News Archive

Gym time

Posted by Andy Carlisle on January 30. Archived.

1 Timothy 4:8, "Bodily exercise is of some value, but working out in the gymnasium of godliness holds promise for the present life and the life to come."
Spiritual disciplines can be helpful with the Spirit’s help in helping us grow spiritually. They aren’t the measure of how good we are, or and end in themselves. If you like, it’s just a way of getting into good habits.
Silence Try making a few minutes each day for complete silence, turn the radio and TV off and turn to God
Prayer Pray as you can, not as you can’t. Try 5 minutes a day, and you’ll find you want to pray more
Fasting How about fasting from shopping, the internet, MSN, music or football. The point is to focus on Jesus and realise what are your priorities. Its about freedom. See Isaiah 58
Study Not necessarily heavy and academic. Study life, look through God’s eyes at the world, creation, people, culture. Let God’s word be the first place you start
Confession Keep a short account with God. Confess to him what is really going on in the shower at the begiining of the day. Find yourself someone who asks you the hard questions about your life.
Meeting together Let's see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do, but spurring each other on. Hebrews 10:24
Service Think of one thing you can do to serve your colleague, neighbour, family or friends and do it.
Submission Submit your day to God at the beginning, let him be in charge of what you do and say
Remember
• Apply grace, its not about getting God to love us more
• Ask the Spirit for help
• Don't just try harder
• Start small and build up
• Look for character and behaviour change in yourself
• It’s all about being more like Jesus
(To listen to Andy's talk on spiritual disciplines, click here.) 

Get to the point!

Posted by Tim Fletcher on January 29. Archived.

John Eldredge is a successful author of a number of books, and study materials, in his own right, and with his wife Stasi. He is the founder and director of Ransomed Heart Ministries, which is devoted to helping people discover the heart of God. In my humble opinion, his book Wild at Heart is one of the most disappointing Christian books I have read.
I do agree that masculinity tends to be suppressed in the church, but he takes an age to say so. By the time the point is made, that men should be involved in the real spiritual fight, the book is at an end.
This fight, I agree, is the real adventure to be involved in, and all the characteristics we may think of as masculine, are needed in the thick of it. If you want to read the book, start at page 100, or better still read the last chapter of The Fight by John White.
The book does, however, have some excellent quotes. From the unforgettable: “The naked woman’s body is a portion of eternity, too great for the eye of man.” (William Blake); to the truthful: “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Rather ask yourself what makes you really come alive, and go and do that. What the world truly needs is people who are really living.” (Gil Bailie)
I think I’ll read the Spongebob Squarepants Annual now.

Echoes of the gospel

Posted on January 22. Archived.

Sunday evening's talk by Sean Harris is now available to download here.

Covenant

Posted on January 15. Archived.

The wording used in our Covenant service is now available to download here.

Pure Christmas

Posted by Christine Jensen on January 2. Archived.

I'm done with Christmas. Done with the carol-reading-carol sandwich. Done with religion on automatic pilot. It may well look alive and sing 'Gloria' but I'm through pretending Christmas means a thing.

Unless, unless at the soul-sustaining, pounding heart of it and me, there's a relationship... real... vibrant... transformational... incarnational... forever... always... now... here... today... Jesus. Now THAT'S pure Christmas. I'm well up for a large slice of that, and I don't even have to wait 'til next December!