the Kingdom of God just as much as when we’re running a Foodbank or an Alpha Course.

In that light, my encouragement to everyone reading this is simple. Get involved! There are things happening nearly every day of the week whether it be badminton, cinema trips, theatre outings, lunches, picnics, fitness groups, book clubs, coffee mornings, parties, football, netball – you name it, there is probably a group for it on The City. And if there isn’t, start one! Join a serving team and you’ll find there are knock on social benefits as well. Whether you’re brand new to the church or have been around since the beginning, we each have a role in building community because in doing so we show the world what God is really like and it’s him that we want people to be in community with most of all.

‘Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me.’ (John 12:23-26)

All the way through John’s gospel, Jesus has spoke about ‘the hour’ as a time that lies in the future (2:4; 4:21, 23; 7:30; 8:20) but now he speaks about it as something that is here; it’s present, it’s about to take place. He is referring, of course, to his death on the cross. To anyone listening in, who was starting to get an inkling of what Jesus expected to happen to him, crucifixion would have seemed like the ultimate defeat – the Kingdom of Rome triumphing over the Kingdom of God. But Jesus sees it differently. Crucifixion was a deeply shameful thing to endure, and yet counter-intuitively Jesus calls it his ‘glorification’ (v23).

He explains this with a simple metaphor, which would have been quite obvious to the original hearers, living as they did in an agrarian society. New growth can only come if it is preceded by death. You can’t have a harvest, without a seed first of all dying and being planted into the ground.

What may look like death is actually the beginning of life.

The picture is powerful. You don’t sow a single seed and expect to reap less than you sowed! Sowing leads to growth on a larger scale. The death of one seed gives rise to the life of many.

In ways that must have been inconceivable to the disciples, but which we now recognise with hindsight, this is supremely true of Jesus’ own death. He gave himself as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45). Today there are around 2.2 billion people worldwide who profess to be Christians, not to mention all those who have followed Jesus over the last 2 millennia. When John writes in Revelation of ‘a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language’ (Revelation 7:9) this is Jesus’ legacy. The death of one seed has produced a harvest of untold billions.

Easter Saturday may look like defeat; the seed slumbers in the ground. But death is necessary for life to spring forth.

Paul makes a similar point in 1 Corinthians 15. In talking about our future hope, he writes: ‘What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined’ (1 Corinthians 15:36-38). Just as Christ had to pass through the pain of death and the silence of Easter Saturday in order to experience the resurrection, so too we will need to pass through the trials of this life and the pain of death, in order to achieve what God has in store for us: resurrection bodies, fit to spend eternity in the New Creation.

On a broader scale, this saying of Jesus gives us hope for any time we find ourselves experiencing pain. Whatever we are going through, we ought not to judge the outcome by how bleak the present situation looks. What might look like death at the moment may simply be the period preceding the arrival of spring. Who, looking at a seed buried in soil, can anticipate the beauty of the bud that’s soon to come?

Whatever you are facing right now, take heart in the teaching of Jesus and the message of Easter. Today may be Saturday, but Sunday’s coming…

Questions for Reflection

• Are there areas in your life that currently feel like a buried seed? How can you learn to take comfort from Jesus’ teaching in John 12?
• Jesus challenges us not to cling onto our lives, which will result in no growth, but to be willing to give up everything in order to gain eternal life. What are the things he might be asking you surrender for him?

Prayer

Why not use the following to help you to pray today:

Lord Jesus, thank you that you did not cling onto your life, preferring your own comfort, but that you gave yourself freely as a ransom for many. Thank you that you endured the cross and the grave, and through your death and resurrection have promised to make this world new, and give us resurrection bodies in the New Creation. Help me to be willing to surrender everything for you, and give me strength to follow you when areas of life feel dark and difficult. Amen.

Going Deeper

For more on how to pray and think about God in difficult times, you may want to read God on Mute by Pete Greig, or How Long, O Lord by D.A. Carson. And if you missed it, check out the recent sermon from our Cross Roads series on Luke 14:25-33, about the challenge to give up everything to follow Jesus.

“If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

The Author of Scripture knew this well, and He never hung rifles He was not planning to fire…

Act I

The Bible begins with the story of creation – God makes a world, which He declares to be good. Into this world He places mankind, consisting of male and female, designed to be in relationship with God, and one another, and given a commission to rule on God’s behalf, cultivating, caring for, and bringing out the best in creation.

Genesis 3 tells us about a primal act of rebellion in which man was tempted by a serpent to reject God’s plan and pursue his own ambition. As a result of this event, known as the fall, the whole of creation became damaged: relationship between man and God was broken, relationships between people were soured, and the relationship between man and creation was warped, as all of the cosmos became infected with the poison of decay.

But at the beginning of the story hangs a loaded rifle – a promise that the serpent will get his come-uppance:

‘The LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3: 13-15)

Act II

Fast forward to the time of Moses and the people of God are wandering in the wilderness, having been freed from captivity in Egypt.

‘The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.’ (Numbers 21:5-9)

This is an unusual, but powerful story. God sends punishment upon the people for their rebellion, and when they beg for mercy, God refuses to take away with serpents (which would be a failure of justice) but He provides a way out: a substitute, hung high on a pole, so that if people infected with the poison look to him in faith, they will be healed…

Act III

Jesus, talking with Nicodemus, says this about his forthcoming crucifixion:

‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.’ (John 3:14-15) 

This simple saying ties together a huge number of biblical promises, and demonstrates that Jesus is about to overturn the curse of Genesis 3 and do for the whole world what the bronze serpent did for the people in the wilderness: removing the sting of death and promising new life to all who look upon him in faith.

This Good Friday, as we reflect on the cross, we remember it not as an isolated moment in history, but the climax of the entire story. Jesus’ death is the answer to the deepest problems in the world:

• Jesus is the seed, whose heel the serpent bruises (Gen 3:15)
• Jesus is the substitute, who took on the form of our sin and punishment (2 Cor 5:21)
• Jesus is the exalted one, who we look to in faith, in order to be rescued (John 3:15)
• Jesus is the one who removes the sting of death (1 Cor 15:55)
• Jesus is the promised one, who will crush the serpent’s head (Rom 16:20)

Questions for Reflection

• It is remarkable that a book written over so many thousands of years, by so many authors, could be so coherent, and that promises made early on would all be fulfilled in Jesus. How does this give you confidence about the reliability of the Bible?
• Reflect on the curse in Genesis 3:14-19. In what other ways does Jesus’ death and resurrection overturn that curse, and promise new life?

Prayer

Why not use the following to help you to pray today:

Thank you Jesus that you are the climax of God’s story and that by looking to you I can receive forgiveness of sins, a renewed relationship with God, and the hope of eternal life. Thank you that you achieved what mankind was not able to, being perfectly obedient to God, even giving up your life on the cross. I am grateful for your sacrifice, and look forward to celebrating your resurrection. Amen.

Going Deeper

If you find yourself with some extra time today, why not listen to one of the following talks:

Seven Words from the Cross by Tim Frisby
Five Cries from Calvary by Andrew Wilson
Kingdom Come: Access by David Stroud

Don’t forget to join us today from 11.00-12.30 for our Good Friday Meeting, where we will worship, share communion and reflect on the significance of the cross.

79 Endell Street
Covent Garden
WC2H 9DY

‘Simon Peter and another disciple were following Jesus. Because this disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard, but Peter had to wait outside at the door. The other disciple, who was known to the high priest, came back, spoke to the servant girl on duty there and brought Peter in. “You aren’t one of this man’s disciples too, are you?” she asked Peter. He replied, “I am not.” It was cold, and the servants and officials stood around a fire they had made to keep warm. Peter also was standing with them, warming himself…

Simon Peter was still standing there warming himself. So they asked him, “You aren’t one of his disciples too, are you?” He denied it, saying, “I am not.” One of the high priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, challenged him, “Didn’t I see you with him in the garden?” Again Peter denied it, and at that moment a rooster began to crow.’ (John 18:15-18, 25-27)

This story is a powerful example of how quickly one can oscillate from boldness to fear. One moment, Peter is declaring that he would follow Jesus wherever he went, even to death (John 13:37); and the next he’s denying him three times.

Each time he denies Jesus, he digs his heels in deeper. Imagine what the other disciple who was with him (presumably John) would have made of Peter’s first denial. Not only was he denying Jesus, he was in effect distancing himself from his friend.

Then once inside the courtyard, Peter denies knowing Jesus twice more; once to a number of servants and officials and finally to a relative of Malchus, the guy whose ear Peter had severed only a few hours earlier (John 18:10). This is an absurd denial – someone is hardly likely to forget the face of the man who disfigured his relative!

Imagine the combination of emotions that must have overcome Peter at the sound of the cockerel; the fear, the shame, the guilt – the realisation of what he had done.

This passage, however, tells only one half of Peter’s story, and if you had read John’s gospel to this point, you would be well aware of John’s ability to craft a brilliant story, in which no detail is unintentional. Here Peter stands in a cold courtyard, warming himself on a charcoal fire, with its characteristic, recognisable glow and aroma (John 18:18). There is only one other time in John’s gospel where a charcoal fire is mentioned – in John 21.

After the resurrection, the disciples were fishing, catching nothing at all. A figure stood on the side of the lake and advised them to throw down their nets on the other side. They obeyed, and caught an enormous load of fish. It clicked for Peter – he recognised this miracle. It was the same one Jesus had performed the day he had first called the disciples (Luke 5:1-11). He’d come full circle.

Rushing to the shore, Peter was hit with the familiar sight and smell of a charcoal fire (John 21:9). It was here, sitting by a fire, as he had done only a few days previously, that Peter received forgiveness and restoration. Three times, Jesus asked Peter if he loved him, contrasting his three denials. Then three times Jesus commissioned Peter to feed and care for his sheep (John 21:15-17). This must have been a deeply emotional moment for Peter, as he received forgiveness and assurance that God had a purpose and plan for his future.

The story of Peter is an encouraging one. It reminds us of both our propensity to fail and God’s willingness to forgive. It reminds us that our weaknesses don’t automatically disqualify us from being useful in the hand of God; there is grace, restoration, and a role for us to play in his plan.

Questions for Reflection

• Peter’s experience is not unique. Many of us have known times where we have made bold claims or statements of faith, only to then fall at the first hurdle. How have you known the forgiveness and restoration of God? Are there areas right now where you know you are denying him, and you need to experience His forgiveness?
• Peter’s failures did not automatically disqualify him from being useful in the purposes of God. Jesus not only forgave him, but re-commissioned him. Are there things God is calling you to do right now? What is holding you back, and what steps might you need to take in order to respond to his call?

Prayer

Why not use the following to help you to pray today:

Lord Jesus, thank you for your constant faithfulness and willingness to forgive. Thank you that you have a plan and purpose for my life. Help me, in my moments of pressure or temptation, not to give into fear. And when I fail or deny you, help me to be quick to seek restoration, knowing that you promise to forgive me, because my sin has been paid for at the cross. I ask, too, that you speak to me about the mission you have prepared for me, and that you equip me to serve you with my passions and skills. Amen 

Going Deeper

If you find yourself with some extra time today, why not read the following passages and consider what they tell us about the changes that occurred in Peter’s life: Acts 2:1-41; 2 Peter 1:1-11.

Aesthetics aside, this was the place where it was believed that God dwelt; where forgiveness could be sought and received; and where God and Man could meet. It was the centre of the religious and cultural systems, so no wonder people got upset when Jesus dared to challenge it:

‘On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts.  And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. (Mark 11:15-18)

This passage shows a passionate and forceful side to Jesus, which people sometimes find quite unexpected. He turns over tables and makes bold declarations about Israel’s most prized symbol – the Temple.

His words are not new. The prophets spoke about a time when people from all nations would come and worship at the temple (Isaiah 2:2-5; 56:6-8) but they also warned of the dangers of the Temple being corrupted, and misused (Jeremiah 7:3-15; Ezekiel 8). Jesus quotes two such verses in his verdict: ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’ (Isaiah 56:7) ‘but you have turned it into a den of robbers’ (Jeremiah 7:11).

If we’re to understand why Jesus was so upset, we need to know something about the mechanics of what went on in the Temple. This was the place people came to offer sacrifices and receive forgiveness. But in order to purchase animals suitable for sacrifice, a worshipper had first to pay the annual temple tax. In order to do this, they needed to exchange their own coins into the currency used in the Temple. So here was a whole courtyard full of money-changers, tax collectors and animal sellers, ready to assist people in the process of coming to worship.

So what was Jesus’ problem? Well, it’s possible that the money-changers were taking an unfair cut, or that the traders were hiking up the prices. But I think the reason for Jesus’ anger is deeper than that.

The Greek word translated ‘robbers’ literally means ‘one who robs with violence’ but was often used to refer, not to petty criminals, but to zealots; people who had a strong sense of national identity, and who would fight to defend it. The word was used to describe Barabbas and the men crucified alongside Jesus (Luke 23:18-19; Mark 15:27).

The temple was an enormous space but there was only one court in which non-Jewish people could come; the Court of the Gentiles. It was here that Jesus encountered the traders, having set out their stalls in the one place designated for foreigners. It’s not like they needed the space – there were already four markets on the Mount of Olives where they sold sacrificial items. So it seems that the decision to put their stalls in this court was nothing short of a blatant denial of the Gentile right to worship in the Temple.

So Jesus’ annoyance was not simply that these zealot-salesmen were selling stuff, and possibly ripping people off. Nor was it the case that they were trading doves by day and plotting to overthrow the government by night. Jesus’ issue was that their nationalistic ideology had become so strong that they were in effect guarding God like zealots, and were actively making it impossible for the nations to come and worship Him. And thus they had entirely undermined the purposes of God.

Jesus turns over the tables; not simply as an act of frustration but as a prophetic statement that the Temple had become obsolete. If people couldn’t pay their taxes, they couldn’t purchase animals. Without animals they couldn’t offer sacrifice. Without sacrifice, they couldn’t receive forgiveness. And thus the Temple had lost its whole raison d’être! Jesus was angry because the Temple had ceased to do the very thing it was designed to do – be a place where people of all nations could come and meet with God!

But Jesus was no pessimist. He wasn’t saying that God had given up on the nations, or that forgiveness was no longer available, rather that the Temple was no longer the place to find it. God was doing something new. In John’s account Jesus declares ‘destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days’ which really confused the hearers. But after the resurrection, they realised that he hadn’t meant this Temple – the physical building. Jesus had meant his own body (John 2:19-22).

Jesus was saying that this Temple was to be done away with (a prophecy that was literally fulfilled in AD 70 when it was destroyed by the Romans). Jesus is the new Temple; the place where God and Man meet; the place where forgiveness can be found. No longer do we have to travel to meet God in a particular location – He came to meet with us. No longer do we pay taxes and offer sacrifices for forgiveness – He paid the cost and He was our sacrifice. No longer is meeting with God restricted to a single nation – all people are welcome into relationship Him.

Questions for Reflection

• Jesus declared that he was the new Temple. What implications does this have for the way we think about worship, forgiveness and prayer?
• Jesus was passionate that nothing stood in the way of all people coming to worship God. Are there things that we do which make it difficult or impossible for particular groups of people to come to faith in God? What might we need to ‘turn over’ in order to remove that barrier?

Prayer

Why not use the following to help you to pray today:

Thank you God that your plans and purposes are not restricted to a single nation, at a single point in history, but that it is your desire for all people to come to know you. Thank you Jesus that you are the new Temple, the place where God and Man can meet. And thank you that through your sacrifice, we who were not part of the people of God can receive forgiveness and be drawn into relationship with the Father. Help us to identify the ways in which we make it difficult for others to encounter you, and show us how we can best extend your love to those around us. Amen.

Going Deeper

If you find yourself with some extra time today why not read Ephesians 2:11-22 and reflect on the difference Jesus’ death and resurrection has made in allowing those of us who are Gentiles to become a part of the people of God.

‘Jesus went on to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed. He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out. “Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.’

“But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. ‘This is the heir,’ they said. ‘Let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” When the people heard this, they said, “God forbid!” Jesus looked directly at them and asked, “Then what is the meaning of that which is written: “‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.” The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people.’ (Luke 20:9-19)

If you were a first century Jew hearing Jesus recount this story, it would have sounded familiar. The Vineyard was a common Old Testament picture for Israel, the people of God (Psalm 80:8-13; Isaiah 5:1-7, 27:2; Jeremiah 2:21; Ezekiel 19:10-14; Hosea 10:1). So as soon the story began “a man planted a vineyard…” you’d know what to expect: God is the owner, we are the vineyard.

One story in particular would have leapt to mind. Isaiah 5:1-7 tells of God lovingly crafting His vineyard. He dug its foundations, cleared it of rocks and planted in it the choicest vines. But when He went to gather the grapes, He found only wild grapes – bitter, and inedible. The meaning of the story is clear. God lovingly cared for His people, but when He looked at them, expecting to see righteousness, He saw only bloodshed and injustice.

So when Jesus started his parable, people would have assumed that they knew where it was going. God wanted His people to love righteousness and act justly, and if they weren’t bearing good fruit, He would punish them.

But Jesus changes the details of the story. Instead of the owner coming to the vineyard personally, he sends three servants, each of whom gets treated worse than the one before; beaten, shamed, wounded. The cumulative message of multiple servants leaves the vineyard tenants with no excuse; they’ve had three warnings. Jesus doesn’t elaborate who the servants are in the story, but presumably he means the likes of Isaiah and the Old Testament prophets who were repeatedly rejected or ignored.

The twist in Jesus’ story comes when the vineyard owner decides to send his own son to confront the tenants. Rather than respecting the son, the tenants brutally evict and kill him. Not only is this a shocking climax to the story, but it demonstrates an amazing level of awareness on the part of Jesus, who by this point must have known that the religious leaders were plotting against him (v19).

Through this parable, Jesus reveals details about his identity, his fate, and the future.

He plays the role of the son – the beloved and prized messenger with the most intimate connection to the vineyard owner; a bold claim, which formed the basis of charges against him at his trial (Matt 26:63). His fate would be death – he was under no illusions – he knew what was being plotted against him. His path would not be the one his followers had marked out for him; leading an uprising and taking the throne.

But perhaps the most controversial element of the story is the fate of the vineyard. In Isaiah 5:5-6 the fate of the vineyard is destruction, but here Jesus promises not that the vineyard would be wiped out, but that there would be a change of ownership. Those to whom the vineyard had been entrusted would be punished, and new tenants would be welcomed in.

This parable, whilst shocking to the original hearers, is great news for us. Not only does it demonstrate God’s unwavering commitment to His vineyard – His determination to rescue it rather than wipe it out – but it signifies our inclusion in the people of God. No longer, says Jesus, would inclusion be based on blood lineage and relationship to Abraham, it would be open to all. Jesus is building a new community, built around himself; the precious cornerstone.

Questions for Reflection

• Read Isaiah 5:1-7. God is shown to be caring in the way He cultivates and cares for the vineyard. When the tenants reject Him, God doesn’t tear up the vineyard, but He promises to restore it, under new management. What does this tell us about the character of God and His attitude towards His creation? How does that encourage you?
• The tenants in Jesus’ parable had rejected the repeated ways in which God had tried to communicate with them. Are there things that God is saying to you, which you know you are ignoring? What might He be asking you to do?

Prayer

Why not use the following to help you to pray today:

Thank you God that you care deeply about your creation and about mankind. Thank you for your loving provision, and the way in which you reach out to us. Thank you that you demonstrated your love for us, by not abandoning us to our destructive ways, but by sending your own Son to be rejected and put to death on our behalf. And thank you that you are committed to restoring your creation, beginning by creating a community around the person of Christ. Help me to be a good steward of all that you have given me, and may my life bear fruit that is pleasing to you. Amen.

Going Deeper

If you find yourself with some extra time today why not read the following article, ‘Christ Alone, Cornerstone’ by Liam Thatcher.

‘Jesus took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendour, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfilment at Jerusalem. Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.

As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what he was saying.) While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves and did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen.’ (Luke 9:28-36) 

In this chapter of Luke, we see the increasing revelation of who Jesus is. He begins to speak more openly about his identity and mission. First Peter recognises that, despite what others were saying, Jesus is the Messiah; the one who has come to put the world to rights (v18-20). Now Jesus confirms Peter’s suspicion in a dramatic way that stayed with Peter for the rest of his life (2 Pet 1:16-18).

Moses and Elijah were key figures in the Old Testament and represent the Law and the Prophets respectively. Some people had been speculating that maybe Jesus was actually Elijah, back from the dead (v8, 19), but the whole of Luke 9 is written in such a way as to demonstrate that Jesus is greater than Israel’s most respected figures. This event, known as the transfiguration, was a climactic turning point in salvation-history; the moment to which both the Law and the Prophets – the whole of Scripture – was pointing. Jesus was about to do for the world what Moses and Elijah could only have hoped and dreamed of…

Both Moses and Elijah had fed people supernaturally during their ministry (Exodus 16; 1 Kings 17:7-16). Jesus fed the 5,000 (v10-17), which John tells us proved his superiority over Moses and pointed to the fact that he himself was the Bread of Life (John 6:25-59). Moses’ face shone with the reflected glory of God (Exodus 34:29-35), Jesus’ face shone with his own glory.

But here is the greatest way in which Jesus is greater than Moses… The three of them ‘spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfilment at Jerusalem’ (v31). At first glance the word departure seems a little odd. From what was Jesus planning to depart? The City? Israel? Life? This World? Well… possibly all of the above. But the Greek word translated depart is exodus. Jesus was about to fulfil his exodus.

As Moses had led the people out of slavery in Egypt, Jesus was about to achieve an exodus on a far larger scale. Through his death as the Passover Lamb, Jesus would pay the price for the freedom of mankind; through his resurrection he would lead his people, not simply through the sea, but through death itself; and by his second coming, he would invite us to join him, not in a small plot of promised land, but in a renewed creation, free from all sin, suffering, sickness, pain and death, for all eternity.

Questions for Reflection

• The transfiguration was a key moment for the disciples, when they became aware of the true significance of who Jesus was and what he had come to do. How and when did Jesus reveal himself to you?
• Jesus describes his death and resurrection as an exodus – setting people free from captivity. From what has Jesus set you free? Are there areas of your life where you know you still need to experience freedom?

Prayer

Why not use the following to help you to pray today:

Lord Jesus, thank you that you are the true and better Elijah; the true and better Moses. Thank you that your death and resurrection have achieved infinitely more than the first Exodus, and have provided a way for me to have freedom from the things that bind me, and the promise of new life, both now and in the new creation. Thank you that you continue to reveal yourself to people today, and as we approach this Easter, would you help me to appreciate more of who you are. Amen.

Going Deeper

If you find yourself with some extra time today why not listen to one of the following talks:

• Jesus Sets Me Free by David Stroud
• Getting Out by Timothy Keller

For many people living busy lives in a hectic city, it can be a challenge to develop a healthy lifestyle. Each year Londoners spend copious amounts of hours and pounds on fitness plans, eager to get their bodies into shape. Of course, physical health is important, but it’s not the whole picture. A truly healthy lifestyle will pay attention to both our physical and spiritual well being.

The physical stuff seems straightforward enough. It seems measurable and manageable. Do the right exercises and you develop muscles. Eat the right diet and you keep the waistline under control. By contrast, developing a healthy spiritual life can feel difficult and hard to measure, consisting of time-consuming and inaccessible practices…

The opposite response is to seek pre-packaged, off-the-shelf-spirituality; a model to copy that will instantly transform our lives. I’m not sure that’s the answer either. What is needed is a pattern that works for you, that takes into account your unique timetable and temperament and that best helps you to engage with God.

Since Christmas, I have felt fresh benefit from readjusting my lifestyle and working out how I can best build spiritual practices into my daily routine. Spending a greater amount of time with God – praying, thinking, reading and reflecting – has helped me feel more focused and energised, and aware of His presence in every aspect of my life.

In the weeks following Easter we will be preaching a short sermon series called Soul Food: Simple Habits for a Healthy Life. Over five weeks we hope to show that developing a spiritually healthy lifestyle needn’t be complex or unattainable, and we will suggest some simple practices to nourish your soul and help you connect with God at a deeper level. This is not a formula to copy, but a suggestion of principles – ingredients if you will – to get you started.

Even if you don’t consider yourself to be the religious type, I hope this series will offer a few simple steps to help you begin engaging with God. And if you’ve been following Jesus for years, I trust it will breathe new life into ancient practices.

Easter, the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus, is the central event of the Christian calendar, and yet we can so easily become familiar with the story and forget to reflect deeply on its significance. We want to make a feature of Easter, providing a number of ways for you to think about, respond to and celebrate its inspiring message.

In the week running up to Easter, we will be producing a daily Bible Study, to help us reflect on different aspects of the Easter story. Each morning, beginning on Monday 25 March, an email will arrive in your inbox bright and early (around 5am… rest assured, I won’t be the one getting up to hit ‘send’!) containing a short Bible Study.

Each email will contain:

• A short passage of Scripture for you to read and consider
• A few thoughts to help you understand the passage and see the story in a new light.
• Two or three questions for reflection. These will help you to consider how the passage applies directly into your life.
• A short prayer, which may help you to respond to the theme of the study.
• And finally, for those who want it there is a Going Deeper section, which will recommend some talks, articles, books, and further study questions.

We don’t anticipate that it will take you long to read through and think about each of these elements, but hopefully it will give you something to chew on for the rest of the day. So why not set aside a short time during your day, whenever suits you – morning, lunchtime, evening – to read through the email, and think about some of the questions. If you don’t have time for the Going Deeper section, no problem – it’s there to help you if and when you have time.

All of us are different, and we engage with God in different ways. So think about what will best help you this Easter week. For some, first thing in the morning is the perfect time: with a cup of coffee, or whilst riding on the tube. For others, taking time out during a lunch break is far more convenient. Some may find it helpful to write down answers to the questions, others might want to do the Bible studies with friends, housemates, work colleagues, or your Life Group. If something particularly makes you think, why not journal about it on The City and publish it for others to see. We will also put the studies up on Broadcast each day, and it’s easy to click the icons on the bottom to share them with friends via Facebook or Twitter.

If you’re signed up to receive our email newsletter, you will get the Bible Studies automatically each day, starting on Monday 25 March. If you’re not already subscribed, sign up today.

On Good Friday, 29 March, we be meeting at 79 Endell Street, WC2H 9DY to worship, take communion and remember the death of Jesus. Join us from 11.00-12.30.

Then on Easter Sunday, 31 March, we will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus together. There will just be one meeting that day at 11.00 and we will also be having baptisms. If you would like to get baptised on that day, or would like to find out more about baptism, join us at a baptism class on 24 March. For more information, please email helenthatcher@christchurchlondon.org 

We hope you will benefit from these resources and events, and we look forward to learning, praying, reflecting and celebrating together this Easter.

Thank you, mums, for the amazing job you do, for working longer hours for lower wages than anyone else in the city, for your enduring love, your dedication and your willingness to get up and do it all over again no matter how hard every day has been.

But in addition to the mothers we know of and see around us, there is also another category of mother in our church, who may not often get noticed or mentioned as much: the foster mother and adoptive mother.

The Evangelical Alliance have recently launched a campaign called Home for Good aimed at raising awareness of the tens of thousands of children in the UK today who for one reason or another need foster or adoptive parents.

A friend of mine who adopted two older girls a few years ago told me recently that people assume it must be because she and her husband could not have children of their own. She was visibly offended by this suggestion that her daughters were second best, the back-up option when all else had failed. They had simply had their eyes opened to the numbers of children in the world desperately in need of a loving home, the diminishing likelihood of adoption the further a child gets past his or her fifth birthday, and the biblical commands to care for ‘widows and orphans’.

The timing wasn’t great for them, and who wants to open their home to two adolescents, with all the additional emotional baggage that involves? When they turned the question on its head and looked at it from the girls’ viewpoint, though, the issue was crystallised: ‘If not you, then who?’ They had all they needed to provide love and security for these girls; the real question was, were they willing?

Maybe you’re not called to foster or adopt – I don’t think that’s a calling God has on my life, at least for right now – but there are things we can all do to help the ‘widows and orphans’.

The first is to care for those among us who are fostering and adopting just as well as we care for other parents. They may not have given birth, but many of their other challenges are the same. Why not give them a ‘baby shower’ before the arrival of a child, or offer to provide a few days’ worth of meals during the first few weeks? One thing I’m learning from my friends who adopt and foster is that the arrival of a new child throws your life into turmoil, whether your preparation time has been nine months or half an hour!

Secondly, we can support the ministries in ChristChurch, which work with children outside the church – Refugee Support Network and Goals to Glory spring to mind. The commitment needed is not as great as fostering or adopting, but it is a way of supporting children and young people who need some extra caring adults in their lives.

And of course, we can pray. Pray for the children in need of love and a safe home, pray for the Home for Good campaign, that it would raise awareness of the needs, and pray for God to raise up more Christian families to put their faith into action in this very important way. What a testimony it would be if at least one family from every church in the UK were to adopt or foster – and what an impact it would make on the numbers of children waiting in care homes or abusive situations for someone to step in and be ‘Jesus with skin on’ for them.

Jennie Pollock is a freelance writer and editor, who blogs at newsong40.wordpress.com

And for all this, nature is never spent;
  There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
  Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs –
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
  World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

(God’s Grandeur – Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1877)

I love this little poem; not simply because of its beautiful composition, but because of its balanced expression of the simultaneous beauty and brokenness of the world. It resonates with my experience as I look at a city like ours at a point in history like this, but also with the kind of picture I see expressed in the Bible. Let me explain:

The first line ends with a full stop. There’s no question about it; in the poet’s mind this is a fact: The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It’s unclear whether the ‘will’ of line two is intended to speak of the distant future (it will, one day) or a commonly occurring phenomenon (on any given day, it will) but I think it’s more likely the latter. There are moments when we look at creation and it’s as if the grandeur of God has gathered to one place, like the shifting of oil in a pan, and springs out at us; overwhelming and inescapable.

Yet, for some inexplicable reason, man fails to move from awe to repentance. The dazzling beauty of creation, which should make us marvel and wonder at God’s brilliance, instead gets trampled under foot. Man fails to heed the warnings of God and continually defiles His work. Man is reckless: He recks not the rod of the Almighty.

Lines 4-8 are hauntingly onomatopoeic and conjure up a picture of creation stamped upon; smeared with and stained by the taint of man. The words ‘toil’ and ‘trade’ pull us in opposite directions. ‘Toil’ draws our minds back to the curse of Genesis 3:17 where man is told he will work the earth with painful toil. But I think ‘trade’ brings us right up to date; the toil of the first man has, by our day, become a structured, all-encompassing behemoth. Resources are torn from the earth and sold to the highest bidder.

Manley Hopkins, writing just after the industrial revolution, was all-too aware of the rate at which technology was advancing, and how man was mining the earth profusely. I think these lines express the poet’s central concern: How do we understand a world that is both glory-charged and man-marred? And what hope is there for creation, when man – who was intended to care for and cultivate it – is increasingly being the cause of its destruction?

This question is a very current and pressing one. We hear more talk now than Hopkins would have done in his day, about pollution, and climate change, and the potential of the Earth’s resources running out. Such a question can best be understood, according to the poet, if we encapsulate it within a teleology (a philosophical account of causality and design in creation) like that which we find in the Christian Scriptures: The cosmos had a purpose (lines 1-3) and it has a future (lines 9-14), and both are tied to the glory of God.

This poem doesn’t sink into bleak resignation to a wearing-out world – and neither should we. The poet has a deeper confidence in ‘the dearest freshness deep down things’ and he brings the poem full circle back to Genesis imagery. The Holy Ghost still broods over the world as he did over the waters at creation (Genesis 1:1-2). There is a still-creating presence of God, and the hope that He will do again what He did at the first: create a brand new world, free from pain, suffering, brokenness and death.

In the New Testament, one passage particularly stands out as providing a deep sense of hope for a broken world. This poem reminds me of Romans chapter 8: Creation is bound to futility, yet is still charged with the grandeur of God. It cries out for redemption just as man, to whom its fate is tied, cries out for redemption. And right at the heart of both this poem and Romans 8 we find the Spirit, who aids us in our weakness and groans for new creation.

The Spirit is depicted, finally, as a dove with warm breast signifying life and the offer of comfort; and bright wings, indicating that he is glorious in flight, ever-approaching and offering, as the Psalmist says, shelter under his wings (Psalm 17:7; 57:1 etc.)

It’s a brilliantly balanced piece; refusing to over-glorify nature to the point where we fail to recognise its fallen faults, nor retreat into pessimism or fatalism about the state of this world at the hands of man. Ultimately the poet’s – and the Christian’s – hope is not in creation itself, and certainly not in our ability to rescue creation, but the glory of God with which this world is charged, and with which it will one day be fully filled (Hab 2:14).

We were holed up in a hotel working on an action plan. I was asked to don a secret camera, fitted to the underside of a specially made jumper and spy out the territory. As I researched the map, working out how I was going to do it, one question kept running through my head: ‘What if I get caught?!”

This might sound like a far-fetched story, but it’s a genuine dilemma I faced a little under a decade ago. To be honest, the lesser challenge was the one of stealth, the bigger issue was my integrity, because if I was caught and confronted by the conman, how could I tell the truth and not ruin the plot to expose him? Surely the only option was to have a pre-prepared lie to cover my tracks?! Surely a little falsehood was for the greater good?!

It’s in moments like these that I really need God’s wisdom and good friends around me. It’s situations like this, where living a life full of integrity becomes the path of most resistance. It’s places like this where I’m most grateful for the church.

This year we are zoning in on three aspects of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, which we’re calling Up, In and Out.

Up – our relationship with God.
In – our relationships with each other.
Out –our relationships with those don’t follow Jesus.

A healthy and effective lifestyle will have a balance between these three elements; time with God, relationships with those in the church, and time spent with those who don’t know Jesus. We need to get that balance right if we’re to successfully navigate the challenges of life.

This is what the Cross Roads series has been about – exploring how to follow Jesus effectively in these three areas; this is our thinking behind a short series in April called Soul Food; and it’s why in May we’ll be teaching on Faith Conversations – how to talk about your faith and make Jesus accessible to those who don’t follow him. More info to come…

We’re also hoping that the other events we’re running this term, including the Everything Matters Breakfast on March 16, with guest speaker Professor John Wyatt (see the calendar for details) will add to the repertoire of teaching and help us to effectively follow Jesus.

But as well as the events and teaching, we’re also encouraging people to ask each other these Up, In and Out questions in Life Groups and Connect Groups on a regular basis, to provoke and support each other to live well-rounded lives.

Which brings me back to the conman exposé. The story ended as all great stories do – the bad guy got caught; the good guy (that’s me, by the way – some might call me ‘the hero’) navigated the challenges and kept his integrity intact (you’ll have to wait for a sermon sometime for some of the juicier details!) But I couldn’t have made the right decisions without a crowd of others around me, helping me do Up, In and Out well.

My prayer is that a decade from now, there’ll be a load of people in this church who are able to say something similar, that written into our story will be battles that we’ve fought and won, and that those victories came by asking this simple question:

“How are Up, In and Out going in your life right now?”

Can you give us a short synopsis of The Sea Change?

The Sea Change tells the true story of a lost English village taken by the war office in 1943 and interweaves this narrative with the aftermath of a tsunami, which hits an Indian beach town in 1971. My main character Violet returns to the ruins of her deserted village, years after it was evacuated by the military in the midst of World War II, unaware that her daughter Alice is awaking in India, on the morning after her wedding, to the sight of a wave on the horizon. Her husband is nowhere to be seen…

What inspired you to write this book?

I’ve always been fascinated by ruins – places that were once inhabited but have been reclaimed by nature. In 2010, I went to watch the army train in preparation for Afghanistan on the Salisbury Plain military base. This was the first time I came across the lost village of Imber. As I stood inside the ruins of the old school house and watched a soldier fire a rifle through the window opposite, I started to think about what it would feel like to watch your home being used in this way. I was interested in the question of whether people can grieve places as well as people and I was amazed to discover that Imber’s story remained largely untold.

The character of Violet soon came to mind – a woman who is so rooted to the past that she is unable to embrace the present. I also spent six months working in India and I visited some of the areas affected by the 2004 tsunami; I wanted to twin two seemingly separate stories together and explore the impact that war and natural disaster have on landscapes and communities.

How did you end up getting published by Penguin?

In 2010/11, I decided to do a Writing MA at Warwick University. This gave me the time, space and community of writers that I needed to finish and redraft the novel. A group of us on the course got together and published a collection of short stories and then sent this collection around every literary agent we could think of. My story caught the eye of a couple of agents who then asked to read my novel. I then had a mad few months of desperately trying to finish the book before they forgot about me!

In the meantime, I went to a lunchtime talk by a literary agent – Cathryn Summerhayes - from William Morris Endeavor. I managed to speak to her at the end – I had about two minutes to pitch the idea for my book to her and persuade her to give me her email address! Once I had finished the novel, I sent it to Cathryn and two other literary agents who had liked my short story. Two of them never replied (I’d missed my chance) but Cathryn asked to meet me and then, after we had done a bit of redrafting of the novel, she managed to get a few publishers interested in it, one of which was Penguin!

Why do you write? And how did you get into writing?

I write because stories are such a powerful way of asking questions about life – the narratives I write are as much for me as they are for anybody who reads them; I learnt fairly early on that if I write to try and tackle questions that I think I can already answer then the writing won’t ring true or resonate with other readers. For me, writing is about exploring life from an angle that is fresh and new for both me and the reader.

Who are your literary influences?

I love Thomas Hardy, Virginia Woolf and the Bronte sisters – any writer whose narratives are bound together by a powerful sense of place and landscape. My favourite contemporary authors are Nicole Krauss, Amy Sackville and Kazuo Ishiguro. Kazuo Ishiguro’s writing is deceptively simple – I love the way in which he gives his narratives over to the voice of a particular character and plays with the idea of an unreliable narrator.

Is the published novel still a relevant art form in an age of digital media, blogging and twitter?

Absolutely. Literature engages with its audience in a way that no other art form can do – it involves the reader in its very creation by getting them to imagine and visualize the story for themselves. We live in an age of ever-shortening attention spans, where entertainment is prioritised over intellectual stimulation. I think a lot of people, myself included, don’t stop to think about the meaning of life – our wider narrative as a human race – because we occupy ourselves with so many passive forms of immediate entertainment. We’ve stopped trying to put the present within the context of a wider story of how we got to where we are and where we’re going in the future. Novels help us to draw a path between the past, present and future, for that reason, they are more important than ever before. The novel will have to work hard to break back into our culture and remain relevant but it has a history of reinventing itself so I have every faith that people will be reading for years to come. The challenge for me as a writer is finding the stories that best reflect the immediacy and rapidity of our internet age and yet allow people to step beyond this culture and rediscover the value of narrative. I don’t think I’ve even begun to scratch the surface of this challenge – one for the next book perhaps!

Do you feel that your faith influences your writing, and if so how?

The relationship between my faith and my writing is something that I’m still trying to work out as I go along. As I said earlier, the questions my stories ask have to be as pertinent to me as they are to the reader – the challenge is to find the stories that resonate with my own experience of life but also speak to a wider readership. For me, the act of reading has some similarities to faith in God. Because of the way in which writing involves its audience in the creative process - a reader imagines and recreates in their mind the story they are being told - reading is an incredibly active, moving experience which enables us to question the world for ourselves. Similarly, with God, faith in him is an active, not a passive thing – it is about exploring on a daily basis the narrative of where we came from and where we’re heading and getting to know the creator of that narrative himself. Our ability to be creative is a reflection of who God is and I find that when I write, I’m able to discover on very small scale something of God’s character – all the intricacy and thought that must go into creating and sustaining the universe.

What is the best bit of writing advice you have ever received?

Three things are needed for a novel: a story, a voice in which to tell the story and the discipline to write it.

What advice would you give someone who wants to write and have their work published?

Begin with short stories. These are a great way of experimenting with different writing styles. There are also lots of short story competitions that you can enter and which will help you get noticed. If you want to write something longer, develop the discipline of writing every day. Make a plan for the plot and then stick to it. A lot of people think that you have to wait for a wave of inspiration and that you can just write a novel off the cuff without really knowing where the story is heading but writing is like everything else in life – you need a structure and a plan to follow if you’re going to hold a reader’s attention for 90,000 words.

What are the biggest mistakes that would-be-writers tend to make?

A lot of writers put together a couple of chapters for a book and then send these to publishers and agents. Publishers won’t be interested in a novel until it is complete so make sure you finish the book first before approaching anyone. Some people get so dissatisfied with the first thing they write that they give up – writing is all about editing and knowing how to improve your work so don’t give up if you’re not immediately happy with what you produce. Conversely other people think that everything that comes out of their pen is a literary masterpiece! Again, redrafting and editing is absolutely vital. Nobody ever wrote a perfect first draft – even Shakespeare’s surviving first drafts leave a lot to be desired!

Do you have any other projects on the horizon?

Yes I’m writing a second novel – a letter chain between a girl in post-cultural revolution China who is trying to open an underground library and a British publisher who is sending her books. I’m always on the look out for people to talk to as part of my research so if you have links to China I would love to hear from you!

What are your dreams for the future?

To write stories that stretch me as a writer and a human being and cause the people who read them to ask questions about the world.

_____

You can order The Sea Change here. To find out more about Joanna and her work, visit joannarossiter.com. And check out the calendar for information about our regular Writing Workshops.  

As Christians, we can be sure it’s no accident that we live where we do (check out Acts 17:26). In fact, we can have confidence that God is working out His purposes for us in the details of where we attend university, and where we live. Whether you’re admiring the view from Primrose Hill, grabbing a bargain in the East End, or soaking up some culture in the British Museum, we are constantly faced with the fact that we live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. A sprawling, varied place that attracts art and culture from all corners of the globe, living in London is certainly a privilege. Yet despite this, with the chaos of life it can be easy to feel lost in the crowd. Whilst sometimes this can be an enjoyable experience, it can equally be an alienating one.

So, as a student, how can you fight that sense of distance that so often seems to characterise life in London? I want to suggest that one of the best ways to feel involved in the city is to invest in it, and to invest in the areas that are most in need.

London is a place of finance, business and commerce and yet it is also home to shocking inequality, poverty and injustice. As followers of Jesus, we’ve been commissioned to care for the poor, for those in need, and to be involved in repairing, restoring and redeeming the things that are broken. That includes every aspect of London. When you walk down the Strand and are faced with homelessness, or pass the run-down housing estate on your way home, the failing school around the corner, or the domestic argument happening on the number 38 bus, we should realise that God has answers. We need to play our part in seeing the Kingdom of God bring transformation.

Student life is the perfect opportunity to get involved in the restoration of the city, not just because you probably have more time and energy available than you will do at any point in the future, but because of the ownership it will give you of the place where you live. Student life is about discovering the things that are important to you. It might be a love for an industry, or a certain type of people. It might be an artistic skill, or a new talent. If your student years are about discovering who you want to be, then it seems important that practicing mercy and compassion form a part of that.

That said, getting involved in a social action project is an incredible way to express your love for God, love for others, and hope for change in a practical, active way. Check out Isaiah 58 and 61 if you want to catch a glimpse of God’s heart. And in the meantime, throw yourself into investing for London. You’ll be surprised how it changes you, as you change the city.

_____

During the month of March, we are encouraging Students at ChristChurch London to serve their city in new ways. We’re calling it March for London, and all this month, there will be opportunities to volunteer with groups and projects making a positive difference right across the city. Visit the Students group on The City and check out the calendar for information about what’s going on and how you can get involved. 

Hope: it’s a key concept in major world religions. We hear it spoken of often in everyday conversations. I wonder how many times you have even said it in the last few days?

‘I’m hoping to get out of work early tonight!’
‘I hope I make it on time’
‘I hope you’re ok?’

We could go on.

Hope: the word is part of our everyday language. Yet, this simple word holds an eternal truth. It is the most profound thing. God speaks so much about hope in the Bible. In fact, He doesn’t just speak about it, He invites us into it; into this sense of trustful expectation. Our hearts were designed to hope; in every season, in the midst of trouble, in times of joy. Hope is honest. It doesn’t deny circumstances. It walks through them with us. It lifts our eyes beyond, to Him who has promised He will never leave us alone. And the beauty is, when we walk in hope, we get to invite others into it too.

Women of ChristChurch London, we would love to see you on Saturday 2 March, 10.00-12.30. Hannah Elwyn will be walking us through more of 1 Corinthians 13 “And these three remain… faith, hope and love.” There will be worship, prayer, songs from Lizzie Stanley, a ‘hope’ photo exhibition by Tanya Marsh and if you’ve given up sugar for Lent, you may want to change your mind, as Elan’s Blueberry Bakery will be there to satisfy all our sweet needs!

The Women’s Morning will take place at Wetherby Prep School, 48 Bryanston Square, W1H 2EA. There’s no need to book in, but you can find out more information on The City and let us know if you’re coming, to give us an idea of numbers.

We are all given stories from birth – we’re born into the midst of them and the expectations of our parents, siblings and those around us start to tell us our stories long before we’re able to shape them for ourselves – but there comes a time when it becomes necessary for us to choose whether or not to pursue that story. Is this the story we want for our lives, or will we reject it and seek to rewrite it? The ‘good girl’ may choose to reject her role as ‘people pleaser’ and go off the rails; the ‘class clown’ may knuckle down to his studies and prove there’s more to him than just making people laugh; the ‘failure’ may seek counselling and come to a right understanding of his worth and capabilities. The political dissident may choose to remain on her path for the good of her country.

Kirsty Young, interviewing Suu Kyi on the radio, identified the fact that this story was one which had been given to Suu Kyi. Her father, Aung San, had led Burma to independence in 1947, though he didn’t live to see it, having been assassinated six months earlier. Suu Kyi was just two years old at the time, but her mother and those around her worked hard to maintain the story of her father for her. Asked about memories of him, she said “I don’t think [this is] a real memory, I think it’s a memory that has been kept alive artificially by my mother and others who would always remind me that whenever he came back from work he would pick me up … I was always told that he loved me best, and so this gave me tremendous confidence in life, that I was my father’s best-loved.”

Growing up in this story of the love of a great political and military leader, and being told repeatedly of his bravery and his love for his country, it is hardly surprising that Suu Kyi would follow in his footsteps, but no-one can live someone else’s story and stick with it with such dedication through house arrests, attacks and deprivations. Suu Kyi had to at some point embrace the story as her own, and her words show that she made a conscious decision to do that: “When people have chosen a certain path,” she told Kirsty Young, “they should walk it with satisfaction and not try to make it appear as a tremendous sacrifice.”

Almost everything she said demonstrated an understanding of what her story was, what it was about and how the influences in her life had combined to make her who she was and her story what it was. “My mother was very strict,” she related. “I thought at times that she was far too strict, but I have to say that when I was in a position of having to cope with things like prison I was very grateful to her for having brought me up in such a disciplined way.” And later, “She recognised when I was quite young that I tended to be a bit soft, and she made sure that I didn’t stay that way.” Understanding her story both formed and informed Suu Kyi’s actions, reactions and responses to her circumstances in a remarkable way.

So what is her story, and how does it measure up to David’s five characteristics of a great story?

In her words, Suu Kyi’s story is that she’s “[One of many people] trying to build up the foundations of a genuine working democracy.

1) Does her story provide her with a sense of purpose? I should say so!

2) Does her story value others? Definitely – it was very clear that she was seeking the good of her people, and wanting to give them a better life.

3) Does her story set a standard for the way she lives? Very much so. She is dedicated, hard-working, studious, peaceful and dignified, all because of her story.

4) Does her story deal with disappointment, set back & failure? 15 years under house arrest, separated from her family? I should say so!

5) Does her story have the possibility of a hopeful ending?

Very much so. She may not live to see a democratic Burma, but she’s already beginning to see signs that they are “at the beginning of the road to democratisation.”

Your personal story may not have such global significance or carry so many dangers to your life and liberty, but to focus on ourselves is to miss the point. We’re living in God’s story, and when you chose to become a follower of Christ, part of that decision was a choice to step into that story and play your role in it. It is a story that doesn’t just have significance for a nation in a season, but that has significance for the whole of creation for all of eternity.

Understanding God’s story and your role in it enables you to understand the trials and setbacks you’re going through (think of Suu Kyi’s response to her mother’s strictness), and face them with dignity and courage. It enables you to embrace success with humility and failure with equanimity. It gives you a sense of purpose even though your daily life may feel mundane, and it gives you hope for the future.

Knowing your story – your role in God’s great story of love and salvation, and choosing to embrace it and walk in it, is a powerful thing. And while Aung San Suu Kyi has to rely on the strength of her story, her willpower and her personality alone, we have the added power of the Holy Spirit guiding and strengthening us. And whereas she is strengthened and encouraged by the memory of her father’s love for her, we have the daily experience of a far greater Father’s love forming and shaping our sense of value and purpose. A powerful story indeed.

__________

Jennie Pollock is a freelance writer and editor, who blogs at newsong40.wordpress.com

She was relatively new to London at the time so it took a little while for her to settle in the city and to agree to go for coffee with me. When we did start to spend time together we both agreed that this was a time for us to develop a great friendship. We didn’t want to jump straight into being a couple but to slowly take time to build a lasting friendship that would set us up well should we decide to marry each other. Sure enough, nine months later we were engaged and enrolled on the marriage preparation course. We both wanted to continue working on building the best relationship we could and learning how to develop this into a strong marriage.

We sat down for each session alongside eight or nine other couples over a five week period. The course consisted of times of listening to Ross and Joy (along with a few other couples who had been married for a while) sharing from the front, as well as practical exercises, as we worked our way through the course handbook and ‘marriage book’ that accompanied it.

One of the advantages of doing this course alongside other couples is that you know other people are being asked similar questions at that exact same moment. Hearing other people talking away in the background makes you feel slightly more relaxed as you often find yourself opening up and being vulnerable with one another.

We felt the course was a really great way of getting to know each other deeper, and allowing ourselves to discuss topics and questions that ensured we were heading in the same direction in life. It also helped us to understand ourselves and each other better as we looked at how our families have shaped who we are and how we act. Learning to understand our differences and consider how these can work together, was for us one of the most helpful elements of the marriage course.

This is something we have to regularly remind ourselves of and learn to accept in each other. It was also probably one of the most challenging things for us to get used to once we were married. How would we spend our Saturday mornings, for example? Would we have an extended lie in or just a bit of a rest and then be up ready to see the day? Eighteen months into marriage I think we are just about finding a middle ground that suits us both. However on some weekends if one of us needs an extra lie in we have to choose to accept and respect the other person’s needs and not get frustrated with the other if it is not what we necessarily want.

As much as we may often try, we can’t control how the other person acts. However, we can choose how we relate to one another, serve, listen and love one another, which is something the marriage course set us up to do well.

We learnt so much more about each other and we able to be completely open and honest with each other as we talked together on the course. We were also able to discuss and picture our future dreams, and spoke about practical ways we could continue to develop our friendship once married. At times we would discuss and write down our individual expectations for our marriage then come together to compare notes. Top of Christina’s list for my responsibilities around the house was taking the rubbish out! I can’t help but think I got the short straw there as top of her list for her responsibilities was thank you notes. (On second thoughts I am not really a fan of writing thank you notes!)

As much as I may dislike the task I know that as I choose to serve Christina with the small, smelly and insignificant task of taking the bins out, her affection and appreciation towards me is weirdly increased. My pride and self-seeking nature is also laid down and hopefully something of God is outwardly displayed in me and then shines out of our marriage. Choosing to put the needs of the other before our own isn’t easy but I know there is greater reward in the long term from doing that.

Ultimately our hope for our marriage is that it will be seen as desirable and a good thing and that God will be displayed in our every action and decision. We are really grateful for the marriage course for setting us up strongly to enter into marriage and helping us to head in the same direction as a couple. We believe that the course would be beneficially not just for Christians but for any couple who are thinking seriously about marriage in the future.

So many of our friends who are not Christians commented on us attending it and all seemed to think it was an excellent course to attend prior to getting married.

 _____

The next Marriage Preparation Course starts on Sunday 24 February and runs for five consecutive weeks. It is a fantastic environment to explore questions about marriage and married life and is open to people at various stages of their relationship. Whether you are married already, engaged, or thinking about getting married, please feel free to join us.

Find out more information and register for a place on the course here, or email helenthatcher@christchurchlondon.org

Joining one of our serving teams is a great way to meet new people, make friends and give something back. It doesn’t matter whether you are new to the church or have been here for a while; if you are passionate about ChristChurch London, we would love for you to be a part of our teams.

Ideally we are looking for people who can commit to one Sunday in four, although we are also looking for volunteers for our mid-week meetings. There are many ways that you can get involved and it doesn’t matter if you don’t have specific experience in the areas below, as full training is provided. Read below to find out more about the opportunities we have in the church.

Tech Team

Sound
These people oversee the set up and running of the sound at church. We need two sound engineers each week; one to mix the sound in the auditorium, and one to control the levels that the band hear in their in-ear monitors. This would be a great team for you if you have a strong interest in music.

Stage Manager
The stage manager is responsible for making sure that everything gets done. They keep everyone on time and liaise with all the teams to make sure the setup runs smoothly. If you like working in a team and have people management skills, we would love to hear from you.

Words
The words operator is responsible for displaying all the song words and PowerPoints that you see on a Sunday. Basic computer skills would be helpful here.

Mid-week Volunteers
Our mid-week Prayer Meetings and Alpha courses are smaller scale setups of our Sunday meetings, run on weekday evenings. All are welcome to apply but this would especially suit you if you want to get involved but can’t commit your time on a Sunday. We would ask for about one evening a month, and meals are always provided.

Production Team

The Production Team are responsible for practical tasks on Sundays such as setting up the rooms used by the church, organising and serving refreshments, taking the offering, distributing communion and setting up for baptisms. The team is all about working hard to make Sundays run excellently, and building community. No technical expertise is required. It’s a fun, sociable team, open to all.

Families

We love families at ChristChurch London and are committed to supporting parents, children and youth. We have a fantastic team of volunteers who run the Crèche (0-1 years), Jumping Beans (2-3 years) and Kids’ Club (4-10 years), and are always on the look out for more people to join our ranks.

Welcome

The Welcome Team exists to ensure that everyone who walks through our doors is made to feel at home and connected into church life. If you love people, know how to smile and are passionate about helping others settle in to ChristChurch life, this could be the team for you.

How to Get Involved

If any of these opportunities sound interesting, or you want to help but not sure where you’d fit in best, email Sam Parker and Ben Barrett at ben@christchurchlondon.org and we would be happy to help you get involved.

While Alpha provides a non-pressured environment and guests aren’t required to come every week, for those who do it is an opportunity for us to see God working gradually in our their lives. Both of the groups commented on how much stronger their friendships had become after talking openly about the big issues and their own beliefs. A highlight of the course was the Bermondsey group seeing one of their friends receive prayer and experiencing healing as a result.

Megan, who hosted the New Cross Student Alpha wrote this:

‘Overall, Alpha has been amazing, I have learnt so much about God’s greatness, His truths and His ability to reach down and touch people’s lives today. I trust and pray He is doing great things with each and every person who has been to one or all eight of the Alpha sessions.

Running this course has taught me that numbers aren’t the most important thing, and God can do a great work in just one heart. Having a small group, with one friend coming week after week, meant that we built up a really strong relationship, and it allowed honesty and freedom that she may not have experienced within a bigger group.

It has never felt like a chore but has brought such excitement, and our tiny front room has become such a haven where we have been able to experience God together. My friend said that it had been great discovering more about Christianity, and we hope to continue studying the Bible with her this year.’

Running an Alpha course is the perfect opportunity to invite your friends round for a meal, and to discuss topics like ‘Who is Jesus?’ and ‘Why should I pray?’ Inviting people to your home is a much friendlier option for those who might not feel comfortable going to one of the courses run in larger venues. We can also provide course helpers who can give the weekly talks and are experienced at answering tricky questions – but we can’t help you with the cooking!

We would love to see over 100 students hear the gospel through Student Alpha courses by the end of this year, including many international students for whom we are hoping to run a Mandarin Alpha course this term. To make this happen we are looking for more students who would like to host an Alpha, if you are interested please contact becca@christchurchlondon.org

In November 2012 we ran our first Global Cities Conference, drawing together leaders from cities across the world to talk, share ideas and learn together. David Stroud hosted the event, and invited Jon Tyson leader of Trinity Grace Church, New York and author of Rumors of God to join us as a guest speaker. The result was a highly stimulating three days, covering an enormous amount of material. Check out Andy Tilsley’s report for a small glimpse of what we discussed and learnt.

We’ve decided to make a few of the talks available. Audio files can be downloaded here, along with the slides from the talks and videos are embedded below, or available to watch on Vimeo. We hope they encourage, challenge and provoke you.

The event aims to equip people for their mission on campus, at work or overseas. A bunch of people from ChristChurch went last year and had a great time (as you will see from the video below).

We have a limited number of cheap tickets available for this year. Contact becca@christchurchlondon.org for details.

A recent census showed a 12% decline in people self-identifying as Christians and the number of those citing no religion has risen to 25%. On the surface it seems like religion is well and truly on its way out…

I can’t help but feel, however, that those stats don’t really get to the heart of the matter. They hardly constitute a religious health check of the nation, because there’s a fundamental difference between signing up to a religious system and seeking answers to spiritual questions. Whilst many seem reluctant to do the former, I regularly meet people eagerly engaging with the latter.

Many people see religion as an outmoded and oppressive thing; a relic of antiquity; a system designed to restrict freedom. It offers reward to those who are willing to believe a few propositions about a distant deity, keep a few rules, and otherwise be seen and not heard. Believe, behave and be quiet!

But when I read the Bible I don’t see anything of the sort. I see faith that’s dynamic, engaging and relational. From beginning to end I read of a God who cares about people and wants a relationship with them. God exists as an eternal community; Father, Son and Holy Spirit in relationship with one another. He made mankind to have relationship with Him and with others. He delights in community and is grieved when relationships are broken.

Real faith – the kind that God created, loves and offers to us – is not about rule keeping and which box you tick on a form. It’s about relationship. It’s about the heart.

The French philosopher Blaise Pascal famously wrote, ‘The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.’ Pascal wasn’t anti-intellectual by any means, but he understood that there is something more fundamental than simply just thinking the right things. The heart matters.

I think Jesus understood this too. If you look at the accounts of his life, he regularly challenged the religious leaders of his day when they put rules above relationship. He hung out with ‘the wrong people’ – the outcasts, the downtrodden; those who weren’t good enough for the religious crowd. He said things like ‘love your enemies.’ In his closest group of followers he included the sexually broken, tax collectors, cowards and those with violent tendencies.

Jesus seemed intent on defining a new way of doing faith, which was based on relationship with God and a deep love for others.

At ChristChurch London we are starting 2013 with a sermon series picking up some of these themes. The series is called Cross Roads and over ten weeks we will consider what it means to live a life following Jesus. We will base the series in Luke’s gospel, looking at some of the revolutionary teachings of Jesus, his challenge to his followers, and his own journey towards the cross. Along the way we’ll address questions like:

How does Jesus define religion?
How did Jesus train and empowered people to lead in remarkable ways?
What does it mean for a church to welcome everybody in a society with so many different beliefs on offer?

I hope that this will be a challenging series and one that helps us as we seek to be an accessible community where people can explore and find faith. I hope it will take us deeper in relationship with God and enlarge our hearts in the process.

2012 has been a milestone year for Goals to Glory. It marks three years since its birth and there were changes from top to bottom, not least in the name change from Football in the Community.

Over the course of the year there was an average turnout of 50 children over both sessions. It has been a real privilege to see them develop all sorts of skills, both on the football pitch and off it.

We have had a change from our friends in Ambassadors in Sport, who first led the project. Gareth has been a brilliant partner over the last few years, and his hard work is a large part of why the project has lasted so long. However, he has had to leave, and thankfully we were not left poorer as Darius has come into the role like a duck to water, bringing new energy and enthusiasm.

It has been a year of football tournaments, a soccer school and a family fun day. Members of our church have been brilliant examples on these days, whether supporting us from the touchline, preparing food, face painting or taking part in dress-up games!

The start of 2012 was a challenging time. Volunteer numbers were dwindling and Chris Kirtley felt called to take a step back from leading the project. Despite more and more children showing up every week, closing down was a real possibility.

However, we carried on and the coming of Spring lifted us. Changing circumstances in our lives meant that Paul Ladbrook and I could now take over from Chris. New volunteers arrived and the commitment levels from all were fantastic. The Big Man really did provide all we needed to keep going.

A large part of this year’s success has been down one young man in particular, Jason Roberts. When he first came to the project two years ago he was an angry boy, constantly arguing and threatening to walk out. Thankfully he stayed and we have seen him develop into a man full of character and heart. He serves faithfully every week and always comes in with a smile on his face. He now plays for one of the church’s teams and I have heard nothing but praise for him by his new teammates.

On the project as a whole, our Lord has begun a good work. This ministry has amazing potential and I think God is on the verge of revealing Himself to some of the people who are attending. My hope and vision for us in the New Year is to invest more time and resources into making the project about more than just football!

You don’t need me to tell you cities matter. In 1800 only 3% of the world’s population lived in cities. That had grown to 14% a century later. In 1950, 30% of us lived in cities, and in 2008 that had exceeded 50%. By 2050, that number is expected to grow to 70%. But while we’ve been talking about how important cities are for some time, their complexity is such that few, if any of us, have fully figured out how churches can make a significant contribution within them.

Jon Tyson, from Trinity Grace Church in New York was the keynote speaker for the conference, which gathered leaders from Stockholm, Kampala, Tallinn, Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Dublin and Madrid amongst others, all hosted by ChristChurch London.

Jon Tyson has received a lot of training from Tim Keller over the years, but he’s applied it in the best possible way. Rather than trying to just build another Redeemer Presbyterian Church (what’s the point in doing that, when people can just go there instead!?), he’s doing his own thing in his own way, using the great principles outlined in Keller’s book Center Church (which, by the way, is a brilliant read, and was referenced extensively throughout the days together. In some ways it felt quite appropriate given that we were meeting just off Oxford Circus, which happens to be the image on the front cover of the book!)

We talked about accessible language, multi-congregational models of doing church, reaching diverse communities, apologetics and defeater beliefs (where Tyson is, in my opinion, a grand master), vocational discernment, shame-based cultures, discipleship, training leaders, sex, worship, pastoral care… the list felt endless. And if that weren’t enough, we also heard interviews with people involved in the worlds of government and public theology, and discussed how the church can talk persuasively and articulately in the public sphere.

In some ways we all came away with as many questions as answers, but that felt right and good. Too often we can leave conferences thinking we can change everything, when in reality the most important thing is just to focus on the next few bits that are applicable to us in our particular journey. And because cities are ever-evolving, complex, organic animals, we need to keep adapting our ways of working effectively in those contexts. I doubt we’ll ever have it fully mastered.

Personally, the stand out moments of the event centred around communication – both in public contexts like preaching or dialoguing with those who don’t normally ‘do’ church, but also all the non-verbal messages we give off through the ways we do things like worship. Likewise, simply having the opportunity to actually talk with people in similar contexts, thrash out ideas and learn from other people’s mistakes made it all the more memorable.

We’ll probably gather leaders again at some point. We’ll definitely stay in contact with many of the people there – some of the friendships formed felt very significant. For now it feels like there are books to read, ideas to talk through, and in due course changes to be made to the way we are working in London.

Most significantly, the way that Jon Tyson has made prayer a foundational building block of Trinity Grace Church left me inspired and provoked. More than any special nugget of theology, organisational structure or method for training leaders, I’d say that prayer seems to be the number one factor in fruitful church mission. Funny that! It seems to be what the Bible says too.

I’ve preached on prayer enough times, but still have a whole lot of growing to do in that area. It’s a powerful discipline that causes us to stop ‘doing’ and consciously say “I can’t do it God, so I need you to.” With Christmas holidays almost upon us and more time to relax and reflect, implementation begins there.

When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus told his listeners (and by extension, us), “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbour as yourself.” Simples.

Or is it? Jay and Dave’s book, The Art of Neighboring (yes, I know we don’t spell it like that, but they’re American and they do) has some challenging questions and some great ideas for how we can start living like Jesus told us to.

The Legitimate Loophole

When Jesus told his listeners to love their neighbours, he was quoting a dictum with which they were already very familiar. And although it sounds fairly simple, it seems that the teachers of the Law had started questioning what it really meant.  Wanting to work out just how far his responsibility stretched, one of these teachers asked Jesus to define exactly what he meant by ‘love your neighbour’ – who did that extend to? In reply, Jesus told a story, which we have come to know as the story of the Good Samaritan. I’m sure you know it – bloke gets beaten up and left by the side of the road, two very high-up religious leaders see him but walk past on the other side of the road, then a man from Samaria (boo, hiss) comes by and not only helps him, but shows him outrageous kindness and generosity. This man – the Samaritan, the stranger, the one you expect to be a baddie in the story – this man is the one Jesus said was a good neighbour.

The expert in the Law was disappointed by this answer, because it cast the net much further and wider than he had ever imagined – not only did it mean he had to care for the people near him, he was supposed to care for his enemies as well.

We, however, hear the story very differently. It is so familiar to us that we tend to think ‘love your neighbour’ means ‘love the people who are different from you, those in crisis or distress. Be generous to strangers and outcasts.’ We’ve conveniently forgotten that the term ‘your neighbour’ assumes that this will start with those who physically live close to you. The Teacher wanted to know ‘do you mean just the people whose houses actually touch mine, or are you thinking of the whole street?’ and was given a much bigger vision. We tend to think on a wider scale and may need to balance that with focussing on those close by (while not neglecting the good we are called to elsewhere).

Your mission, should you choose to accept it…

Here’s a challenge Jay and Dave set in the book. Draw a 3 x 3 grid and draw your house in the middle square (it doesn’t have to be architecturally precise…).

The eight squares surrounding it represent the eight households nearest to you. They might be flats in your block, houses on your street or rooms in your hall of residence, or maybe a combination. In each one, write the names of the people who live in that house/flat/room.

Now list a fact or detail you know about that person – not something you can see, but something you’d have to talk to them to know – their job, where they grew up, etc.

Now write down something about them that you’d really need to get to know them to answer – their hopes and dreams, their fears for the future, the big motivators in their life.

How did you do? I was really challenged by how little information I was able to fill in, and immediately started making excuses, before I remembered a line the authors repeated a few times through the book – what if Jesus really meant what he said?

What if He meant it?

I think we can safely assume that Jesus actually did mean that we are to love our neighbours and, as the Denver mayor made clear, the command is as necessary in the 21st century as it was in the first. So if it’s commanded and needed, what are we going to do about it?

For Jay and Dave, it all sounds pretty simple – daunting, yes, but simple all the same. They are writing from the context of American suburbia where everyone has a big garden, a garage and, for the most part a street which doesn’t get much traffic beyond the residents’ school-runs and office-commutes – no buses rumbling past, no taxis nipping through, no motorcycle couriers weaving in and out, trying to find the shortest route in the fastest time. Contrast that with my home. I live in a basement flat with no windows overlooking the street. I don’t have a car to tinker with on the drive, a lawn to mow, or children to watch cycling up and down the pavement. The natural opportunities for me to even see my neighbours, let alone strike up a conversation with them, are few and far between. How could I possibly be a good neighbour to them?

The day I was pondering this, I got home to find a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts on the kitchen counter. My flat mate had found them outside the door of our flat with a note scribbled on a scrap of paper: “I’m sorry if we make a noise at night when we get back home late. Flat 3”. I don’t know the name of Miss Flat 3 – I’ve seen it on her mail, but it’s long and unfamiliar and, to be honest, I simply haven’t made the effort to learn it. We’ve met in the hallway once or twice – the first time after she had just moved in, when I introduced myself and tried to be friendly, but she mumbled something I couldn’t catch, and scampered back to the safety of the third floor as fast as she could. I’d mentally written off any kind of neighbouring possibilities with her, and then she showed me how simple it could be!

Get set, go!

One of the biggest hurdles we face, I think, is making that initial contact. How do we make a connection with the people behind the closed doors on our landing or our street? Once you start thinking about what you could do to make contact with those around you, rather than focussing on how hard it would be, the ideas actually start to flow thick and fast.

Jay and Dave recommend keeping it simple by thinking about the things you would be doing anyway, or things you’re interested in, and finding ways to involve your neighbours. For them it’s things like if you’re having a barbecue, invite the whole block, or if you see your neighbour tinkering with his car, go over and say hi or offer to help.

Again, in the London context, these things may not be possible (though several of our number did a great job organising street parties for the Jubilee and Olympics this year), but Christmas gives a great opportunity to at least make a start. I know Abi Malortie recently had a Christmas party to which she invited everyone in her building as well as a load of friends from church and her fellow MA students. Following the example of Miss Flat 3 I’m thinking I could bake some Christmassy cookies and deliver them – learning from a weak spot of her example, though, I’m going to write my name on the accompanying note, to give her the opportunity to learn it, should she want to. I’m also going to take some into the neighbouring shops, because although I haven’t a clue whether anyone lives in the flats above the shops or not, I know there are people who work close to my house every day to whom I’ve never even said ‘hello’ – and I’m pretty sure they count as people I should be a good neighbour to!

If you already know everyone close by and want to widen your net even further, I saw a trailer for a radio programme the other day in which the presenter had decided to respond to the ads he saw posted in his local newsagent’s window. Isn’t that a great idea? Of course, it’s easier to do it for the sake of a radio programme – it’s something of a commitment to buy a tuba, take up Spanish lessons or hire three cleaners just for the sake of meeting your neighbours, but it is worth checking there before eBay or Google the next time you need something. Or why not sign up to freecycle or similar neighbourhood asset-sharing websites (or start your own!) where people lend each other power tools or similar large items that are too expensive to buy for the odd occasions they are needed.

Or if you’re more into clothes than power tools, why not host a clothes swap? You can invite a group of friends from church (for moral support!), then open it up to your neighbours – and maybe even post the invitation on your newsagent’s board.

Becoming friends

I’m sure, now I’ve got you started, you can think of lots of ways to start meeting those who live and work close to your home. The next tricky part is to move from acquaintances to friends. The only way to do this is to invest time into it. It’s not going to happen overnight, but over time a little intentionality will go a long way. Involve them in your life. Invite them to things (carol concert, anyone?). Learn what fires them up and think of ways you can connect with those things.

Another example from Abi Malortie (who is great at this) – the other day she saw her neighbour in the hallway and asked about his recent trip to Hong Kong (note: she must have been doing this intentionally for a while to know he’d been away). As they chatted, it somehow came out that he was interested in Social Enterprise. Abi said that she had a few friends who are also interested in Social Enterprise and offered to introduce him to them. He was delighted, and even offered to cook them dinner!

Just through being nice, friendly and interested in her neighbour, Abi has managed to create an opportunity whereby he is offering hospitality to a bunch of her (Christian) friends, in his quest to do some more good in the world.

Juliette Ash met a single mum at a Mums and Tots group she used to go to. As their friendship has developed, Juliette has been able to arrange a number of us who live nearby to take turns in babysitting for this young mum once a week to give her a little time to herself. It costs each of us about 45 minutes once a month (she just goes out for a run), but it means so much to her – and she was telling me the other night how great the Christian life is, that you have these networks of potential friends to draw on. In being a good neighbour to her, we are modelling both the love of Christ and the life of Christian community – and that has to be a good thing.

Ulterior or ultimate?

Jay and Dave acknowledge that some might ask ‘surely it’s dishonest – becoming friends with people just so you can share the gospel? Aren’t they going to see through that and feel manipulated?’ Well, yes, if that’s how you’re approaching this exercise, it may well come across like that. They make a useful distinction, though, between having an ulterior motive and an ultimate goal. They quote from another book, To Transform a City by Eric Swanson and Sam Williams, explaining:

“Ulterior means something is intentionally kept concealed. … It’s when we do or say one thing out in the open but intend or mean another thing in private.

Ultimate means the farthest part of a journey. An ultimate goal is an eventual point or a longed-for destination.”

Our ulterior motive shouldn’t be that we act like a good neighbour in order to one day share the gospel, but our ultimate goal is that we will have an opportunity to share with our friends the story of Jesus and his work in our lives. Or to put it another way “We don’t love our neighbours to convert them; we love our neighbours because we are converted.”

What are you waiting for?

I found this a really compelling book, and if you want more convincing, or more ideas, stories and examples, I highly recommend it. There is also a good section on setting boundaries, which you may find useful, particularly in the question of when helping a needy neighbour becomes enabling, and actually prevents them from being able to grow and flourish as they should.

Really, though, how much more detail do you need? Jesus commanded it, we should do it. Love your neighbour as yourself… Go!

This time of year is known as advent. Traditionally it is a period of waiting and longing. It’s a time for reflection and re-evaluation, as we consider what we are pinning our hopes on, and what we are holding out for. More specifically, it’s the time of year when we remember the run up to the birth of Jesus; a climactic moment in history, when God came to Earth and took up residency among men.

It’s easy to become over-familiar with Christmas. Some of the details of the story are well known, but there is plenty more than gets forgotten, overlooked and airbrushed out. In November and December, we will look at the true Christmas story in our sermon series called Advent: what are you waiting for? Over six weeks we want to sort the myth from the fact and to remind ourselves just how extraordinary the first Christmas really was. Find out what we’ll be looking at on the Preaching Calendar.

Of course, the power of the advent story is that Jesus’ mission was not confined to a single city at a single moment in history. His birth, life, death and resurrection started something that has rippled out right across the world. Today, he sends us out to continue his mission, bringing hope to the needy, restoration to the broken, and helping people find relationship with God.

So as well as preaching on the theme of advent, between now and Christmas there are plenty of things we are doing to continue Jesus’ mission in this city and the cities of the world.

If we are to make a difference in our world, living with the same sort of energy, focus and effectiveness that Jesus had, we need to learn to draw strength from God. Consequently I am really looking forward to the Empowered Conference on November 9-10, with Mike Pilavachi (Soul Survivor) and Eleanor Mumford (Vineyard UK). Both are excellent communicators, who will teach us how to hear God, pray for the sick, and live lives of faith. This will be a practical and interactive conference, with plenty of opportunities for worship and prayer. Tickets are available from christchurchlondon.org/empowered

Whilst our mission begins in London, we are committed to seeing great churches started in the major cities of the world. As well as sending teams to other cities – as we have done with Vancouver – we think there is great benefit in gathering others who are building churches in similar contexts to our own, to think and learn together. I’ve invited a number of church leaders from key cities around the world to join me in November for our first Global Cities Conference. With delegates coming from Stockholm, Belfast, St Petersburg, Kampala, Paris and many other cities, I am trusting that this will be a hugely beneficial event. We have also invited Jon Tyson from Trinity Grace Church, New York, to join us and teach us from his experience of planting a city centre church that makes a difference in a key urban centre.

Then at the beginning of December, I am taking a team from ChristChurch to visit a church in the centre of Paris. Le Chemin, la Vérité et la Vie has been meeting for around four years, and I have had the privilege of visiting and supporting the leaders during that time. We will spend a weekend there, meeting with the team, training the church, and encouraging them as they strive to build a church that makes a major difference in this significant city.

This is just a snapshot of what this term has in store. There are plenty of other things coming up, including a church social, a prayer meeting, a carol service and various events for women, students and families. Check out the calendar for more details, and join us this advent as we seek to make Jesus known and continue his mission in our world.

Theology Matters: Resurrection is a three-week course, looking at the subject of the afterlife.

What happens after death? Where do we go? And how long for? Over three interactive sessions we will look at various views of life after death in the Old Testament, how Jesus’ resurrection challenged people’s thinking about the afterlife, and what Paul has to say about our own futures. The sessions are open to all and there will be plenty of opportunity to ask questions.

The series will run on Sundays from October 21 – November 4 in the Queenhithe Room at the Mermaid, from 13.30-15.00. The course is free of charge, but in order to help us plan for the sessions, please book a place online.

And if you fancy swotting up, here are a few bits of recommended reading on the subject: 

The Resurrection of the Son of God – N.T. Wright

This book is pretty enormous! It looks in great depth at life after death in the Old Testament and New Testament as well as in the surrounding cultures. If you want a book that will cover this subject comprehensively, and also look impressive on your bookshelf, this is it!

Surprised by Hope – N.T. Wright

If you fancy something a little lighter, a lot shorter, but just as good, then this book is for you. A more popular-level version of Wright’s thesis, this book looks at what the Bible says about resurrection and new creation, and considers how that should shape our worship, our mission and our theology.

Heaven – Randy Alcorn

This book is very accessible, and helpfully answers a number of the big questions people have about life after death. I personally find some of the language a little unhelpful, and wouldn’t quite agree with every little detail, but on the whole you could do far worse than reading this book.

The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus – Gary Habermas and Michael Licona

There are many books that offer a defence of the resurrection of Jesus, and I happen to think that this is one of the most helpful. In an accessible but robust manner, the authors provide answers to number of arguments against Jesus’ resurrection, as well as offering compelling reasons for believing the resurrection actually took place. Highly recommended.

In preparation for October 14, we wondered if you would join us in praying and reflecting on the steps we might need to take as we recommit ourselves to God, His People and the City. We have produced some material to help you do this, and you might find it helpful to set aside some time in the coming weeks to read and think about some of the questions it raises. Hard copies are available on Sundays, but if you’d like to download a copy, you can do so here.

In the run up to Love London Sunday we have been profiling a number of projects that our giving will particularly go towards. Here is a summary of a few of the areas that will benefit from your generosity, and some information about how you can give:

Helping People Find Faith

At ChristChurch London we run the Alpha Course three times a year at the Grange Holborn Hotel. This is an excellent course, which helps people to explore questions about life and the Christian faith, and over 2.5 million people in the UK have attended Alpha. We continue to see many people eager to examine the claims of Jesus, and running these courses is a great way for us to help them explore some of these questions in a relaxed setting.

Serving the City

We care deeply about making a difference in our city and believe that our communities and neighbourhoods should feel the benefit of having a church in their midst. Consequently we run a number of Social Action projects, including Foodbank, which provides emergency food support for those in need in the Vauxhall area; Mentoring Refugees, which provides educational mentoring for refugees in Lambeth, in partnership with Refugee Support Network; and Goals to Glory, our football project for young people in Vauxhall. In due course, we hope to expand these projects, helping those in need right across our city.

Connecting with Peoples, Places and Passions

Connect Groups gather 20-35 people each week to build community, help people find faith and contribute to the flourishing of London life. These groups gather around a common cause; a people, a place or a passion. We are starting a number of these groups in different parts of the city, and are excited about the potential they provide us, as people engage with an aspect of the mission that they are particularly passionate about and skilled in.

Investing in Buildings

We want to create a lasting presence in London. We are here for the long haul, and as we seek to make a significant impact on the city, we know that in due course that will require us to own property. Investing in buildings will provide us with greater scope for running Social Action projects, training courses, equipping events, and in time have an auditorium in Zone 1 where we can gather many, many people to worship. Buildings don’t come cheap, and so we recognise that we need to begin saving now. Just like one would begin gathering a deposit for a house, we want to start putting money aside now to prepare us for the future. And in the same sort of way that one often buys a starter home and upsizes over time, we believe that beginning to think about owning property in the short term will be a vital step towards the long term goal of owning a substantial property in the centre of London, which will facilitate our mission to this city.

Reaching the Cities of the World

Whilst our mission begins in London, we are committed to seeing great churches started in the major cities of the world. As well as sending teams to other cities – as we have done with Vancouver, and will continue to do in the years to come – we also think there is great benefit in gathering others who are building churches in similar contexts to our own, to meet, think and learn together. This autumn we are running our first Global Cities Conference, with delegates invited from Stockholm, Belfast, St Petersburg, Kampala, Paris and many other cities. We have also invited Jon Tyson from Trinity Grace Church, New York, to join us and teach us from his experience of planting a city centre church that makes a difference in a key urban centres.

Giving to Those in Need

In addition all of these areas, we also want to be generous with our resources to help those around the world who are making a difference by building churches and caring for those in need. New Creation Church, led by our friend Mbonisi Malaba, has recently had the opportunity to purchase 10 acres of land and 16,000 square feet of buildings in a prime location. They are now in the process of developing it into a facility from which they can run various initiatives that benefit their city, including a preschool for the underprivileged, an auditorium for their church and various community meetings, and a base for their hugely successful Foundations for Farming, which teaches vital farming skills in order to help combat poverty and hunger in Zimbabwe. A portion of our offering will go towards helping them on their way with their building project.

How to Give

We will take the offering over two Sundays: October 14 and 21, but if you are unable to give on those days, you are also able to give online or via text message.

Donations for the Love London Sunday offering can be made online via our giving page. If you’re a UK taxpayer, please do remember to include your details in the Gift Aid section, so that we can claim back 25p in every pound you donate.

You can also give by text if you would prefer, via Just Text Giving. You can donate to the Love London Sunday offering by texting GDAY12 followed by the amount you wish to donate, to 70070. You can donate £1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10, giving up to a maximum of £30 per day, and the amount gets put on your monthly phone bill.

As an example, to donate £5, you would text the following to 70070:GDAY12 £5. All the money you donate goes to the offering, and your network provider does not charge you for the SMS you send to make the donation. You will then receive a text message instructing you how to register for gift aid so that we can claim back an extra 25p per pound on your donation.

We know this can be a big, busy, baffling place though, so if you’re feeling even the tiniest bit lost and overwhelmed, here are a few pointers to help you get to know – and hopefully love – this city.

Look up

Lots – perhaps most – of London’s best bits are above eye level. There are beautiful old buildings, statues, coats of arms, even painted advertising dating from the early decades of the last century. Many buildings are adorned with blue plaques detailing their famous former-inhabitants. From master musicians to super sleuths, from Lords and Ladies to authors and artists, from world-famous celebrities to little-known political campaigners, the streets are rich with remembered footsteps of those who made this city what it is. And there are some interesting juxtapositions, too – the best I’ve seen is G.F. Handel’s house, which is right next door to the home of another famous musician, though one with quite a different musical style – Jimi Hendrix!

You’ll see brilliant street names (Haunch of Venison Yard, anyone?), ancient shop signs, even the odd gargoyle. Look above the crowds and the plate-glass Superdrug/Nandos/H&M frontages – ride on the top deck of the bus whenever possible (and look out the windows, not at your mobile!) – and you’ll have a far richer experience of this beautiful, eclectic, historic place.

Look around

Most areas of London are pretty safe these days, but pickpockets and other undesirables do still exist. You don’t need to be afraid, but a simple, effective way to protect yourself and your belongings is to be aware of your surroundings.

Pickpockets love crowds – when you’re getting so jostled in the general crush you don’t notice the extra jostling hand in your backpack (I learned that the hard way). Keep your eyes open and if you see anything suspicious, carry your bag where you can see it for a while.

Obviously you’ll want to avoid walking alone down dark alleyways at night, but if you do find yourself in an empty street, keep your eye open for places you could run to if you feel threatened – pubs, corner shops, a busy bus stop. Doubling back on yourself, or jumping on a bus may add time to your journey, but if it helps you feel safer, it may be worth it.

Like I said, though, be aware, but not afraid; I’ve lived here for 5 years and have only twice felt concern about someone’s odd behaviour.

Look down

Not just to avoid rogue dog-dirt or the ubiquitous chewing gum-slicks, but to remember those less fortunate than yourself. You might be struggling to make the student loan stretch, but at least you have a roof over your head and a change of clothes.

There are thousands of rough-sleepers in this city, and we can make a real difference to their lives simply by acknowledging their existence. When someone tries to sell you the Big Issue, say ‘no, thank you’ (unless you want one, of course!). When someone asks for spare change, make eye contact and respond politely – even if you’re refusing. Some friends and I stopped once and gave sandwiches, fruit, milk and home-made flapjacks to a homeless man, and chatted to him for a while. He asked ‘Are you Christians?’ When we said ‘yes’, he said ‘I thought so. It’s only Christians who ever stop’. A conversation and an inexpensive (and preferably healthy) snack can make the world of difference to those who often struggle to remember they’re human, let alone worthy of love and respect.

You’ve moved to an amazing city. We hope you’ll love your time here, making the most of all the events, facilities and opportunities on offer, and we hope you’ll make your mark, too, like so many who have gone before. How will London be a better place because you were here? We can’t wait to find out.

But if you’ve lived here for any length of time you will know – and if you’re brand new, you will soon discover – that living in London also has its fair share of challenges. Amongst the beauty is brokenness. In many communities, prosperity and poverty live side by side. It can be a challenge to maintain a balanced lifestyle of work, rest and play, not to mention finding time to connect with God and ensure that you are growing spiritually. The diversity of things to see, do and enjoy is exciting, but sometimes we can be swamped by the paralysis of choice. There are temptations and challenges in a city that you won’t experience anywhere else in the world, and which can easily take us off course.

City living is both a joy and a challenge, full of potential and pitfalls. How can we enjoy the good, celebrate the culture, and contribute to the flourishing of this city, whilst also being mindful of some of the less healthy aspects of London life? How can we learn to draw strength from God through prayer and worship in the midst of busy lifestyles? I believe there are some key disciplines we should seek to cultivate if we are to stay grounded whilst we enjoy all that good the city has to offer.

On Sundays in September and October we will be preaching on the books of 1 and 2 Timothy, looking at some of the challenges of city life. Timothy was a young Christian living in Ephesus in the first century A.D., leading the largest church in the Ancient World. These letters are full of advice and insights to help him thrive in city life. We have called the series InHabit: An Urban Survival Guide and over seven weeks we will look at the kinds of practices and habits one needs to develop in order to live effectively in an urban context. Check out the preaching calendar to find out what subjects are coming up.

We believe that life in the city is best done in community, and so we want to provide a host of ways for you to connect with others socially, and for personal and spiritual growth. Our Connect Groups and Life Groups are great contexts to get to know people, help and support one another, and work together to make London a better, safer, more fruitful place to live. There are also plenty of socials and events for you to get involved in this autumn term. Check out the calendar for more information.

Life in the city is fast paced. It’s busy, 24-7, with so much to see and do. As we seek to make a difference in our city, meeting the needs of those around us, seeing the sick healed, hearts mended and the needy cared for, we need a source of energy to sustain us. If we are to live with the same sort of focus, courage and effectiveness that Jesus had, we need to be empowered.

This November we are running our very first Empowered Conference, an event designed to equip us to be more effective, by receiving and relying on the Holy Spirit. We are thrilled to have Mike Pilavachi (Soul Survivor) and Eleanor Mumford (Vineyard) as our guest speakers, both of whom are brilliant communicators who are in high demand at conferences in the UK and overseas. Click here to find out more and book tickets.

In all these ways, and many more, I hope that this Autumn we will all grow in our love for this great city God has called us to, and will play our role in making London a great place to live, culturally, socially and spiritually.

Have you ever wondered what a strange experience it must be for an athlete to go from the relative obscurity of a personal training regime to competing in the Olympic Games, the world’s biggest athletic stage?

In the run up to the games, no-one would have known if Jessica Ennis, for instance, had decided to slack off her strict regime of training, or if Tom Daley had decided to have a lie-in instead of being in the pool for hours every morning six days a week. But then suddenly the moment arrives, and as we have seen at London 2012, these athletes are on the world’s stage with commentators and media cameras analysing every move, sometimes down to the hundredth of a second. The games are a test for the athletes, and their success depends on all all those little daily choices to train hard and diligently, enabling them to handle the pressure and fulfil their potential.

I think life is often like that.  We make so many little choices – how we use our spare time, what we think about on our commute, what we do when we’re alone – and most of the time no-one knows about them. But then at other times, opportunities arise in which all those choices we’ve made are suddenly exposed: An exam at University exposes how much time has been spent studying and how much has been spent ambling around on Facebook; a question from a friend about what God is saying to you shows whether you’ve made those little regular choices to reflect on and listen to His voice, or whether other priorities took precedence.

This metaphor of an athlete’s disciplined training is often used in the Bible (2 Timothy 2:5 and Hebrews 12:1). Choosing God’s best for us daily, though it may be hard in the moment, is a constant challenge. But thankfully, for those of us daunted at the challenge, we are promised the Holy Spirit as our helper, or trainer, seeing us through to the finish line, helping us live as God made us to.

Maybe you are returning to London this Autumn term and wanting to make the most of this year? Perhaps you’re arriving in London as a Fresher and want some help facing the challenges of university life in London?

At ChristChurch London we run a mentoring programme for all students who are looking to grow in faith, helping accelerate the depth of their relationship with God and giving lessons on self-leadership that benefit you well into the future.

We have a great team of mentors at ChristChurch ready to meet with you for ten sessions where you can cover great topics like: how to get to know God more as you read the bible, how to pray and what’s so amazing about Jesus’ resurrection, all tailored to where you are at personally.

Email us at students@christchurchlondon.org and we’ll connect you with a mentor.

The event thrived due to a brilliant bunch of volunteers who represented to the fullest by cooking and preparing food, painting faces and planning hilarious games for us all to enjoy (amongst other things). You know who you are and you’ve all done yourself and your community proud, so a colossal THANK YOU! Events such as these sound great in theory but it’s the sacrifice of those who get involved that makes the difference and helps turn ideas into reality.

Our semi-structured afternoon consisted of some mellow music provided by a band we were able to hire through the More than Gold initiative. There was also plenty of time to share food together, play football (of course!) and to have our own mini Olympics including skipping (2016 maybe?) and what I can only describe as ‘ball waddling’! It was wonderful to see people of different ages, cultures and walks of life mingling freely and enjoying the festivities together.

As much fun as this event was, in reality it was a building block contributing to what we really want to achieve through the ongoing ministry in Vauxhall. We at Goals to Glory (formerly the imaginatively titled Football in the Community) believe that to witness authentic community renewal requires long-term commitment to the people in this area. Monday football is a tool for breaking down barriers and growing relationships with local people but we are also exploring other ways in which this can happen.

I’d urge anyone who loves God, people and communities to get involved in what is happening at Vauxhall. It may be that you are part of a Life Group in the Lambeth area or live or work here. Alternatively you may live out of the area but still want to do your bit. This is equally as valid and is the case for most of our football volunteers who offer so much in terms of time and skill. I guarantee that you will be able to positively influence this community wherever your gifts lie so when it comes to social action think ‘me’ and not ‘them’!

If you would like to find out more about Goals to Glory get in touch with Chris Kirtley or join the group on The City.

We started our time in Istanbul with Yasam Kilisesi (Life Church) in the Asian side of the city. The church has a vision to welcome Turks who want to know more about Jesus, and after starting in October it is already 50 people strong. One Sunday we had the opportunity to host a big BBQ and do a spot of DIY (which involved being waist high in a pond clearing rocks!). Already it seems the church is doing so much in the community and in our short time there we had the opportunity to help with the Alpha Course and also meet with new believers over a spot of Turkish coffee.

During our time in Istanbul we met some great people, including some young people within a local park who we built relationships with and played football with (we won the game… but nearly died after!!) It was really amazing how they welcomed us into their lives as we shared God’s love with them. We also spent one morning praying in two different parts of the city where the Yasam team are thinking of planting a church next year – we felt a great awareness of God’s presence, never before have prayer-walks flown by so quickly.

After Istanbul we jumped on a two hour ferry to Yalova where we stayed with Isik Kilisesi (Lighthouse Church) which, since starting in 2004, has grown to 80 people. It was amazing to see the diversity of people and a real highlight of the trip was the Sunday service where we worshipped together with Turks, Iraqi’s and Iranians – a picture of heaven!

The team stayed in the church building; a fantastic four-floor house for which the church experienced amazing financial provision. This miracle is a reminder of the great plans God has for the church. In the last year the church has seen many Iraqi refugees coming, some of whom we hosted for a BBQ and football tournament. It was great to get alongside some of these believers and hear their stories of what is happening in Iraq and the experience of Christians there was a real eye opener and reminded us just how easy we have it in England. During our time in Yalova we attended a Farsi Alpha Course and heard stories of how God was revealing Himself to people.

Over the ten days we were there, we learnt so much about what love and community really looks like. Never before have I seen the love of Jesus radiate from people around me so much. We observed a sense of community everywhere we went, which challenged our tendency toward individualism.

When you look at the statistics, it is clear that the majority of people in Turkey have never heard the message of who Jesus is and had the opportunity to explore his claims. But from our short visit we were encouraged that God is doing great things there – so please be praying that people will continue to follow Jesus in that wonderful country!

The whole article is short and well worth a read. (You can read the full article here or the edited version from CCN here.) But in short, Keller succinctly addresses four typical responses that he sees as insufficient. I’ll let you read his arguments for yourself, but the four responses he critiques are as follows:

1. This makes no sense – I guess this proves there is no God
2. While there is a God, senseless suffering proves God is not completely in control of everything. He couldn’t stop this.
3. God saves some people and lets others die because he favours and rewards good people.
4. God knows what he’s doing, so be quiet and trust him

Each of these, he argues, falls short of the Biblical answer, which is:

‘God did not create a world with death and evil in it. It is the result of humankind turning away from him. We were put into this world to live wholly for him, and when instead we began to live for ourselves everything in our created reality began to fall apart – physically, socially, and spiritually. Everything became subject to decay. But God did not abandon us. Only Christianity of all the world’s major religions teaches that God came to earth in Jesus Christ and became subject to suffering and death himself – dying on the Cross to take the punishment our sins deserved–so that some day he can return to earth to end all suffering without ending us.’ 

Now if I’m honest, that answer still leaves me with a number of unanswered questions, as I’m sure it does for you. But what I like about the article is the way that Tim sums it up, demonstrating that this half an answer is better than any of the previous four attempts:

‘Yes, we don’t know the reason God allows evil and suffering to continue, or why it is so random, but now at least we know what the reason isn’t – what it can’t be. It can’t be that he doesn’t love us! It can’t be that he doesn’t care. He is so committed to our ultimate happiness that he was willing to plunge into the greatest depths of suffering himself. 

He understands us, he’s been there, and he assures us that he has a plan to eventually to wipe away every tear, to make “everything sad come untrue.”

Someone might say, “but that’s only half an answer to the question ‘Why’?” Yes, but it is the half that we need.

If God actually explained all the reasons why he allows things to happen as they do, it would be too much for our finite brains. Think of little children and their relationship to their parents. Three year olds can’t understand most of what their parents allow and disallow for them. But though they aren’t capable of comprehending their parents’ reasons, they are capable of knowing their parents’ love, and therefore capable of trusting them and living securely. That is what they really need. Now the difference between God and human beings would be infinitely greater than the difference between a thirty-year old parent and a three year old child. So we should not expect to be able to grasp all God’s purposes, but through the Cross and gospel of Jesus Christ, we can know his love. And that is what we need most.’

Exponential: How you and your friends can start a missional church movement – Dave and Jon Ferguson

Dave and Jon Ferguson are brothers who lead Community Christian Church, which meets in eleven locations in Chicago, a city about the same size as London. This book looks at how they have made a difference in the city by training people to start new things in really exciting ways.  It is a brilliant combination of challenging material and accessible strategies that anybody will be able to put into practice. If you have ever thought that the challenge of following Jesus just seems too difficult or unattainable, this book will help you to think again.

Speaking of Jesus: The art of not-evangelism – Carl Medearis

Many people find ‘evangelism’ difficult. We often fear having to defend our theology when people don’t agree with our views, or argue the case for Christianity. Carl Medearis argues that we’ve essentially got it wrong. Jesus didn’t call us to argue about structures and systems and theology; he simply asked us to speak about him, and when we do that, people love to listen.

Carl has countless stories to tell of opportunities he has had to speak about Jesus in places many of us might expect to be hostile to Christianity. In fresh, but incredibly simple ways, he explains how conversations about faith don’t have to be complex or scary, but can be natural, fun and fruitful, if we just learn to speak about Jesus. The author is an international expert in Arab-American and Muslim-Christian relations

Buy the books online:

I got lots of information, brochures and posters from the Olympics website and I got the idea of celebrating Super Saturday on 4 August. I decided to hire a DJ to play music and a chef to help with the barbecue. I contacted the local businesses in the community as well as the council and got some good response. The council was very encouraging and contributed £500 to the party.

The planning and organisation was mostly done by me and my husband Ian and we got a couple of our neighbours involved. To be honest, I had only spoken to my neighbours a couple of times but when I knocked on their door and talked about the party, they were all up for it. My Life Group and some members of the church were very encouraging. Abi Marlotie and Stephen Humphries were great in helping to drum up support for the event in the church and on The City.

Life Group members helped with shopping for the barbecue stuff and my husband Ian was a giant in the whole process. Sainsbury ran out of beef burgers on the Friday before the party so I woke Ian up at 7:00 on the Saturday morning after just 6 hours sleep to go to Sainsbury to buy all the burgers he could find.

The party came together on Saturday with help from a couple of neighbours, Canary Wharf Life Group members, and family and friends. We even had a couple of ladies who contacted me from Maryland in the USA volunteering to come and help, after seeing the party mentioned on an Olympics website! We also had a Chilean TV station and a UK TV production company come to film the event, and a German TV station interviewed me about it.

At the start of the party, I prayed to God, as there was just so much food and drink, but at the end of the day, all the burgers, sausages and chicken was gone. As more people came, we had to go and buy extra burgers to feed them and had to extend the time of the Chef and DJ to cope with the guests. There were streams of people coming over 8 hours and I think we must have fed over 400 people, with visitors from at least 30 countries coming to the event.

The Local Counsellor came and was very pleased and said he would report back to the Mayor that it was a great event. Many neighbours that we had never met were so happy and thankful that we had put on the event and thoroughly enjoyed the evening. We realised that we had a few Christian neighbours and are now going to meet up to start a prayer group in the estate.

There was also a Morrocan lady who is one of our neighbours but had no friends in the estate. She came up to our flat and helped with transporting things to the barbecue and we are planning to invite her for dinner soon. More neighbours told stories about difficult times they had when they were sick and had no help as they did not know anyone in the estate. It was just a humbling experience to hear all these stories and I said that we should keep up the relationships that had started.

Although we were very tired, in the early hours of Sunday morning, my husband and I gave God thanks and I felt that what we had done was like a seed that we had sown in our community, to build relationships with our neighbours and members of the community. We felt such a huge presence of God’s love, which we had shared with our community, and we felt that God was giving us a double dose of that love.

And one Sunday in every month, I have the joy – and challenge – of looking after up to a dozen of them. They’re all at the very cute and entertaining age of 2/3 and I know that, along with three other ‘Jumping Beans’ teammates, I have the privilege of being one of the first people in their young lives to teach and to show them who Jesus is.

The thing about working with toddlers is that they constantly surprise you; you can read them the same Bible story five times over and their blank little faces might suggest that nothing has gone in at all – but over the past couple of years I’ve learned that they do hear every single word. And I am constantly amazed when they demonstrate just how much they have taken on board.

Last Sunday, we were talking about favourite Bible characters and Noah came up. There was a lot of excited chatter about the animals in the story, accompanied by some wonderful noises (if you need cheering up, ask Joshua Ash what sound an elephant makes) and I asked the children where the animals lived. “On a ark”; “in a big boat”; “with the other animals” came the replies. So I thought I’d try the next question: “And where does God live?” The owner of a large pair of beautiful brown eyes looked up at me and said, “In my heart!” But of course.

Next, we got out the play dough and the crayons and drew pictures of our favourite Bible characters (should I be worried that Jonah’s whale consistently features more often than Jesus?) and sang a song about how big and strong and mighty God is – with all the actions of course, as they’re the best bit. When play time was over, we put the fire engine, tea set and car garage back in their boxes and waited for the parents to arrive and scoop up their little bundles of joy until we get to welcome them back again next week.

I asked Phil White what it’s like in the Kids Club and he summarised it as “loads of FUN, MESS and RUNNING AROUND.” Sounds brilliant, so I asked him for more details; here’s what he said:

“Serving on the team is loads of fun. Kids Club is for the children in the church aged 4-10 years old. At the moment, we get around 10 children every Sunday, but we are all preparing for the forthcoming mass influx of Jumping Beans children!”

“Kids Club is all about building a great community of children who know and are getting to know Jesus more and more each Sunday. We try to focus on one awesome point about our Lord each session and explore this through reading His Word with them, acting out stories, craft time, and loads more fun games. But most of all we want Kids Club to be a place where a great group of FRIENDS can grow up in the church together, growing in their FAITH and being excited about coming to church and INVITING THEIR FRIENDS from school and local communities to join us.

“The best thing about Kids Club is the fact that there are more and more children joining us all the time – which means there are more and more families in the church – which is great news. I remember when I first started in Kids Club there were often only two children! Now we have a small crowd! Kids Club has recently been joining the main meeting for the worship time, with the children singing their hearts out and making loads of noise; expect that noise to increase more and more as time goes by!”

Joy Tilsley (whose husband Andy advertised the children’s ministry as ‘free day care’ at the last dedications service!) oversees the 0-1 year olds in the Crèche, and her team often welcome around 14 babies on a Sunday, in addition to a handful of feeding mums… with many more on the way. When I asked Joy what her favourite thing about doing Crèche was, she couldn’t decide. As well as the experience of welcoming new families into the church and building relationships and community, Joy loves the room itself – with its lovely big windows and sweeping views of the Thames – and has great fun with the children during “Rhyme Time” and story time as the children explore fun ways of learning about Jesus.

Within the children’s ministry teams, it’s our role to make families feel welcome and to share the love of Jesus with them, teaching their children godly values and providing a safe environment for them to learn and engage with other children among God’s people. Not all of us had that privilege growing up, but it is amazing to be able to play some part in sharing the love of Christ with them from the word go. They’re our family – and they are oh so worth getting to know.

As Joy puts it: “It’s not just babysitting; it’s making disciples.” (Take note, Andy!).

…And if you’re tempted to find out more about getting involved with the children’s ministry, we would LOVE to hear from you, so drop us an email as follows:

Creche (0/1s) – Joy Tilsley, joytilsley@hotmail.co.uk
Jumping Beans (2/3s) – Annie Wilson, missanniewilson@hotmail.com
Kids Club (4-10s) – Phil White, philipwhite333@hotmail.com

Many people profess to have a vague belief in the existence of God, but have little knowledge of what He’s actually like. Or perhaps we may have a picture of Him in our minds, shaped by pop-culture, hopes, dreams and stereotypes:

A wizened old man on a cloud, with a cotton-wool beard and a penchant for harp music. An absentee landlord who doesn’t really care what we get up to just so long as we pay the rent on time and don’t mess the place up too much. Or worse; an irrelevance, an historical relic, a tyrant…

It seems to me that it’s important not simply whether we believe in God, but what we believe about Him. And Christians don’t simply believe that there is a God, but also that He is somehow knowable, and has chosen to reveal certain things about Himself through the Bible.

Over six Sundays in August and September, we are going to be looking at some of what the Bible claims about the character of God. We’ll consider who He is, what He is like, and how we can get to know Him. If you know little about God but would like to know more, I hope this series will help you. You may have thought about, read about, believed in and worshipped God for decades. I hope this series will help you too, as you see Him from fresh angles and find new reasons to worship Him.

We will address a number of questions over this series. What does it mean for God to be our Creator, and how does that affect the way in which we relate to Him? To what extend does He intervene in our lives, and how is He our Protector and Provider? How do we understand God being both Holy and Love? If holiness means that God is different from, set apart from us, how can we have a meaningful relationship with Him? And specifically, what does it mean for us to relate to Him as a loving Father?

We’ll recommend a load of books as we work through the series I’m sure, but in case you want a head start, here are a couple to get you started:

Incomparable – Andrew Wilson

Andrew is a deep thinker and a clear writer, which is the best kind of combination when writing a book on God! Incomparable looks at 60 names, descriptions and attributes of God, in short, bite-size chapters. It is accessible and inspiring, with plenty of application, but also manages to take you deep, helping you to think about God in new ways. If you’re looking for a book to help you understand God afresh, or maybe something to work through and reflect on one chapter a day, then this is the book for you.

Knowing God – J.I. Packer 

This book is a classic. Written in the 70s, Knowing God has been read by well over a million readers, and has helped many to think seriously about God, perhaps for the first time. It’s a little more in-depth and dare I say dry than Incomparable, but is inspiring and well-rounded. Over 22 chapters, Packer looks not only at what God is like, but also why thinking about God is important, how we should go about studying Him, and what the practical benefits are of knowing Him. Highly recommended.

Buy the books online:

We will be having one service at 12.00, at the Pimlico Academy on Lupus Street, SW1V 3AT. Given the Olympic celebrations across the city, we decided to make the most of being at a different venue and decided to hold a Summer Party! So, after the midday church service, we will be having a hog roast lunch, games and hopefully plenty of fun!

Make sure you bring something to sit on – a blanket, cushions, camping chair etc, your own drinks and cups, and any cakes/ puddings you may want – the hog roast will be provided at no cost to you!

There will be a bouncy castle (suitable for both children and adults), a ball pool for the little ones, table tennis and loads of space to hang out together. It’s going to be a great afternoon!!

Getting to Pimlico Academy is really easy:

It is a 10 minute walk from Victoria Station, 3 minutes from Pimlico Station and about 10-15 minutes from Vauxhall underground and overground stations. There is plenty of free on street parking in the area around Pimlico Academy.

For more information visit www.tfl.gov.uk or www.getaheadofthegames.com

Other important information: 

Children’s groups will operate as normal. Head towards the Sports Hall where parents and children will be directed to their groups.

Our service and after-church tea and coffee are all taking place in the Sports Hall. There will be plenty of Welcome Team members in their blue t-shirts and signs to direct you. The Summer Party will be outside in the school grounds. However, if the weather is bad, we will move the party to the Sports Hall so don’t let wet weather put you off coming along!

Please remember that we do no have the exclusive hire of Pimlico Academy. There will be lots of others using the venue for activities such as a boot sale, the library, the gym etc. You are responsible for your possessions at all times. We ask parents to take particular care of their children, especially during the Summer Party but also at all other times.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Note – on Sunday 12th August, we meet again at Pimlico Academy at 11am and 4pm.

The Marriage Preparation Course runs for five consecutive weeks, usually on a Sunday between the morning and evening services, a convenient time for many of us.

The course is practical, insightful and supportive, a great place to ask questions about all sorts of topics that relate to married life such as; what the bible says about marriage, how to manage finances together, who will do the housework, making big decisions, sex, managing conflict, planning for children, and of course, relating to our soon to be in-laws! That is to name just a few subjects, but we do cover much more in our short time together.

The course is run in a relaxed atmosphere where we’re all connected by the same question, “how can we do marriage well?”

If you decide to attend the course, you can expect to meet lots of other couples at the same stage of life as you, which is a great reminder that we’re all learning and we’re all on a journey with God and with each other. This is a non-threatening space to provide those who are embarking on marriage with some practical help and support.

This course provides a down to earth environment in which each couple is given exercises to do, which provoke discussion, helping us to ask questions and explore topics that we may not have considered in our conversations as a couple. Homework is also given for further exploration of married life. We encourage each couple to look at ways in which they can work well together and it really does get you thinking about married life beyond the wedding day, which as we know can be all-consuming if we’re not too careful.

We all go into married life with some preconceived ideas that we’ve picked up along the way from our parents, relatives or friends. We tend to think that married life will be as we’ve observed it; this can be both positive and negative as unfortunately I think we’ve all seen marriages not working well.

The course is a great way to look at these preconceived ideas and to realise that each marriage is unique, as each of us are. Very often there is no right or wrong way to do married life, what we aim for is a biblical approach that respects both people, encouraging us nearer to God and His plan for our lives.

Joseph and I have found that couples always have questions on the various aspects of married life and it’s a pleasure to be able to serve alongside other couples on the marriage preparation course, helping to address some of those questions.

I would encourage any engaged couple or those in a committed relationship who know that they are heading for engagement and marriage to attend this course. We’ve had lots of positive feedback over the years with hundreds of couples attending in that time. My view is that it’s never too early to learn what the Bible says about marriage and to hear some of the stories of those who are already married.

Marriage is many things, an adventure, and a great way to practice grace, forgiveness, loving, compromise, friendship and so much more. On top of learning all about married life, there will be tea and cake served at each session which again, in my view, always helps regardless of the topic!

We’d love to welcome you to the course, so if you’re wondering whether or not this is for you, don’t hesitate to talk to us on a Sunday. We believe you’ll learn and grow as a couple in knowing each other better and in getting to know other couples too.

In addition to the five-week course, each couple is given the opportunity to follow up with one of the couples from the Marriage Preparation Course team. This is an opportunity to discuss the course or any areas that you’d like help or support in.

We’ve found that this provides the pastoral care which many couples feel encouraged by. It is a private space in which to share and to be prayed for. The course covers all areas and just like married life, no topic is out of bounds, so come along ready to ask your questions, meet new friends and eat good cake.

The next course begins on Sunday 30 September and runs for five weeks. Click here for more information and to get in touch.

Rather than being a book telling you how to conduct relationships, or indeed how to start one, instead it prompted me to grapple with my view of life as a single Christian. It made me think about God’s plans for my life, making the most of all that He has given me in the here and now. It provoked my thinking on things like loneliness, building community and why I should honour singleness.  It also covered the theological issues of singleness, in particular how singleness is a gift and how that relates to the gift of marriage. Essentially it dispelled the myth that the gift of singleness is a super power that the special/ poor unfortunate/ terribly servant-hearted few receive from God. Singleness is a gift for now, and the challenge is to live as if this is the only life I have to lead, holding lightly all that God may or may not have for me in the future.

As with any book, there were some parts that helped me more than others. However, reading this book in conjunction with the Meaning of Marriage by Tim and Kathy Keller and alongside hearing the Love is a Verb sermon series, I’ve found myself reflecting a lot on how I live my life. What I do with it as a single Christian, how I can live like every day counts and not just those that take place following my wedding day (God willing), how well I trust God for the future whatever it may look like, whether I am prepared to follow God no matter what He asks of me – even if I am not married.

If you are single, I recommend The Single Issue to you for all these reasons. I also recommend The Meaning of Marriage. Don’t let the title put you off. Not only will it help you develop a Godly understanding of marriage now so that as you pursue relationships in the future, perhaps with the intention of marriage, you do so with a Biblical perspective; but there is also an excellent chapter on singleness. Grow to understand the life your married friends are seeking to live together so you can be a better friend to them. Just because they are married doesn’t mean they don’t want to hang out, do fun things in London, and chat about things other than their spouse.

If you are married, I recommend The Single Issue to you. In a church in a city like London, you are bound to have many good friends who are single. This book will help you to love and support them even more than you already do. Challenge and provoke your single friends to pursue the life God has for them. Remember that as much as marriage is God-given and a gift that your friends may long for, if they are single, this is God’s best for them at this time in their life. He has not forgotten them and indeed has great plans for them. Help them to discover what they may be.

He places us in a diverse community so that we are better able to love Him and love one another. So if you’re reading this thinking I don’t really know any single/ married girls and guys very well, do something about it!

Buy the books online:

I want to be honest about my failures, the challenges I face, the difficulties of holding my head above water. But I also want to be respectable and respected, I want to be approved and affirmed. Sometimes I want to be seen as good more than I want to get better.

Confession is a good thing, because it is shame that keeps me silent. And I get to show vulnerability and courage. The willingness to accept that there are things that are not the way they should be. I show remorse, do an act of penance: the prompting of healthy guilt to live a better life. A moment when grace casts an umbrella and the truth sneaks out, and it is never as bad as you think. The deeds that enforced their secrecy with threats of terrifying consequences wilt in the open air. Words that could have judged come with care to soothe your tortured soul.

But my life is too messed up for that to be enough. If I’m not careful, confession can be just a show. Bravery in revealing challenges is a carefully stage-managed craft. The first time I own up to my failings and commit to set along the straight and narrow, it is the appropriate act of a Christian living out the process of discipleship and growing into greater likeness of Christ. The fourth, the fifth, the countless time I tread the path, the story takes a different hue. No longer am I pursuing righteousness, now I feel like a recalcitrant sinner caught in my shame.

But grace is the same, the first, and the fifth, and the fifty-first time.

Confession, forgiveness, grace and redemption is not a one off act that guarantees immediate perfection. Deep down we all know that there will be another time; that we will come once again to the throne of grace, whether with the same vices as before, or a new set of charms eager to catch us in their clutches.

I am a broken hurting person. And for some time yet I expect to be the same. Life does not deal us a perfect hand, and that hurts. We do things that inflict pain on ourselves and those closest to our side. We have been grieved by the acts of others. There is hurt and pain and an overflowing river of tears that will not wash away the guilt and the shame. There is lifeless love that makes us a slave to rules that we draw ever tighter in a constant failing quest to right our wrongs.

And then there is grace. All is grace. Not just individual acts of forgiveness, or a guilt trip at having to return for more like Oliver asking for more gruel. But an ocean of grace that we cannot escape.

As Brennan Manning puts it so powerfully in The Ragamuffin Gospel:

“Our huffing and puffing to impress God, our scrambling for brownie points, our thrashing about trying to fix ourselves while hiding our pettiness and wallowing in guilt are nauseating to God and are a flat denial of the gospel of grace.”

Because it can sound patronising when people like me give advice to single people, here’s a video of a poem by MissTerious Janette… ikz (mysteriousgenetics.com) sharing her experience of waiting for ‘the one’ by waiting on ‘The One.’

The simple fact is, it’s one of those topics that you feel most unqualified to speak about. What do I know about love, dating, handling conflict, communication or singleness?! Well, it’s a good job a whole host of people have gone before us and written some superb stuff on the topic, which has helped communicate the Bible in an accessible way and make it relevant to everyday life.

So as we go through this Love is a Verb series, here is just a small sampling of book recommendations to supplement the stuff we talk about on Sundays. We’ll also recommend others as the series progresses, so stay tuned for further blogs, and listen out during the sermons as well – but I hope this gets you started at least!

The Meaning of Marriage – Tim and Kathy Keller

This book is listed first for a reason – it’s the best I’ve read on the subject, and is utterly brilliant. Possibly the greatest theme of the book is the importance of friendship, and so it’s accessible for whatever stage of life you’re in. Don’t dismiss the title if you’re single or dating, as there’s some superb advice on that too – and make sure when you read it that you pay attention to the footnotes at the end of the book. They are well worth reading and some of the best gold nuggets of wisdom are found there. If you only read one book during the Love is a Verb series, make it this one.

The Marriage Book - Nicky and Sila Lee

I’d particularly recommend this book to those who are thinking of getting married, or considering marriage in the future. This book has foundational wisdom that if lived out, will lead you to long-lasting, deep and satisfying relationships. Don’t let that twee sentence put you off though, as there’s loads of practical stuff about handling conflict, sexual intimacy and the importance of commitment through tough times. It is above all, very real. Marriage certainly isn’t Hollywood, but the reality can be amazing – like all things it just needs hard work, and lots of it. This book will be of enormous help.

The Parenting Book – Nicky and Sila Lee

This book is probably more of a recommendation from Mrs T than from me, as she’s devoured it more than I have, but like The Marriage Book, it’s packed full of practical wisdom. It’s based around two particular principles (which can be extrapolated to other relationships too): Love and boundaries. There are different strategies of parenting for different age groups, which particularly impressed me, as well as honest assessments of the authors’ own mistakes with their four children. They even address single-parenting challenges, and if you’re a parent needing some extra reading, I’d start with this before you look at anything else. I’d also say that if you’re not really into the “God Thing” this book is still worth reading. While it’s written by Christians (and that becomes more evident towards the end) I doubt you’ll find it pushy or provocative – it’s more a book of common sense, which happens to be written by some Christians.

The Five Love Languages – Gary Chapman

So… is it words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, gifts or acts of service that really communicate love? Well, if you’re married to me, it’s all of them, in vast quantities. That said, this book does unpick the fact that we’re all different, and therefore need to learn different ways of relating to each other. For me this was never a thrill-a-minute page turner, but it was most certainly helpful, and I’m an all-round fan of the author. I’d strongly recommend you check out some of his other books as well, but suggest you start here.

Boy Meets Girl – Joshua Harris

This is the more helpful sequel to I Kissed Dating Goodbye and to be honest, I’d advise you to skip the first one and head straight to this. Not everything Joshua Harris writes about can be taken from American culture and applied straight into a British context, but there’s enough good stuff in here to make it worth recommending. There are some important questions to ask yourself before you consider getting married, as well as a helpful section on dealing with past sexual regrets in a new relationship. The whole idea of courtship might seem a little bit outdated or strange in our culture today, but to be honest, doing relationships well, and sometimes ending relationships well, is all about people skills, and so this is probably worth a read if you’re navigating the tricky waters of dating relationships.

And here’s a Brucie Bonus recommendation from Mr Stroud to round things off:

Making Love Last - Bill and Lynne Hybels

This is a really helpful, practical read by the Hybels on how to make your relationship work. It is written for those considering marriage as well as those already married and has lots of insightful and really helpful comments about marriage. One of my favourite things of the whole book was the relentless honesty with which they approach the subject. Bill and Lynne are honest about their arguments, the challenges they faced – particularly in the early years of marriage – the pain, the cost and the joy. Highly recommended particularly for those just starting out, or in the early years of marriage.

Buy the books online:

We are doing this by releasing men and women to lead groups focussed on people or places they are particularly passionate about.

This means that we have a group of people who care that Soho becomes a better place and are meeting together to work out how they can best facilitate that. There’s a group starting shortly for people who care about systemic injustice and want to be part of the answer to this pressing problem in our world. There is a student group that is connecting with other students and helping them explore questions of faith via a Student Alpha, and a group engaging with Eritreans and Ethiopians living in London. And several others as well…

It is early days but so far the people involved are loving them, the leaders have loads of energy because they are involved in things they are really passionate about and the potential for good things happening in our city as a result seems really high.

So far, so good… until Joel Kendall, leant over his desk the other day and said,  “so David… what are we going to call these groups?”

My heart sank. I hate choosing names for things. I was ok choosing names for my kids and every now and then inspiration has struck for the name of a church I’ve started. But other than that, I’ve always harboured a secret hope that I would be around the right creative people at the right time who could come up with a great idea, which would mean that I could simply use their idea and bathe in the reflected glory of their brilliance! But my life has never seemed to work out that way…

So, in response to Joel’s prompting a few of us got in front of a whiteboard to brainstorm together. Of course, it is always easier to work out what you don’t like than what you do. Consequently, ‘Missional Community’ (how do you explain that to people who have never been in church in two minutes flat?), ‘Mid Size Groups’ (boring) and various clever but ultimately obscure Latin or Hebrew sounding names were binned.

This made us stand back to think about what mattered in a name: it should sum up what the groups were all about, should be short, easily memorable and not dependant on insider church language.

So we drew up a long list of options: the only trouble was that most of them were no good. We developed headaches the longer we kept going and agreed to have another run at it after the weekend.

Sometime on Saturday or Sunday I started wondering whether ‘Connect Groups’ would work. It speaks of the most important dynamics in the groups: connecting with each other (in other words, building community), connecting with God (through worship, prayer and discipleship) and connecting with the part of the city that matters to us. Also it does not require being in church for months or years for it to be understandable.

So I causally threw it in next time we all met. Everyone liked it and it seemed to fit our criteria perfectly, so we had got ourselves a name and I felt uncharacteristically creative.

So next time you hear someone talking about their group that is focused on helping students and new graduates settle into London or serve the international community then just remind them that they’ve got a name now. They are called Connect Groups and they are helping us connect with each other and connect with the city that we love.

If you want to know more about Connect groups, here is a list of the groups that are currently meeting regularly, with links to find them on The City…

Soho, led by Davina Belcher
Students, Internationals and Young Professionals, led by Kpop Yangye and Macey Ho
Global Students, led by Joel Kendall
Students South, led by Joel Kendall
Ethiopians and Eritreans, led by Thomas Mesfin
Promoting Justice, led by Chris and Chricci Williamson (coming soon…)

Dan Redman
(Television Production)

“Mobilise 2012 may well prove to be one of the most influential moments for my faith. I really felt like God was giving me, along with all of the delegates, a new sense of vision and challenging me to step out in sharing the good news of Jesus with those around me.

On the last night, I was one of hundreds and hundreds who left excited. Excited for all that God has done through Jesus; all he is doing; and all that He is yet to do through us.”

Basil Mussad
(Biomedical Science)

“Booking into Mobilise seemed like one of those ridiculous, spontaneous things that I tend to do every once in a while. As soon as I booked, my thoughts were ‘Oh man, I’m going to regret this: what about my exams?!’ I could not have been more wrong.  My expectations for the week were completely blown out of the water. It was a character-changing, challenging time. God was speaking to me about my passions, my leadership and my future, and the prayer times were amazing.

Since that week I have had more boldness in praying for God to do remarkable things. I have managed to witness three incredible healings, see my cousin come to faith in Jesus, pray with a housemate who is not a Christian and receive a much-needed gift equal to the cost for Mobilise.

But there is still so much more to be done. As well as positively influencing those around me, I have felt challenged to step up and take responsibility for my own life. In this way, I can help others to be better leaders than myself. We cannot be half-hearted in doing what God has called us to do. The week at Mobilise helped me think of some practical ways in which I can do this.”

Joseph Landreth-Smith
(Media Creative)

“How do I summarise the week? ‘Equipping’ is an understatement. ‘Inspiring’ is just being polite. Looking back, I cannot believe I considered not going. I felt the week was a reflection of what the Holy Spirit is doing more broadly in my generation. As we heard, the church doesn’t have a mission, the mission has a church.

The conference was full on from the moment we arrived: and it was unlike other years.  Not only did we have round-the-clock community but also a series of challenging talks from passionate preachers from across the globe.

I now feel more a part of the mission than ever before. I have a mountain of notes and memories on how to change my lifestyle, and work towards being a pioneer and ‘game-changer’ in my generation.”

If you did not make it this year, do not worry! Have a listen to the talks at mobilise.org.uk

Now, I must confess that I was a little dubious when I was first approached about running Student Alpha. In my mind the idea was exciting and terrifying in equal measure; on one hand, the prospect of using hospitality and explaining the hope I have in Jesus to my friends was exhilarating. But on the other hand, I could imagine endless situations where things could go wrong and I’d look a fool. Ignoring the fear, we launched, having no idea how many people were going to show up.

I was thrilled that we had the chance to present the Gospel in such a logical way. After living with people for a number of months, I had grown aware that they had little understanding of what Christianity is truly about, and it was exciting to realise that we’d been given an opening to explain it. This proved to be one of the most encouraging things about running Alpha because it allows Christians to be able to show our faith in an open, honest and authentic way. One consequence of this was that it seemed to give my friends a greater freedom to probe me with questions throughout the week. It gave me a glimpse into where they were at, and how much they’d been thinking about all we’d discussed. One week we’d been speaking on prayer and a few days later whilst chatting with a friend who was a guest on Alpha, I felt prompted to suggest to her that she pray about her situation. Our Wednesday evening had been the perfect foundation for that comment.

A few weeks on and we’ve finished, but my hope is that all our conversations and cooking will in time, help those who were present to find answers to their questions. I know that most of our guests would have found it harder to attend something run centrally but the fact that Alpha was in their kitchen made it unavoidable.

Running the course was a challenge but taught me tons about trusting in God and not in my own strength. When you’re aware that no one will turn up, or listen, or respond without God intervening, it really throws your prayer life into new depths. Perhaps most importantly though, it made me fall more in love with the completeness of the Gospel and delight more fully in how much Jesus accomplished. Each week it blew me away to realise that Jesus wanted to show up in the back corner of university accommodation, with a bunch of people that Queen Mary had allocated to me as flatmates. God’s grace in the whole situation has been utterly remarkable and I can’t wait to see what happens next!

I remember going out onto the rugby pitch on one occasion, looking forward to the match. However, it wasn’t very long before that all changed. The opposition were a ferocious bunch who intimidated us with their extraordinary levels of energy and bewildered us with their skill. We quickly realised that we were in for a long and humiliating game, as the future England Under 18 Captain and his mates utterly took us to pieces!

Getting out on the playing field is one thing, but if we are to stand a chance of winning, we need to be properly equipped.

At the end of the gospels Jesus commissioned his disciples to continue his mission across the world. To even the most ambitious of us, that is an enormous task, and Jesus’ own example set the bar high!

When he returned to Galilee, there was something about him made news spread quickly (Luke 4:14). People were amazed at the authority with which he spoke. He had such insight and wisdom. He prayed for the sick to be healed, and performed countless miracles. Perhaps most remarkably, he seemed to know with startling clarity exactly what to do in any given moment. Time and again he would say things like, ‘the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees the Father doing’ (John 5:19).

The remarkable thing is that God made it possible for us all to live this way. Focussed. Energised. Empowered. He promises us power to achieve the mission through the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8).

What would it look like for you to live like that in twenty-first century London? What difference would it make in your street, workplace, or place of study if you knew more of the empowering of the Spirit?

When we are empowered by God, our lives should look different. Individuals will have a greater awareness of what God is calling them to do, and the impetus to obey Him. We will find ourselves with newfound boldness to share the good news about Jesus in compelling ways. We will see people come to a new experience of physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing as we pray with and care for them.

We are already enjoying some of these things at ChristChurch London, but are aware that we still have a way to go. So in various ways over the next few months, we will be focussing on learning to be empowered by the Spirit.

In May and June we are running a five-week sermon series entitled Empowered. This will look at subjects like hearing God’s voice, growing in character and praying for the sick. Accompanying this series, we will be holding a prayer meeting on 29 May, during which we will have an opportunity to ask God to empower us as individuals and as a church.

We have also been training a new team to pray for people at every service. This team will help people apply the content of the message, pray for healing, or give an opportunity to enter into a relationship with God.

A little further off, we are excited to be holding our first Empowered conference on 9-10 November, with guest speakers Mike Pilavachi from Soul Survivor and Eleanor Mumford from the Vineyard. Both speakers have been extremely well-received at ChristChurch in the past, and will really help us to grow in this area. Tickets will be available soon.

These promise to be an exciting few months. I am looking forward to the opportunities and adventures that lie ahead of us as we learn to hear God’s voice, obey His leading and trust in His power to achieve what He has called us to do.

Surely that can’t be right. I mean… I understand the feeling – I too find it baffling! But if God decided to put it in the Bible, and if all Scripture is breathed by God and is useful for training believers (2 Tim 3:16) then there has to be a reason for it being there, and we must be able to make some practical sense of it. 

What is the purpose of the book? Let’s be honest; bits of it read like the script of a disaster movie! Is it all a prophecy of a distant future? And if so how does it have any relevance today? Or should we be expecting this kind of thing any day now? Who are the various characters, what do the numbers and names represent, and how is this bleak picture of the future meant to give us a sense of hope?

Behind all of the complexities and big questions, I think the core message of Revelation is simple. It’s a book about power-struggles, hope in difficult times, and the trajectory of history. And the conclusion is this: Jesus Wins!

This Summer we want to provide an opportunity to get our heads round this important book in more depth than we would be able to in a regular Sunday sermon. In a recent poll on The City, an overwhelming number of people said they would like some teaching on the book of Revelation. So in June and July, in between the Sunday meetings, that’s exactly what you’ll get…

Over six interactive sessions, we’ll look at some of the key themes and tricky passages, with plenty of opportunity for questions. We won’t cover every verse, but my hope is that we’ll be able to get a good grasp of how to interpret the book, which will leave you feeling more confident about reading and understanding it for yourself.

The series will run from 17 June – 29 July, with one week out on 22 July. It will take place in the Queenhithe Room at the Mermaid from 13.30-15.00, and places are limited, so you’ll need to book in here.

Whether you feel you know a lot, a little, or none at all, I hope that this series will help you to begin to get to grips with this challenging and exciting book.

‘Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither [...] Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes […] Those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.’ (Psalm 37:1-2a, 7, 9b)

I can hardly begin to imagine what must have been going through the disciples’ minds on Easter Saturday. The man with whom they had shared their lives for three years, who had claimed to be the Messiah for whom they’d been waiting, upon whom they have placed their dreams and expectations, had suffered an excruciating death and now lay in a tomb. And with him lay their hope.

The question of why bad things happen to good people is immense and difficult. Still, across the centuries, God’s people have drawn a sense of comfort from knowing that God is with them, even in the pain.

Easter Saturday is a painful day full of questions and disappointments. It stands in the silence between the despair of Friday and the hope of Sunday. The disciples on the road to Emmaus were forced to re-evaluate their whole worldview and their faith in God’s purposes. ‘They stood still, their faces downcast’ and said, “Jesus was handed over to death and crucified, but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” (Luke 24:17, 20-21)

It is incredibly important that we learn how to handle times of silence.

Even the great King David, who wrote Psalm 37 above also wrote ‘You will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay’ (Psalm 16:10), but as Peter reminds us David most definitely did die, was buried and has decayed! In this we learn a valuable lesson, that David’s hope was not in vain, and that God works through even the most hopeless situations. Peter continues, ‘David was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay’ (Acts 2:29-31)

It’s easy to see it now, with the gift of hindsight, but even as Jesus’ body lay in a grave, having cried out only a day earlier ‘My God, why have you forsaken me!’ (Matt 27:26) God had not abandoned him. It was all part of his plan for the healing of the world and the rescue of mankind.

God doesn’t work in predictable ways. The Apostle Paul marvels at the apparent illogic of the cross, saying, ‘We declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for it they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory’ (1 Corinthians 2:8).

When wisdom seems hidden, God is at work. In the darkness and gloom of Easter Saturday, trust in God. Sunday is coming.

Questions for Reflection

• How must the disciples have felt on Easter Saturday? Can you identify with their experience and their questions?
• How can you learn to see God at work in your world, even when He appears to be absent?

Prayer

Why not use the following to help you to pray today:

Lord Jesus, I thank you that you do not abandon your people, but are always in control. Even as you lay in a grave on Easter Saturday, God’s purposes were not defeated. Please help me to see you at work in my life, even when it seems like you are absent. I choose to trust in you, and I look forward to Easter Sunday and the promise of hope and new life. Amen

Going Deeper

If you find yourself with some extra time today, why not listen to David Stroud’s talk from the Teach us to Pray series on how to pray when God seems silent, and for further reading on this subject check out Pete Greig’s excellent book God on Mute.

Join us tomorrow for our Easter Sunday service, where we will think about the resurrection of Jesus and celebrate the promise of new life. We will only hold one meeting on that day, so join us at The Mermaid Centre, from 11.00-12.30.

‘The soldiers stripped Jesus and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him […]Above his head they placed the written charge against him: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” […] About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”) […] And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.’ (Matt 27:28-31, 37, 50)

As if an unwarranted death sentence was not enough, Jesus is beaten, mocked, and abused by his captors. The whole battalion – around 600 Roman soldiers – gathered to watch Jesus be dressed like a king, and then beaten with the staff that was meant to symbolise power and authority. The God who spoke Creation into existence, reduced to nothing at the hands of cruel men.

The mockery didn’t stop with the torturing. People cried out “If you are the Son of God, come down!” (v40) and “He saved others, but he can’t save himself!” (v42) Even the rebels who were crucified next to him heaped insults upon him (v44).

But little did they know that beneath all of their mockery and scorn was a prophetic reality. Jesus was the King, though they couldn’t perceive it. He was the Son of God, and the resurrection would soon prove it (cf. Rom 1:4). And although Jesus could have saved himself, the fact that he didn’t was the way by which all mankind could be saved!

Then the most agonising moment of all, when Jesus cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”(v46). This is a direct quote from Psalm 22, an incredibly prophetic Psalm which predicted not only the manner of Jesus’ death, but also the reaction of the crowds, and something of the anguish that Jesus must have experienced. Thirsty, mocked by all, bones out of joint, clothes divided amongst his killers, hands and feet pierced by nails, and ultimately separated from God.

Even within Psalm 22 there is a glimmer of hope. God has always been faithful to His people (v3-5), he hears the cry of the suffering (v24) and He promises that His name will be made known in all the Earth (v27-31). This combination of deep anguish and yet surprising hope is remarkable. As we reflect upon the cross, we cannot help but be amazed at the exchange that took place. Jesus, the only sinless being ever to have lived, died in our place, taking our pain and brokenness upon himself, so that we could be set free. ‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Cor 5:21).

This Good Friday, take a moment to reflect on the wonderful exchange of the cross:

• He was lead outside the city, so that we could be brought into the city of God.
• He was stripped naked, so that we could be clothed in righteousness.
• His body was broken, so that we could be made whole.
• He was forsaken by God, so that we could be accepted.
• He was put to death, so that we could be made alive.

Questions for Reflection

• It is so easy to become familiar with the cross and to forget the reality of how Jesus must have felt physically, emotionally and spiritually. How have you seen this passage in a new light today?
• How can we learn to see hope in dark places, in your own life and in the lives of those you love? How can we learn to trust in God as Jesus and the Psalmist did, even at the points of greatest agony?

Prayer

Why not use the following to help you to pray today:

Lord Jesus, thank you that you allowed yourself to be humiliated, tortured and killed so that I could receive dignity, forgiveness and life. Help me never to take your sacrifice for granted, but to recognise and worship you as the true King who gave himself for me. Help me to find hope in dark places, and to trust that you are in control, even when life is at its most difficult. Amen

Going Deeper

If you find yourself with some extra time today, read and reflect on Psalms 22 and 69 and Isaiah 53, and consider how they pre-empt and predict Jesus’ experience at the cross.

You may also want to read this article by Liam Thatcher on The Darkness.

Don’t forget to join us for our Good Friday meeting today, as we worship, share communion and reflect on the significance of the cross.

Time: 11.00-12.30
Venue: 79 Endell Street, WC2H 9DY

‘Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” […] While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him. Jesus replied, “Do what you came for, friend.” Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him.’ (Matt 26:36-39, 47-50)

Gethsemane was a garden among the olive trees on the Mount of Olives. It was here that Jesus spent his final hours of freedom, praying and weeping as he anticipated the suffering and death that was about to come. For years, Jesus had prepared himself for this, knowing that he was to die a death on behalf of others as their Passover Lamb. Until this point, he had experienced close, intimate relationship with his Father, but now in a moment of real vulnerability and intense sorrow, Jesus pleads with Him for another way.

‘The Cup’ was a regular biblical picture, not only for suffering, but the punishment of God (e.g. Psalm 75:7-8; Jeremiah 25:15; Habakkuk 2:16). Jesus understood that going to the cross would mean taking upon himself the full punishment of God for all the wrongdoing of mankind, and even though he longed for another way, he ultimately trusted in his Father and submitted to His will (v39, 42).

When Judas arrived, he brought with him a large crowd of priests, elders, and Roman Soldiers (cf. Luke 22:52; John 18:3, 12) armed with clubs and swords, to arrest Jesus. This was an unnecessarily large show of force to arrest a man who had consistently resisted violence and taught peace. But Jesus’ response is astonishing. He said, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (v53).

In 2 Kings 19:35, we see that one angel is capable of killing 185,000 Assyrians, so twelve legions would amount to 72,000 angels, capable of defeating over 13 billion soldiers! In other words, if he had wanted, in an instant Jesus could have summoned heaven’s armies who would have infinitely more power than was ever needed to defeat this small band of armed men. The fact that Jesus resisted and willingly allowed himself to be arrested is mind-blowing! Tempted though he was, Jesus was so submitted to the will of God, that even in his moment of need, he refused to find another way out.

Judas approached Jesus, kissing him as a sign that he was the one who the guards should arrest and calling him Rabbi, which means ‘Teacher’. For a disciple to kiss their Rabbi, usually on the hand, was a sign of special honour. A disciple should never have done it without first being invited. So as Judas kisses Jesus, it is an act of mockery and an insult. Still, Jesus responds with grace.

Judas called Jesus ‘Rabbi’; Jesus called Judas ‘friend.’

This is remarkable; that Jesus would still call ‘friend’ the one who sold him for thirty pieces, betrayed him and gave him over to his killers. Nobody is beyond the grace of God. Whoever you are, whatever you have done, and however far you are from Him, you can still be welcomed and forgiven. Judas showed no signs of remorse of repentance, but the offer still remained, as it does for us: if we trust in Jesus’ sacrifice, as our Passover Lamb, the one who has drunk the cup on our behalf, we can be called friends of God.

Questions for Reflection

• Jesus’ example teaches us about the importance of obedience to God’s call, even when you may prefer easier or less painful solutions. In what areas of your life do you need to submit to God and say “not my will, but yours”?
• Luke tells us that even in the midst of his suffering, Jesus was supernaturally strengthened (Luke 22:43). What are the areas in your life where you feel tempted or tested, and how can you learn to rely on God for strengthening as Jesus did?
• Paul writes that ‘There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8:1). What difference does it make for you to know that Jesus has drunk the cup of God’s punishment on your behalf?

Prayer

Why not use the following to help you pray today:

Lord Jesus, thank you for your unwavering commitment to God’s plan; that you put His will before your own desire for comfort, and that you drank the cup of God’s punishment on my behalf. I am so grateful that there is now no condemnation for me because of your faithfulness. Help me to be fully submitted to you, and strengthen me in my times of weakness. Amen

Going Deeper

If you find yourself with some extra time today, why not listen to one of the following talks on the Garden of Gethsemane:

• Kingdom Come: Suffering by David Stroud
• The Cup by C.J. Mahaney

‘Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed […] When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfilment in the kingdom of God.” After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”’ (Luke 22:7, 14-20)

The Feast of Unleavened Bread was a seven-day event that the Jewish people celebrated every year, and it began with the Passover (Lev 23:5-6). This was a time to reflect on one of the greatest stories in Israel’s history: God leading them out of slavery in Egypt (Exodus 12:1-51). God instructed the people to kill a perfect lamb, and smear the blood on the doorposts of their houses. Then when God came to judge Egypt, He would see the blood and pass over the house. The people were saved because of the blood of the Passover Lamb.

Jesus and his Disciples gathered to celebrate the Passover, as they would have done each year, only this year it took on a deeper significance. As they ate, they would typically reflect on God’s mercy in leading their forefathers out of Egypt, and long for Him to do the same for them in their day.

As they began the meal, Jesus declared that he had eagerly desired to eat this Passover meal with the disciples before he suffered (v15). Knowing, as he did, that his suffering and death were only a few hours away, his eagerness to share his final meal with his friends demonstrates both how much he cared for them, and how significant the symbolism of the Passover was. Jesus knew that in the events that were about to unfold, he was to play the part of the Passover Lamb, sacrificed so that others could be saved by his blood.

‘This is my body,’ said Jesus, ‘given for you’ (v19). It is hard to imagine what must have been going through the minds of the disciples at this point, but the word translated ‘given’ was the same word Luke used in 2:24 to speak of a sacrifice being offered. Whether the disciples realised it at the time or not, Jesus was saying that he was offering himself as a sacrifice to deliver people from their sins (cf. Gal 1:4). And if they didn’t perceive that, his next phrase ‘this is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you’ (v20) was unmistakably reminiscent of Moses’ action in Exodus 24:8, ‘Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”’

This was a dinner tinged with mixed emotions: on the one hand the agony, fear and sadness of knowing that immense suffering and death was imminent, on the other the hope of sins forgiven and freedom for many. And in the midst of it, Jesus looks forward to the day when he will eat and drink in the New Creation (v16, 18). When God puts the world to rights, ridding it of all sickness, suffering and death, there will be an incredible celebration, like an extravagant wedding feast (Rev 19:6-9), with the best of meats and the finest of wines (Isaiah 25:6-8), and Jesus, the Passover Lamb who was slain, will receive glory and honour forever more (Rev 5:12-13; 22:3-5). The Last Supper, sitting between the Passover and the Wedding Feast is one of three meals to change the world; and the Lord invites us to eat and drink, proclaiming his death until he comes again to make all things new (1 Cor 11:23-26).

Questions for Reflection

• What does it mean for you that Jesus is the Passover Lamb? How does his sacrifice set you free?
• How does the knowledge that you will feast with God in the New Creation excite and encourage you?

Prayer

Why not use the following to help you to pray today:

Lord Jesus, thank you that you are the Passover Lamb. I recognise my brokenness, and I thank you that you allowed your body to be broken and your blood to be shed so that I could be set free and made whole. I look forward to the day when I will eat and drink with you in the New Creation. Fill me with your Spirit and give me boldness to proclaim your death and resurrection today. Amen

Going Deeper

If you find yourself with some extra time today, why not listen to one of the following talks:

• Kingdom Come: Communion by Andy Tilsley,
• Jesus Sets Me Free by David Stroud
• Getting Out by Timothy Keller

If you’re meeting as a Life Group or Mid Size Group this week, why not consider sharing communion together, reflecting on the death of Jesus, the forgiveness of sins, and the hope of New Creation.

‘Then one of the twelve – the one called Judas Iscariot – went to the chief priests and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.’ (Matthew 26:14-16) 

This is a real turning point in the story of Jesus’ life. Judas had been with him from the beginning, one of the core twelve; yet beneath the surface his doubts, frustrations and personal ambition had been bubbling away. In Matthew 26 Judas’ true colours come to the surface, as he trades in the life of Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.

I don’t know if that sounds a lot to you; thirty pieces of silver? In Jesus’ day it was probably worth about four months’ wages for a labourer. Not an amount to be sniffed at; but also an incredibly small price for a human life. Exodus 25:32 tells us that thirty pieces of silver was the price that must be paid to a master if their slave was gored to death by an ox. On one level, Jesus’ life was valued the same as that of a slave, accidentally impaled by an animal.

But there is also something symbolic going on here. Matthew is deliberately evoking the language of Zechariah 11, a chapter which he draws from a good deal in the Easter story. Zechariah 11 is packed with evocative imagery of a shepherd who is tasked with caring for a flock doomed to death. He rescues them, only to then be rejected by the sheep. He breaks two staffs of ‘favour’ and ‘union’ and the sheep are left to the leadership of a worthless shepherd.

Having been rejected, the shepherd declares ‘“If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.” So they paid me thirty pieces of silver […] the handsome price at which they valued me!’ (Zech 11:12-13) Zechariah’s words are dripping with irony: ‘the handsome price!’ Thirty pieces of silver is an insultingly low wage for someone whose job is to risk his life to protect sheep. And such was the minute cost for which Judas was willing to sacrfice his master.

The symbolism is striking: a shepherd, giving his life to protect sheep doomed to death, only to then be betrayed by them. But notice the key difference between Jesus and Zechariah. Zechariah grew weary and resigned his position, leaving the sheep to their fate (Zech 11:9). Jesus refused to desert his sheep, but paid the ultimate price, giving up his life for them.

How much is Jesus worth to you? The thirty pieces paid for the life of Jesus tell us that both Judas and the Priests esteemed him so little that they treated him like a common slave and a worthless shepherd. They were so blind to the truth of who Jesus was. The most rich and valuable being to ever have existed made himself nothing, taking on the form of a slave, and being obedient to the point of death (Phil 2:4-8). The good shepherd laid down his life for the sheep (John 10:11-13, 17-18).

Questions for Reflection

• Read Philippians 2:5-8. How must it have felt for Jesus, who was God himself, to become nothing? What would it look like for you, who are not God, to live with the same mindset?
• What does it mean to you to think of Jesus as a faithful shepherd? How does this affect your day to day life?

Prayer

Why not use the following to help you to pray today:

Lord Jesus, Thank you that you humbled yourself, taking on flesh and coming to Earth in order to rescue me. I recognise that you are the Good Shepherd who gave your life for me. Help me to hear and recognise your voice, and to be obedient in following you wherever you lead. Forgive me for times when I have failed to value you highly enough, and help me to honour, worship and follow you today. Amen

Going Deeper

If you find yourself with some extra time today, why not download Tim Frisby’s recent talk from the I AM series, and reflect on what it means to know Jesus as The Good Shepherd.

^‘As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’” They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”’ (Mark 11:1-10)

I wonder how you imagine this scene? It was the time of the Passover, when thousands of Jews would have travelled to Jerusalem to celebrate the time in Israel’s history when God set them free from captivity in Egypt (Exodus 12). It was no easy journey. The climb from Jericho to Jerusalem was around 18 miles (the length of the Circle line) and almost entirely up hill. Jericho was the lowest city on earth, around 800 feet below sea level, and Jerusalem was 3,000 feet above sea level. The journey would have been long and hard, travelling through desert and over rocky terrain. Walking it would have been tough enough, but Jesus chose an even less convenient mode of transport: a donkey!

In fact, Jesus didn’t simply request any old donkey, he asked for ‘a colt, which no one has ever ridden’ (v2). This was not pickiness on his part, but a powerful prophetic statement. In the Jewish writings it was decreed that nobody should ride on an animal that is set aside for the king. And the prophet Zechariah wrote, ‘Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey’ (Zechariah 9:9).

By entering Jerusalem on a colt that had never been ridden, Jesus was making the bold claim: “I am the King you have been waiting for.”

Many people got the hint! They lay down their coats on the ground, like their forefathers had when they recognised Jehu as King (2 Kings 9:13), and they raised their voices in song. And not just any song! As the people journeyed at the Passover, they would sing Psalms which had been set for the occasion; in particular Psalms 113-118. These were the same Psalms they sang every single year, Psalms which told of the goodness of God in rescuing His people from slavery. But this year they took on a new sense of poigniancy, as the people sang ‘Hosanna’ which means ‘God save us!’ and ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’, whilst Jesus rode in their midst (Psalm 118:25-26).

Whether or not they realised the full implications of their prayers, songs and actions, we, with the gift of hindsight can see what Jesus was doing. This was a declaration of intent: The King had returned to the city, to lay claim to what was rightfully his and to set his people free.

Questions for Reflection

• Jesus challenged the expectations of the crowd by coming, not as a victorious warrior, but as a humble man on a donkey. In what ways does Jesus’ humility challenge you? In what, perhaps unexpected, ways is he currently working in your life?
• Upon recognising Jesus as King, the people lay down their branches and cloaks at his feet. Are there things that you currently need to lay down in recognition of Jesus’ rule over your life?

Prayer

Why not use the following to help you to pray today:

Lord Jesus, I recognise you as King, and I lay down my life before you. I thank you that you came to rescue mankind, through your life, death and resurrection. Would you be enthroned as King in my life today, ruling over my thoughts, my plans, my decisions and my ambitions and may I glorify you in all that I do. Amen

Going Deeper

If you find yourself with some extra time today, why not use this question to go a little deeper.

• Read and reflect on Psalms 113-118. How has God intervened in your life and what reasons do you have to give Him thanks and praise today?

Whether it’s volunteering on one of the projects we’re already running, or starting something yourself, we would love everyone to do something that makes the most of this great opportunity.

Here are a few details about what we are already doing, and some ideas for how you can get involved:

Stop the Traffik

Large sporting events are known to lead to an increase in people trafficking for the sex industry. To raise awareness of this, Stop the Traffik is running a campaign around London, and we are looking to man a stand. To do this, we will need people like you! For more information join the Olympics group on The City or visit ungiftbox.org

Football in the Community

The Vauxhall football project connects with around 80 children and their families every week. The summer will be a great time to make this more of an event to impact young people and the local area. Find out more on The City.

Basketball at Ducketts Common

ChristChurch London has been running a gardening project here for a little while and the local community is holding a basketball competition to mark the Olympics. We have offered volunteers to help out through the event…one of those volunteers could be you! Sign up via The City

As well as these projects, there are plenty of opportunities for you to run your own events. Why not team up with other people in your area, or do something with your Life Group? Here are a few ideas to get you started:

There are all sorts of cleanup initiatives taking place across London. Keep an ear to the ground and find out what’s happening in your area, or why not try to organize something with neighbours and friends like cleaning graffiti, tidying a local park, or shifting rubbish.

Over the Olympics London will host countless street parties. Why not find one nearby, and connect with your neighbours? Perhaps offer your services to the organisers to see if you can help beforehand or on the day. Or if there isn’t one already happening near you, why not plan your own? There are plenty of tips to help you on your way at streetparty.org.uk

Visit london2012.com to find out when the Olympic Torch Relay will be near you and what events are happening around it. Why not gather a group of people and go along together? There will also be a group of people following the torch on a huge prayer marathon. Find out more information at morethangold.org.uk

Have a spare room? Then why not consider hosting an Olympian? More Than Gold are organising people to host Olympians and their families who may not otherwise be able to afford to come. Check out their website for details, but check with your housemates first!

Perhaps you might want to host an Olympics party, with fancy dress and sporting competitions of course. Or how about a BBQ, or a local pub quiz – questions are already written for you at More Than Gold. There are plenty more ideas available at the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games.

The options are as endless as your imagination. Get planning, share ideas and let us know what you’re up to. If you would like support, manpower, resources or help publicising your event, let us know by the end of April and we’ll see what we can do. By the end of June we want to produce a directory of everything we’re doing as a church so that everyone will be able to get involved and enjoy this once in a lifetime event. So either get in touch with Stephen Humphreys or Catherine Warren

First Time Dads

Jonny Elwyn pitched his idea for his baby clothing company First Time Dads at the Everything Conference 2012. First Time Dads is the UK’s first and only range of baby clothes and accessories designed to help fatherhood a little bit easier and a lot more fun.

If you would like to get involved with First Time Dads, either by investing or offering your experience and expertise, contact Jonny at jonnyelwyn@gmail.com

Online Computer Vision Platform

David Akinluyi pitched his idea for his Online Computer Vision Platform at the Everything Conference 2012. Computer vision enables networked machines to see and hear so that they can be more helpful.

If you would like to get involved with this computer vision platform, either by investing or offering your experience and expertise, contact David at david.akinluyi@googlemail.com

YELP Students

Sharla Duncan pitched her idea for YELP Students at the Everything Conference 2012. YELP Students significantly increases access to leading universities, by harnessing the power of their most outstanding students to work with local disadvantaged secondary school pupils.

If you would like to get involved with YELP Students, either by investing or offering your experience and expertise, contact Sharla at sharla.duncan@yelpstudents.org

Magnify

Ruth Awogbade pitched her idea for Magnify at the Everything Conference 2012. Magnify is about creatively presenting the message of Christianity in a refreshing and accesible way, to the disillusioned and lost women in our world, through engaging in various media platforms.

If you would like to get involved with Magnify, either by investing or offering your experience and expertise, contact Ruth atruthamagnify@gmail.com

This short film, originally shown at the conference, tells the story of the Guinness family and the impact they made, not only in Dublin, but across the world. It’s the story of many different people working to glorify God in many different, and perhaps unexpected ways.

The secret of success in life is to be ready when a man’s time has come – Benjamin Disraeli

Dr Os Guinness tackles these and several other big questions in the first of his messages from the conference.

In his second talk at the Everything Conference 2012, Dr Os Guinness challenges us not to sit around waiting for a ‘special calling’, or to think that those who are employed full time by churches or missions organisations are more involved in God’s work than those in so-called ‘secular’ employment. “Jesus,” he explained, “never had part-time disciples. It’s everyone, everywhere in everything.”

The definition is self-explanatory. And yet, I would argue, it is the most challenging part of the Everything Matters mandate. It is also the most vital, particularly for students and recent graduates.

To those who are young, idealistic and full of passion; so often the two other tag-words of the Everything Conference (create and cultivate) sound far more appealing.

Perhaps this is because, if we are truthful, they also sound the most rewarding; particularly in terms of recognition that would be received if, and when, we are successful. This certainly fits with the culture of University. After all, it is marketed as the period in our lives during which we are to build our own platform of views; ideas that will propel us forward in our attempts to leave a mark on the world. Like the people, practices and products that we study; we all want to do something that is remembered.

But at the same time, maybe our distance from collaboration is just that; a realistic gap between desire and opportunity. We are sent different messages. Whilst being told that we are studying, exploring and discovering the most up-to-date ideas that could change both our world and our perception of it we are also (upon graduation) confronted with a market-place that tells us we are to wait at least a decade before we can really begin to put any of our ideas into some sort of influential practice. No wonder the passion to collaborate dies so young!

Do not worry, this blog-post is not a message of despair; but it is a provocation: a challenge for all of us to pursue and, if needs be, to create more opportunities for us to collaborate.

I happen to be writing whilst living and serving amongst a rural community in a mountainous jungle terrain. The other day, I saw the power of collaboration displaying its most creative and cultivating potential.

The villager elders wanted to build a new reservoir. This requires a lot of hard labour and manpower. It requires clearing away dense jungle and excavating a huge hole into the rocky mountain side. It is a near-impossible task.

Yet, the work is more than essential. It would mean cleaner, more accessible water for drinking, cooking and washing. It would mean healthier families: healthier parents who can work and healthier children who will miss less of their education. As for the wider community, water accessibility would be the first step towards developing other aspects of the village. Maintaining hygiene and sanitation would become easier. It would also be easier to begin other projects; better housing, better pathways and better, shared crops. Even generating local energy for basic lighting would become possible. The reservoir would change the entire community, creating and cultivating an entirely new village-culture. Sadly, the benefits do not make the task any less difficult.

Unexpectedly, the reservoir is taking shape before my eyes with astonishing speed, all thanks to collaboration between the elders and the village youth.

And here is the interesting thing: the village youth did not have to help, nor were they asked to. They showed up and asked to join in.

They arrived at day-break. Within thirty-minutes they had developed, and put into motion, several task-speeding processes, the result of which is seeing clearing, extraction and removal of the site. In only a few days, working in collaboration with all ages of the village they have directed their ideas, strength and enthusiasm towards making a seven foot high crater; and it is getting higher every day. Intentionally or not, they are now part of bringing the change to their community faster than originally hoped for.

In London (and in our nation), the needs of our community are different to those above and those of us who want to begin creating and cultivating sooner rather than later live in a fortunate time.  The Everything Conference. Transform Groups. Everything Matters training. Social Action. They are all at our finger-tips. By being the Church we are connected with hundreds of others from a variety of backgrounds, professions, skills and ambitions, all of whom are seeking to engage transform the culture around us. Age and experience are not limiting factors!

Together, let us begin to create the opportunities to collaborate, both for ourselves and the generation of students that will quickly follow us. Let us be at the Everything Conference this Saturday; let us own its mandate; and let us seek to collaborate in uncovering more of the colours and flavours in our culture, and nation, that best reflect the Kingdom of which, whatever our age and whatever our interests and skills, we are all ambassadors of.

__________

The Everything Conference is taking place on Saturday 17 March, 10.00-17.00 at The Mermaid Conference Centre, EC4V 3DB. For more information and to book a ticket, visit everythingconference.org

]]> http://broadcast.christchurchlondon.org/articles/collaborate/feed 0 http://broadcast.christchurchlondon.org/sermons/1-i-am/the-resurrection-and-the-life?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-resurrection-and-the-life http://broadcast.christchurchlondon.org/sermons/1-i-am/the-resurrection-and-the-life#comments Sun, 11 Mar 2012 16:00:50 +0000 David Stroud http://broadcast.christchurchlondon.org/?p=3906 ]]> We live in a broken world, full of sickness, suffering and death; and where is God? Is He indifferent, or simply impotent to do anything about it? In this talk, David will explore Jesus’ claim to be the resurrection and the life, and what it tells us about the compassion of God, and His plan to put the world to rights.

So a part of me – the deeply selfish part, which prioritises my own culinary escapades above those of my fellow man – wishes he’d not review them. Or maybe he could, but just tell me. Or perhaps just give me a fortnight’s head start on the rest of the nation…

Very occasionally I feel the same way about books. I recognise that they deserve to be widely known about; everyone should have a copy. But the selfish part just wants to keep them as my little secret, so I can devour, apply (and re-use!?) the material before the rest of the world gets a chance. Some books are just too good to review.

Andrew Wilson’s latest offering falls into that category.

If God, Then What?: Wondering aloud about truth, origins and redemption is a witty, creative, compelling and provocative book in which Andrew ‘wonders aloud’ about ten key questions, addressing issues like fundamentalism, the nature of knowledge, the origins of the universe, the possibility of the miraculous and suffering. His answers are never heavy-handed or dogmatic, but rather he leads you on a journey with each chapter; weaving together insights from personal experience (and it appears he’s had some pretty odd experiences!), popular culture, history and philosophy.

Stylistically, think Tim Keller’s The Reason for God written by a British version of Donald Miller. (Incidentally, both Keller and Miller also make my ‘too good to review’ category). Too often apologetics books produce stock answers to questions that nobody’s really asking! Not so here. Andrew tackles ten hugely important questions, which anyone and everyone regardless of their faith-position could and should be asking. His narrative style means that rather than being presented with a honed, well-packaged, but slightly soulless, off-pat selection of answers, you genuinely feel like you’re somehow eavesdropping on the inner workings of his brain, following a logical train of thought from beginning to end. As such, it feels very authentic and engages both the heart and the mind.

If you’ve read any of Andrew’s previous books, Incomparable, or GodStories, or heard him speak at ChristChurch I’m sure you won’t need me to describe Andrew’s ability to break down complex arguments into bite-sized, accessible chunks. Suffice it to say, he does this expertly in If God, Then What?

I shan’t give too much away about the content, but a personal highlight was the seventh chapter, in which Andrew paints a beautiful picture of what a snippet of the world, and London in particular, might look like in the New Creation.

If you are a Christian looking for a more robust understanding of the reasonableness of your faith, or a fresh way of articulating big and difficult concepts, or a book you can give to friends without cringing, then this is for you. And if you are not a believer but would like to read a book that will give you cause to think about life, the universe and everything perhaps for the first time, I would highly recommend this as a great place to start.

Buy the book online:

Okay, I’m sorry. There must be another Easter holiday coming up, because I’ve wandered into egg-pun territory, so please forgive my awful yolks. I shell do my best not to crack another.

That said though, if there’s ever a Christian festival that’s worth celebrating with joy, laughter and loads of fun, it’s this one. It’s where we remember that even death has been conquered, that sin itself is nailed to the cross, and that out of the most humiliating and excruciating suffering comes the most wonderful hope and expectation for the future. Eggstroadinary. You couldn’t fry it up.

I realise life is often complicated, and can be fraught with frustration, disappointment and pain, but Easter is the opportunity to remember that after night comes morning, after Winter comes Spring, after death comes resurrection – it’s just wonderful, wonderful news.

I love the way CS Lewis puts it in his book The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. To set the scene, the children have just been pursued by the wolves who are seeking their very lives. The witch’s power seems unstoppable. There is terror on every side; danger all around. But then the children hear the name of the Great Lion, the Christ figure, and it’s like a ray of sunshine through the clouds.

‘And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken his name everyone felt quite different… At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realise that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.’

The children don’t know all the details. They don’t even fully know who Aslan is, but they hear his name and somehow, instinctively, perceive that there is hope.

So it is with Easter.

We don’t have to understand all the ins and outs of the theological significance of the crucifixion and resurrection (though of course it’s good to explore more of the Bible!) But if nothing else, Easter should at least remind us that the greatest enemies of humankind have been overcome by Jesus.

So we rightly want to make a big deal of Easter this year. For anyone who wants to, we’ll be gathering on Good Friday to worship, share communion and hear about the cross. Then on Easter Sunday we’ll have a celebration of the resurrection – with just the one meeting at 11am, so you can spend the rest of this amazing day with friends and family. In our Sunday meetings in the build up to Easter, we’re looking at different aspects of the person of Jesus through John’s gospel, and in the week running up to Easter Sunday we’ll produce a daily Bible Study to help reflect on the Easter message. This will include a reading for each day, as well as questions and prayer points to help you focus on the significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Bible studies will be emailed out first thing every morning, so why not set aside time each day to read, reflect and pray

The practical bits and opportunities to sign up to the Bible readings are all below, but don’t let this incredible festival pass you by without reflecting on what it’s all about, the implications for us today, and, perhaps most significantly, just how amazing Jesus Christ really is.

That’s what the egg-stuff is all about – for centuries eggs were seen as the ultimate sign of new life, which is why they’re worth talking about at this time of year… in some curious way, they’re a reminder of what Jesus has done, and what he offers for me and you.

With that said, I’m oeuf to find some more egg puns. Feel free to poach any of the ones I’ve used in this blog.

• To receive the Bible Studies before Easter, you need to be signed up to our email newsletter. If you’re not already subscribed, sign up today.
• Good Friday Service: Friday 6^th April, 11-12.30pm. 79 Endell Street, WC2H 9DY
• Easter Sunday Service: Sunday 8^th April, 11-12.30pm, The Mermaid Theatre.

The inspiration for the event came from seeing many great ideas that have been brought to life by members of ChristChuch over the last few years. A common pattern emerged; someone with a good idea connected with others with the resources and skills to help turn the idea into a reality. Why not catalyse this process, by giving people a platform to pitch their ideas and what they need to take it to the next stage?

We decided on simple criteria; the ideas had to be ‘good’ – reflecting Kingdom values, with a clear aim to serve society. As soon as word got out about the event, an amazing deluge of good ideas began.

So, on a mild Friday evening in January, 12 pitchers were given five minutes each to pitch their idea. The pitches were as brilliant as they were diverse – from dad-oriented baby-wear, through decor-friendly fire blankets, to franchises for ex-offenders and food vouchers for the homeless. The venue – the crypt of St James’ Clerkenwell – could have been straight out of Dragon’s Den itself. Around 80 people came to hear the pitches and to offer their advice and support over a glass of wine afterwards.

Thanks to great pitchers and a great audience, the feedback has been really encouraging. The pitchers are now pursuing multiple offers of help, contacts and even funding. We hope to run a similar event in a few months time – and we’re also thinking about other ways to support those who are already pursuing their good ideas.

For more information, join the Transform Business group on The City

Each week we focused on a different topic such as communication, resolving conflict, and yes, even sex! The style of the course meant there was lots of time to discuss our ideas and thoughts together in an informal environment.

I don’t know what you may think, but for me so much of being engaged was focused on planning a wedding, so it was really useful to take time out to discuss deeper issues such as our views about marriage, and to chat about our expectations post-wedding day. We talked about things we probably wouldn’t have thought to discuss in advance, and it helped us to prepare for marriage rather than just get ready for a wedding (although that was really fun too!)

It was hugely beneficial to chat with Dan about our preconceptions. For example, before doing the course I had never considered how much our upbringings could influence our views towards marriage, but the course enabled us to talk this through together in an open and friendly environment. It meant that once we were married, some of the challenges that arose weren’t such a big deal because we had discussed them beforehand (like how we were going to manage the in-laws!)

I’d definitely recommend the course: it’s informal, fun and I bet each time you go you will learn something new about your partner.

_____

The Marriage Preparation course is for any couple in a committed relationship, and over five weeks looks at subjects like communication, commitment, resolving conflict, keeping love alive and having shared goals and values.

The next course begins on Sunday 4 March and runs from 13.30-15.30 in the Queenhithe Room at the Mermaid Theatre. For more information visit the calendar and to register for a place, email tamryn@christchurchlondon.org

There’s Mel, who was one of the first girls I met when I moved to London. I can completely be myself with her although we can be like chalk and cheese (salads over steak, no way!). She challenges me and calls me on things I need to be accountable for, but always encourages me to grow in my faith and to enjoy life as an adventure with God.

Then there’s Kelly, who lived with my family at home for a while a few years ago. She is the person who encouraged me to stick with my writing and the only one I am willing to send drafts to, knowing that she will critique with encouragement and praise. She is the big sister I never had, able to offer wisdom and advice whenever I need it.

There’s Sal, mother of three of my beautiful godchildren, who is an inspiration to me in so many ways. She welcomed me into her home many years ago when I needed role models to look up to, and has taught me so much about having a dream and refusing to let anything hold you back. I have been humbled and amazed watching her cope with raising three children when her husband walked out just after their youngest daughter was born. Her faith is breathtaking.

Then there’s Anna, who I don’t see very often but who brings out my crazy side. I have such fantastic memories of dancing down the road, skipping through shops and playing charades on the tube with her. She taught me that we should never become so grown up so much that we stop having fun.

There’s also Milly, who lived round the corner from my parents. She’s the person I told my first secrets to, and there is almost nothing she doesn’t know about me. We are so different that I’m not sure if we met now we’d become friends, and yet I can tell her anything. She has dropped everything for me in the past when I’ve needed her to carry burdens I wasn’t strong enough to carry, and I know that she will always be there for me.

These women are just the start. There’s also Tammy, who is one of the most intelligent people I know and can be scary when passionate about something; Benji, who gives the best hugs ever and who I can chat to for literally hours on end without ever running out of things to say; Laura, who survives on coffee and almost no sleep but is always upbeat and ready for fun; Megan, who doesn’t mind getting texts from me at all hours of the day and night and always knows the right thing to say; and Sarah, who has taught me so much about being comfortable with who I am.

All of these women have helped me to grow in my faith; they have encouraged and inspired me. They have never judged me, but have inspired me to change when I’ve needed to and picked me up when I’ve fallen. I’ve shared laughs, tears, cocktails, chocolate, fears and dreams with these women, and I thank God for each of them.

I feel blessed to know these women, and to be in a church so full of women like them. When I look around ChristChurch London I see godly woman after godly woman, and I am learning so much from each of them. I love getting to know new women and seeing them grow in faith and become part of the church – each one is a new sister in the family.

I am convinced that God is going to use us as women together to fulfil His plans for our church, for London and for the nations. That is why I love the women’s mornings we run a few times a year. It’s a chance to gather together and worship, hear His word preached, find out about what God is doing in and through the amazing women in ChristChurch, and get to know my sisters a little better. Come join us!

ChristChurch London Women’s Morning:

Sat Feb 25
10.00 – 13.00
Whetherby Prep School,
48 Bryanston Square,
London W1H 2EA

For more information, visit the women’s group on The City

* The names of the women mentioned in this blog have been changed.

Our next church-wide prayer meeting is on Tuesday 28 February. This is right at the beginning of the season of the church calendar known as Lent; a period when Christians all around the world will be praying and fasting in the run up to Easter. So this term, we have decided to accompany our prayer with our first ever church-wide day of fasting.

I don’t know how familiar you are with fasting? You may have tried it once or twice; you may never have heard of it before. Many Christians have found fasting to be a powerful way of connecting with God at a deeper level. That has certainly been my experience. And when churches take time out to pray and fast together, they typically find that their physical hunger spills over into a deeper spiritual hunger for more of God and His blessing on their lives.

So here are a few thoughts on what fasting is, why we do it, and how we should do it.

Fasting means to voluntarily go without something – typically food – for the purpose of spending time praying and drawing closer to God. In the Bible, fasting was an assumed part of people’s regular lifestyle, so Jesus said to his disciples ‘when you fast…’ not ‘if you fast…’ (Matt 6:16). Some people seem to have fasted twice a week (Luke 18:11-12) and there were regular festivals during which God called all His people to fast together (Zech 8:19). Individuals would choose to fast at particular moments when they faced challenges (Daniel 1:8-21), or wanted to get closer to God (Luke 4:1-2) and sometimes a nation’s leaders would call  people to fast either in repentance (Jonah 3:5-10) or to request God’s help (Ezra 8:21-23; 2 Chron 20:1-4).

We want to invite you, if you feel able, to join us in fasting and spending time drawing closer to God in advance of our prayer time. This is an opportunity for us as a church to seek God and ask for Him to speak to us, and as we do this, we believe God will strengthen and guide us for the way ahead.

Here are a few spiritual and practical guidelines to help you as you think about fasting on February 28:

• Fasting is not primarily about testing yourself, or seeing what you can achieve, and it’s certainly not a hunger strike to try to force God into giving you something! It is designed to help you meet with God as you recognise your dependence upon Him. As you fast, ensure that your motives are appropriate and that you are genuinely desiring to meet with God and for His holiness to become more evident in your life.
• Whilst fasting is typically related to food, some people may find it helpful to fast other things such as television, music or technology. The important thing is that when you fast, you shouldn’t simply ‘go without’. Aim to replace time spent eating, watching television, or whatever, with time spent praying and reading God’s word. This may mean needing to schedule times into your day for prayer or arranging to go somewhere different during your lunch break.
• As you fast, be particularly open to hearing God speak to you for yourself and for the church. Expect that He will speak to you through His word and give you guidance from the Holy Spirit.
• Be sensible with fasting. If you are of ill health, please do not go against medical advice, and consider carefully whether a full day’s fast will be a viable option for you. You may find that fasting a particular item or meal would suit you better.
• Decide the length of your fast and plan it into your schedule. You may decide to fast for the whole day on the 28^th, or just skip one meal. If you do decide that you want to fast for longer than 24 hours, you are welcome to, but plan carefully and be willing to review the duration if your health or circumstances change.
• Ensure that you don’t over-exert yourself whilst fasting. Make sure that you rest where possible and only exercise lightly.
• Remember, we are not doing this to gain God’s favour; fasting is designed to help us meet with God, not to damage our bodies. So if at any point you feel the need to break your fast, feel free to do so.

We are really excited at the opportunity to do something like this together. I think it is going to be a great experience for us as individuals and as a church. But whether you are able to fast on the 28^th or not, do join us at the prayer meeting, 19.00 for a 19.30 start at:

70 Endell Street
Covent Garden
London
WC2H 9DY

If you would like to learn more about fasting we would recommend the following resources:

Adrian Holloway – A Hunger for God (MP3)
Arthur Wallis – God’s Chosen Fast
John Piper – A Hunger for God

Download Sermon Slides (pdf 8.6mb)

“You have been handed a heritage but you will leave a legacy.” Anonymous

Have you ever had the chance to stop and reflect on how the past affects the present, and how combined the two affect the future? Do the three ever correlate? Where do you draw the line between the past and the present, reality and fiction, the seen and unseen, real emotions and those of an invented character?

These were not questions I had given much thought to until a bunch of us from the ChristChurch London Transform: Creative Industries group, mostly ladies, decided to explore the topology of the future. We visited Future Map 11, an annual art exhibition that is held at the Zabludowicz Collection in North London. The annual event provided a stage for some quirky, clever and really impressive works from a group of the finest emerging talents. They were selected from thousands of art students to represent the next generation of artists and designers who are seen as no less than those who ‘will define our visual landscape’. No pressure. This exhibition was especially appealing as our own Martha Lewis was selected from among the whole array of talented student artists.

As we approached the imposing and beautiful architecture of the Zabludowitcz building, the art novice in me felt a bit intimidated. But when we walked through the glass and… plain doors, the modern foyer gave me a false sense of security and almost familiarity. After a brief chat we stepped into the ‘future’, and that feeling of security dissipated. There before me stood a wide variety of art and material in all possible shapes and forms. Some exhibits were incredibly witty, bold, original and very much ‘outside the box’, and some, unfortunately, lacked life experience and maturity, or stuck to conventions and expectations, which gave a déjà-vu effect.

It was fascinating to see the desire and zeal of the young artists to explore their ideas. We were greeted with a set of portraits that, on the one hand, looked so artificial and posed (postures, lighting, entourage) and, on the other hand, so real and ‘usual’ (people, day-to-day elements, places familiar to the average Brit); a video with a soundtrack that rhythmically measured the daily objects, activities and situations that were presented from a new perspective; a pair of eccentric leather umbrellas with studs and long, horse-like tails the artistic merit of which lost me as I heard that they were available for purchase starting from £4,800(!).

There was also an antique style mirror decorated with traces of beautiful lace that created an effect of fake parchment paper, or rather of a photo booth covered from top to bottom with one-dollar notes. Ok, so my comparison was only a joke, but the piece was a great example of the vanity and superficiality of the human heart as well as frustration from unfulfilled dreams, aspirations and desires.

The highlight of the exhibition for me was a pair of incredibly precise and detailed drawings from Martha, who thankfully was there and happy to field a wave of questions from me. She drew inspiration from old Hollywood films and various characters in them, and combined them with some imaginary elements, like seahorses or little birds, that are juxtaposed against the frailty and tension of the scene. This very bold and, in a sense, unique manner of drawing requires a high level of skill, concentration, eye for detail and, no doubt, true talent.

I have always dreaded talking about art, partly because I have never done any myself and partly because it can be so elusive and personal. However, I realised that the more you know of it, the more you understand the human thought process and its deviations. I don’t know what everyone expected, but the more I stared at some pieces of art, trying to understand where the artist was coming from, the more it was becoming obvious to me how much the previous generations’ achievements, aspirations and lives affected the way we perceive our future.

As I was walking past the works I was trying to speak out my understanding, or desire of such, thanking Lee Ufan, a Korean sculptor and artist exhibited in the Guggenheim in New York, and the useful audio guide that brought home every single piece and dot on the canvas when we were there last September.

The last item I saw at Future Map was an interesting 5-metre scroll exhibit with an ambiguous title: ‘Swiss Roll’. As I was analyzing the ever-growing size of the pictures of Swiss watches, and the rhythmic perforations of the pianola and their relationship on paper, I was reminded of the tension between human futility and finiteness and the fact that we would never be able to measure time, or the effect it will have on us, but we can be reassured of the power, might and wisdom of the One who holds it all together.

Let me just conclude with a verse from the Bible that well sums up all of the above, “A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.” Ecclesiastes 1:4

Future Map 11 runs until 5 February 2012. You can see examples of the work and read more information about the artists on the official website.

The Zabludowicz Collection
176 Prince of Wales Road
London
NW5 3PT

This article was first posted on http://thehopecreative.wordpress.com/

To some the sea is a challenge to overcome. To others, a dangerous enemy.

Other news stories describe various storms and shakings; terrorist attacks in Nigeria, and the IMF’s warning that the world’s economy is ‘deep into the danger zone.’ In the face of such challenges, Christians must draw strength and comfort from their faith in God. The Psalmist writes, ‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the Earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging’ (Psalm 46:1-3). As the Psalm continues, the writer contrasts the violent sea with a stream that makes glad the City of God (v4).

Even in the midst of storms, God provides comfort.

Many people in our society have no belief in a personal deity who offers peace or intervenes in history. When they find themselves shaken by the storms of life, we must be able to offer them a glimpse of the peace that can only come from hope in the Christian God.

On one occasion, the disciples were on a boat in a storm, terrified for their lives. They woke Jesus, who uttered two words, “be still” and the sea turned calm. It’s this kind of God that the world needs to know right now; a caring, powerful God who immersed himself into our experience, faced the storms head on, and in an instant calmed them. As we introduce people to the storm-stilling Jesus they ought to wonder, as the disciples did, “Who is this? Even the wind and waves obey him!” (Mk 4:41)

The message of Christianity, however, is not simply comfort now, but hope for the future. In Scripture the sea is a symbol of evil, chaos, or hostile powers [1], so when John writes ‘I saw “a new heaven and a new earth” […] and there was no longer any sea’ (Rev 21:1) he anticipates a day when all elements that currently stand against God’s purposes will be banished forever. With language echoing Psalm 46, John describes a river of life that makes glad the City of God (Rev 22:1-3). In this New Creation, world economies will no longer collapse, for in it will be the wealth of nations (Is 60:11). There will be no suffering, sickness or death; God will wipe away every tear (Rev 21:4).

The Christian hope is not that God will evacuate us from Earth to a disembodied existence elsewhere; a dramatic rescue from a sinking ship. Rather, God will renew Creation, undoing the brokenness once and for all. The storms of life are like birth pains, anticipating the day when God will make everything new (Rom 8:18-25). Until then, we are to proclaim the gospel message of hope. We should seek to alleviate suffering, care for the poor, and give people a taste of what life will be like in God’s New Creation.

Whatever storms you may be facing, take comfort from the promise of hope, and seek to extend His peace to those around you. The same God who said ‘be still’ to a raging sea, encourages us likewise; ‘be still and know that I am God’ (Psalm 46:10).

This article originally appeared in Friday Night Theology for the Evangelical Alliance 

What is it about Jesus that is so captivating and intriguing, that even those who disagree with his teachings and disbelieve his religious claims still find him worthy of study and admiration? Why do we orient our calendar around the year of his birth and make films, art exhibitions and West End musicals about his life and death? What is it about him that draws scorn from so many, and yet causes the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte to say, “I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man”?

On Sunday 12 February we are beginning a new sermon series entitled I AM: Jesus on Trial. Over seven weeks we will look at some key sections of John’s Gospel to try and discover who Jesus claimed to be and how his claims are relevant to Twenty First Century Londoners.

John’s Gospel is a creative, intriguing book. If you’ve ever read it, you may notice how different it feels to the other three gospels. We’ll explore some of the reasons for this throughout the series (I don’t want to give away all the best material now!), but let me give you a few brief headlines:

The book was written around 80 A.D. probably to a mixture of believers and sceptics in Asia. The author, John, was one of Jesus’ closest disciples (John 21:20-23) and spent many years following and learning from him.

In his account, John lists a number of signs and claims that demonstrate the uniqueness of Jesus, and he describes his purpose in writing saying, ‘These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name’ (John 20:31). The Gospel doesn’t record every miracle, saying or relevant detail, in fact John writes, ‘there are many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written’ (John 21:25). John deliberately pieces together some key claims and signs to build his case that Jesus is the Son of God.

Some commentators have pointed out that the gospel is full of lawsuit motifs and themes, emphasising that Jesus and his claims are on trial right throughout the book. Throughout this series, we will take a different claim each week, piecing them together to paint a picture of the person, life, death, and relevance of Jesus, and inviting you to explore these claims for yourself.

We will consider a range of questions, including: What does it mean for Jesus to describe himself as bread, light or a vine? Given the scarcity of sheep wandering around central London, how does Jesus’ claim to be the Good Shepherd have anything to teach us today? If Jesus calls himself the way, the truth and the life, what does that mean for the claims of other religions?

This series will also pave the way towards Easter, helping us to understand the reasons for Jesus’ death and why Christians put such an enormous emphasis on a tragic and gruesome moment in history.

Perhaps you have been a Christian for many years? I hope that this series will help you to see Jesus in a new light and appreciate afresh how unique and revolutionary his claims are. Perhaps you are not yet a Christian and have always wondered what the fuss is about Jesus? Can I invite you to join us and to test his claims for yourself? It may be that you will find him and his message to be more relevant, more challenging and more compelling than you ever imagined possible.

Recommended Resources

As we go through the series we will recommend a number of books. But if you’re interested in reading up in advance, here’s a short selection to get you started. 

John for Everyone – Tom Wright

Tom Wright’s For Everyone commentaries are short study guides to help you understand and quickly get to the heart of each book of the New Testament. John for Everyone comes in two parts, and in these books, Wright manages to distil down decades’ worth of research into accessible, bite-sized chunks. They won’t deal with every verse, or answer every question you may have, but they will help you explore the major themes of John’s Gospel.

The Gospel of John – D.A. Carson

If you want a commentary with a bit more depth and weight, then Carson’s commentary in the Pillar Series is a great alternative. At about 700 pages, including a lot of detail and a fair bit of Greek, it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. But of all the modern commentaries, it’s probably one of the most respected and more accessible.

Simply Jesus – Tom Wright

A more general recommendation on the person of Jesus; Tom Wright’s latest book is a great introduction to who Jesus is and why he is relevant to modern people. If you want an accessible book that will help you to understand Jesus and his message in their first century context, then this is a great place to start.

Buy the books online:

We are convinced that God wants us to love the society in which He has put us, and commit ourselves to helping it reach its full potential. The Everything Conference is a key part of this, and on the evening before it, we are offering the opportunity for people who want to explore in more detail what it means to be Salt and Light in society, through the Everything Dinner on Friday 16 March 2012.

The Everything Dinner draws together people from all walks of life who are passionate about seeking the flourishing of our society, for a three-course meal in a central London location. Renowned author, social analyst and public speaker Os Guinness will be joining us for the evening and speaking on ‘Christian influence in the public sphere’. This will be an inspirational evening with opportunities to ask questions, connect with others, share stories and see the potential we have to make a difference together in our nation.

This year’s venue will be the Lime Street Exchange, situated in the heart of the City of London, within easy reach of several mainline and underground stations. It takes place on Friday 16 March at 7:00pm.

Follow this link to book your place and choose from a selection of menu options. Please note that this ticket does not give you entry to the Everything Conference on the following day. Tickets for the conference are booked separately through this link.

Places at the dinner are very limited, so book your place as soon as possible.

Or maybe you’re someone with specific skills, contacts or resources that you want to use to help others to achieve the dreams God has put in them.

Either way, you should come to this event. Twelve people will each give a short pitch to a room full of supportive people; afterwards there will be time and space to chat informally over a drink, for those with ideas to connect with those who might be able to help.

For more information and to pitch an idea, visit the Transform Business group on The City. The only real criteria is that ideas must be ‘good’ – with a clear benefit to society.

Good Ideas – Trailer from Jonny Elwyn on Vimeo.

Money is important. It affects almost every aspect of our lives. Money can be used for good causes, such as supporting churches, building hospitals (and perhaps saving the Eurozone). It also can be used for evil causes, such as financing illegal drugs and pornography. With over 2,500 references to money and possession in the Bible, it is clear that God has a lot to say about this subject. Regardless of how little or how much of it we have, we all struggle to manage it or have the right attitude towards it. Billy Graham is quoted as saying that our cheque book is a theological document, because it speaks of our priorities in life. Therefore, when it comes to money, there are two things we, as Christian, must settle in our hearts and minds:

Firstly, God owns it all! (Psalm 24:1) God owns all our possessions. It is He who gives us the ability to get wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18). King David (as described in 1 Chronicles 29:11-12) praised God saying:

“Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendour, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honour come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all.”

This should get us excited. Our language around wealth should be filled with gratitude and thanksgiving for the giver, God. In other words, for those of us with an income (whether wages, benefits, the bank of mum and dad etc) we should practice gratitude in our daily living.

Secondly, we are stewards not owners. Shocking and very counter-cultural, I know, but we are entrusted stewards. In other words, God has trust and confidence in us. Just like the parable of the tenants in Matthew 21, the landlord believes that we are worthy of trust. This is a lovely picture of Christian stewardship, that God gives us rich blessings and invites us to exercise careful and responsible oversight and management of all he has given us.

Money Matters is running a three week money management course that teaches people budgeting skills and a simple, cash-based system that really works. This course will help anyone get in control of their finances, so they can save, give and prevent debt.

Dates: Sun 29 Jan, 12 and 19 Feb 2012
Time: 13.30 – 15.00
Venue: The Mermaid Theatre, EC4V 3DB

Tickets are free but spaces are limited, so come to the info point in the foyer on Sundays to register.

Some useful money websites

Breathe: Live Simply – http://breathenetwork.org/

Breathe is an informal network of Christians who want to break the consumer mould and live more simply and more free. No rules, no membership, just an informal group of people sharing together on the journey.

Christians Against Poverty- www.capmoney.org

A national debt counselling charity, providing debt advice via a network of centres across the country.

Citizens Advice Bureau- www.citizensadvice.org.uk

The Citizens Advice Bureau helps people resolve their legal, money and other problems by providing free confidential advice and information provided through local bureaux including specialist money advisers. The website has a selection of useful information, ranging from family issues to money matters

Community Money Advice – www.communitymoneyadvice.com

A national network of free confidential debt advice centres. They also run training for debt advisors and support for advice centres.

Credit Action - www.creditaction.org.uk/

Biblical principles embodied in high quality money management materials from a small charity that packs a powerful punch.

Crown Financial Ministries - www.crownuk.org

Biblical resources for money education for adults and kids from a long established and highly rated charity.

Money Saving Expert – www.moneysavingexpert.com

Not a Christian site, but very useful! This is a dedicated money saving site covering a wide range of consumer issues. The excellent weekly money saving tips email is well worth signing up for. Its founder, Martin Lewis (a fan of Cap Money) features regularly on breakfast and other money/consumer shows on TV.

Stewardship - www.stewardship.org.uk/money

The Christian financial support services charity supporting charities and churches in a wide range of legal and financial services including payroll, mortgages and charity formation as well as the highly rated Stewardship charitable giving accounts.

The evidence is in, from all areas of society: money is a difficult thing to handle.

It’s one of those things, like sex and power, that can be a great gift but is so often managed badly. Money – the use and abuse of it – is a hot topic and there have been too many news stories of late in which bankers, politicians and – yes – Christian leaders have been publicly shamed for their mishandling of money.

1 Timothy 6:10 is possibly one of the misquoted texts in all of the Bible. Contrary to popular belief money is not the root of all evil… but the love of money is. As Paul says to Timothy, ‘Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction’ (v9). Once we begin pursuing money above all else, we begin to find ourselves imprisoned. Our character suffers; we become jealous of those who have more than we do; we are never satisfied with or grateful for the things we do have; we pour our energies into always gaining a little more. There’s nothing wrong with making money, being wealthy and using your resources wisely, but once we allow it to dominate our thoughts, our attitudes and our values, we are on a slippery slope.

Money is a great servant, but a lousy master!

You don’t have to be wealthy for money to become an idol. Whether we have plenty of it and struggle to know how to use it wisely, or we have little of it and are craving more, we can all fall into the trap of being weakened and corrupted by an obsession with money.

When asked ‘How much money is enough?’ American billionaire John Rockefeller famously answered ‘Just a little bit more.’ How many of us, if we are honest, have thought the same? ‘If I only had just a little bit more…’

We live in one of the most expensive cities in the world. All of us will have bills to pay and tough decisions to make. At this time of year it’s a particularly pressing subject for many, as credit card bills start to come in and people have to begin paying the price for their Christmas extravagance. For all of us there are difficult questions, with which we have to grapple:

Is it ok for Christians to be wealthy? What are the responsibilities of the rich? How can we use our money and influence to build a just society? Should we use credit cards? What sort of debts are acceptable for a Christian? Ought Students to give to the church from their Student Loans? How is it possible to save money when living in such an expensive city?

At the beginning of 2012 we want to take four weeks to address some of these important questions in a short preaching series designed to help us think biblically and practically about how we use our money. We have called the series Enough: Uncommon Sense in an Age of Austerity.

Enough is both a recognition of God’s provision and a declaration of our intent. We believe that God is enough; to provide for us and meet our needs. The great majority of us have enough; food, clothing and shelter – we simply do not need to keep stockpiling more and more stuff. And we want to declare ‘enough!’ to the dangers of greed and consumerism, which can so easily incarcerate us with their never ending demands for more.

Uncommon Sense reflects the fact that the wisdom of Scripture goes far deeper than the obvious or the ‘common sense’ that has so clearly been shown for its shortcomings. We need something deeper, more lasting and more powerful. This is what we find in the pages of Scripture as it talks about money.

This will be a practical series that will enable us to live with greater freedom in a world where money so often rules, and learn to enjoy, give and grow wise with one of God’s good gifts.

But trees aside, I love Christmas: the sights, the tastes, the weather, the traditions. I especially love Christmas in London; the German market stalls that adorn the Southbank; the pop up ice rinks that allow you to skate in the shadow of some of the city’s great landmarks; the unforgettable experience of being buffeted by a thousand angry shoppers as you stop dead in the middle of Oxford Street to admire the lights.

It does take me a little while to get into the festive mood though. Some people, the moment Christmas products arrive in the shops (mid August?!) they start singing carols and wanting to hang foil from the ceiling. I’m not one of those people. It takes time for me to warm up to Christmas. Once the festive feeling kicks in properly, I become less of a Grinch and more of a Child. I begin wanting to hug people and watch Home Alone… I even start to appreciate the aroma of pine in my living room! But it takes something to get me in that mood; a watershed moment; a festive experience.

Typically the thing that tips me over the edge and banishes ‘the Scrooge within’ is a good old festive gathering. That’s why I’m looking forward to the ChristChurch London Carol Service on 11 December. What better way to get into the Christmas mood, than to spend a Sunday with friends and family singing carols together, reflecting on a message of peace, joy and hope, and devouring mince pies?

If you’ve never been to a Carol Service at ChristChurch London, you’re in for a treat. The Mermaid Theatre will be beautifully decorated, there will be a choir and carols, readings and a short talk, all topped off with a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie. There will also be a crèche and children’s activities at the morning service.

If you’re anything like me and need a little kick start to get you in the Christmas mood, this will be the perfect event; put the date in your diary, invite your friends, and join us on Sunday 11 December at 11.00 or 16.00.

ChristChurch London Carol Service
Date: Sun Dec 11
Time: 11.00 and 16.00
Venue: The Mermaid Theatre, EC4V 3DB

Flyers are available at church, or download a copy to send to your friends

Used by churches all over the country and beyond, the course gives an ideal opportunity to take hold of the truth of who we are in Christ, provides challenge and space to resolve personal and spiritual conflicts, and encourages and enables Christians to move on to maturity.

The beauty of the course is that it is relevant to anyone who has been a Christian for a day or for fifty years. So whether you’re just starting out or you are aware that there are some long standing issues in your walk with God which you want to tackle, please consider signing up for the course.

Topics covered include:

- Where did I come from?
- Who am I now?
- The battle for our minds
- Handling emotions well
- Forgiving from the heart
- Walking in freedom every day

The course starts on Sunday 22 January at 13.30 and will run for six consecutive Sundays plus one Saturday (18 February) and is open to anyone who attends ChristChurch London.

Each Sunday we will cover two of the talks (there are thirteen in total) and on the Saturday, we will cover one talk and provide space and time for you to go through the ‘Steps to Freedom’.

The cost of booking a space is £15 and covers all the materials required and the Saturday session. Places are limited and will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis.

To book, click here and follow the instructions.

Sadly this is true of too much fringe theatre – it’s for the actors to showcase themselves and not for the audience to enjoy themselves. It makes me not want to go and it certainly makes me not want to invite people!

For the last few months, I’ve been part of a small team putting together the ChristChurch London Christmas Carol Service and although there are lots of differences between ChristChurch and London’s fringe theatre this is going to be the biggest difference: we care about the experience of the audience!

One thing I’ll promise you, on 11 December we are going to do our best to treat our guests like VIPs. We want everyone to be engaged, entertained, left with an all over Christmassy feeling and a positive experience of ChristChurch London. We don’t want anyone to feel left out, cringing with embarrassment or looking for the fire escape.

So get inviting people! I’m excited about the friends and family I’ve got coming. I’m excited about introducing them to ChristChurch London. We may not have stained glass windows, bells and smells, or an organ – but we’ve got you, me, a choir, a band, pretty lights, mince pies, mulled wine, David Stroud… oh and the audience we invite.

ChristChurch London Carol Service
Date: Sun Dec 11
Time: 11.00 and 16.00
Venue: The Mermaid Theatre, EC4V 3DB

Flyers are available at church, or download a copy to send to your friends.

Then came the crash of 2001. It wasn’t like I did anything ‘bad’, more like circumstances spiralled out of my control. I went through some deep relationship pain, lost a job, felt purposeless and anchorless. More than that, I’d felt that I deserved better – that my hours and hours of Sunday School preparation, prayer and Bible study and service in church entitled me to a better life. It felt like life was out of my control, and that all the good works and wholehearted Christian service in the world couldn’t make it right.

In the midst of a severe case of the blues, I wandered into a meeting at a Bible week called Stoneleigh… which is where I heard Terry Virgo preach on the subject of grace.

There are some sermons in which I fall asleep. There are others where I think (arrogantly) ‘I’ve heard better’, and still others where I think, ‘That was pretty good – I see things differently now.’ On rare occasions I come away thinking ‘That was amazing; utterly incredible’. But on the fingers of one hand, I can count the sermons of which I can say, ‘That totally changed my life’ – and Terry’s was one of them. I can’t remember any of his points to be honest. It was more the profound sense awakened in my heart that ‘I need this grace stuff more than anyone else in the world’. It evoked a thirst in me that I didn’t even know was there. All the hard effort and disciplined service I’d been putting in to try and earn points with God, without realising that’s not the way it works.

I’d never thought of myself as a legalist before – thinking that my good works somehow entitled me to a more privileged life. But in so many ways I’d become like those religious people in the Bible that Jesus castigated so violently – smug on the outside, broken on the inside – the worst kind of religion.

Terry’s message turned me inside out and it wasn’t pretty. But it did start a long road to undoing all the wrong patterns of thinking and a slow, increasingly satisfying walk towards true freedom – freedom from performance, pressure to conform and an unhealthy view of God, and things really have never been the same again.

When you realise church is for broken people like me, rather than those who can hold it all together, it takes away all the impetus to prove yourself – it’s just wonderfully liberating. I’m more comfortable in my own skin, prayer is the most amazing pleasure, and serving (while sometimes hard work) is a joy not a duty. I’m not saying I’m free from all self-righteousness – my wife can assure you on that point – but I’m a different person as a result of that talk, and I’m still a work in progress on the other stuff!

I’m not going to get all glowing and mushy with Terry’s visit to ChristChurch London on December 4 – where he’ll be speaking on the subject of grace. But I will be praying hard that his message impacts us significantly as a church. If we really ‘get’ grace, then relationships, serving, worship, workplaces, prayer, self image – the whole lot – become very different.

So put December 4 in your diaries, or download the podcast at least – grace really is amazing – and it’s worth hearing about, especially from the man who’s made it one of his key life messages.

Even in the past few months, riots, fires, shootings and looting have suddenly opened our eyes to the need within our communities. Scandals have filled our papers, politicians’ expenses have dented public confidence and we all sense things are not just going to magically sort themselves out. It is almost as if we are watching the social fabric of London literally tearing apart before our eyes…

In 2 Chronicles 7:14 God promises:

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

So on 1 December we are going to do just that. At 7.14pm, Christians all around the world will unite for an hour of prayer, crying out to God for peace, justice and forgiveness for our nation, and to demonstrate a positive vision of Jesus’ church. People will be meeting in 38 cities, including New York, Marseille and Edinburgh, and we want to invite you to join us here in London.

A group of us from ChristChurch London will join with hundreds of other Christians from across the city, meeting outside St Paul’s Cathedral to unite in prayer for our City and our Nation. There will be no stage, no mics, no brands, no speaker… It will just be the people of God gathering in one place at one time, with a desperate cry for the healing of our land.

The Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, reminds us of the power in this adventure we call prayer:

“Prayer is the world in which God can do anything. To move into that realm is the greatest adventure. It is to be open to the infinite and hence to infinite possibilities. Our private, self made worlds, come to an end; a new world appears within and around us and the impossible becomes an everyday experience. Yet the world that prayer reveals is barely noticeable in the ordinary course of events. Hundreds of people gathering outside St Paul’s Cathedral on December 1st will give the world a positive vision of what the church exists to be and do.”

Has there ever been a time when our City and our Nation have been in more desperate need for the church to unite and cry out to God in prayer, for the healing and restoration of our broken land? Come and join with hundreds of people taking to the streets crying out to God for change and healing in our nation…

For more information visit The City and the official Facebook group.

Over the last ten years of my life I’ve had the opportunity to travel to India, build churches in Argentina and work with students in South Africa. On all of these trips I’ve learnt more about myself and more about God, but since my last trip abroad something different is going on. God is stirring my heart for the nations.

I hear stories about people in communist countries who aren’t allowed to worship Jesus in public and realise how blessed I am to live in a country as free as the UK. I watch the news and see people starving in Somalia and know that God is calling me to give generously to help feed them. I read books about Jackie Pullinger transforming the lives of drug addicts in Hong Kong and realise how powerful God is. And I watch films about the genocide in Rwanda and weep into my pillow as I understand how much God is pained by the sins of the people He created.

God is stirring my heart for the nations. I don’t know if He’s calling me to move abroad, or if my career will eventually lead me to work for a charity supporting those in the developing world. But for now, I know that He’s calling me to pray and to support others who are being called abroad.

Over the past year or two, friends of mine have gone to Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Some of them moved for work, others to help for charities, others to witness to people who don’t know Him. Some have gone for a few months, others for the rest of their lives, or at least until God calls them somewhere else. And I’ve learnt the importance of staying in contact with them and reminding them that they are loved by the people left behind them.

There is so much going on in London that our church can get involved in and support, which is so exciting, but we also want to be a church that goes to the nations. So the ChristChurch London Global team has been set up to support those who are leaving the UK – before they go, whilst they are away and if/when they come back.

I am so excited about seeing my friends again, and until then I’m excited about keeping in touch with them, hearing the stories of how God is moving in the countries they are living in, and praying for them. But I’m also excited about the people from ChristChurch who God is calling to move abroad and change the world, and I’m excited about spending time with them praying through that calling, preparing them to leave and keeping in touch with them whilst they are away. And I’m excited that one day, whether in a few years or in the New Creation, I will celebrate with them over all that God has done in and through them and me.

If you know that God is calling you abroad or, like me, simply want to support those that go, we’d love to see you on 3 December. Oh – and breakfast is on us!

ChristChurch London Global Breakfast
Sat Dec 3
10.00 – 13.00
Crypt on the Green
St James’ Clerkenwell
EC1R 0EA

Arthur Guinness would. The water in Dublin in the eighteenth century was so unhealthy that the poor were drinking gin as a cheap alternative. Disturbed by the ill-health and poverty this caused, Guinness used his knowledge and business-skills to brew up something that was more drinkable than the water, more healthy than gin and hugely profitable.

Meanwhile, other members of the family were sending people out across the world, planting churches and winning the lost in many other nations. What a great family! And what a great summary of the heart of the Everything Conference.

Our next conference will be on 17 March 2012 at the Mermaid Conference Centre, Blackfriars and we are thrilled to be welcoming Dr Os Guinness, a direct descendent of this family, as our keynote speaker. Os will be giving us some practical ways in which believers can connect with and influence their world, and through interviews and short videos we will hear the fascinating stories of others putting this into action, including:

Award-winning comedian Paul Kerensa, a script-writer for the hit comedy show Miranda, explaining how a Christian can bring something of God into a secular comedy-writing team;

Three businessman-brothers telling us about the really innovative way they are fighting the sex-trade;

Finding out why a small group of people have committed to live in an inner-city community for a number of decades and how they are seeking to bring about change within that community;

And much more!

I will also be speaking, and we will complete the package with Spirit-filled worship, prayer and ministry. It’s shaping up to be an amazing day.

Whatever you are passionate about, Everything 2012 has inspiration, ideas and tools you can put into practice in your world – you don’t want to miss it. Advance tickets are on sale now for just £20 (tickets on the door will cost £25), so click here to book. And if you book in by Sunday 15 Jan, you can get an 10% off the ticket price by entering the code EVERY10. That’s nearly a 30% discount on the day ticket price!

Book in and spread the world.

(1) It’s been a busy term, you deserve a little extra rest. Set the alarm just an hour or so later and treat yourself to a lie in.

(2) There’s a newly opened M&Ms World in Leicester Square. Why not pay it a visit. At 35,000 square feet, it’s the world’s largest sweet shop, selling over 100 types of M&M. (I dare you to request a bag containing one of each type!)

(3) ChristChurch London will be meeting at the Piccadilly Theatre at 16.00 this Sunday!

Every year we have to pack our bags and vacate the Mermaid for one week only. So on Sunday 20 November, we will be meeting at the Piccadilly Theatre, 16 Denman Street, W1D 7DY. Don’t, whatever you do, turn up at the Mermaid by mistake. There will be no smiley-faced welcome team, no worship time, no sermon, just some other random people there running an event and charging you to get in!

As well as a change of venue, there will be no 11.00 meeting. Since the Piccadilly is a larger venue, this will be a great opportunity for us to bring our two meetings together and see some faces you’ve not seen for a while. So come along at 16.00. Children’s work will be provided; see the details below.

And who knows, if you do bring me a bag of 100 different M&Ms I might just award you some kind of prize! *

__________

Date: Sunday 20 November
Time: 16.00
Venue: Piccadilly Theatre, 16 Denman Street, W1D 7DY

Creche: Stalls Bar
Jumping Beans: Grand Circle Bar
Kids Club: Royal Circle Bar

Refreshments: Tea, Coffee and Juice will be available from the bar areas after the meeting
Socialising: Why not join us for a drink after the meeting? 18.30 at the Warwick, 1-3 Warwick Street, W1B 5LR

* Prize to be determined… It may well end up just being a handful of your M&Ms.