Jesus’ Job Interview

Just thinking about this as I prepare to speak Sunday on John 21. The original ‘Footprints in the Sand’ I suppose… Here’s Jesus’ job interview… Simon do you love me? You know I love you. Feed my sheep. Do you love me? I love you deeply. Good – feed my lambs. Do you love me? You know I love you… Feed my sheep. Okay – er… What about him?

Debra Green – Mountains or Fountains

My notes from this, the first talk in our 40 Days of Ivy DNA Series: RELEVANT. People are surprised when we as a church are normal rather than ‘religious’ Text –  John 4- the samaritan woman at the well. 1) Jesus asked – ‘Will you give me a drink?’ This is a very controversial conversation for him to have at all. He’s showing us the type of Saviour he is. He’s speaking to her in her language, about her every day life and needs. Connects with the familiar. If we want to be relevant we need to offer and speak into what people need. Cf Breathe City Church in Stoke- their ‘When‘ ministry: giving clothes to the poor in the city. Thousands of clothing packages given. When we meet the felt needs of people, we’ll be relevant. We’re not relevant because the worship is great or the preaching is good: people outside of church are not even asking about that anyway! But if we help people and connect in people in prison, in debt, when we are marked by hospitality, […]

Alan Taylor on Authority & the Absalom spirit

Notes by Anthony for Grow Groups based on Alan Taylor’s Evening talk : Authority God has given us an impossible task – and authority to do it. Eph 2:10 Nobody has ever grown in God without living under authority – which is the way to have authority. Pray for our nation and its young people especially with regard to disorder on the streets. There are things God has put inside you that won’t be unlocked unless you learn to live under authority Literally the word authority means ‘that which settles a matter.’ These days we google things to settle matters, it’s become an authority! What’s the final authority for Christians? Also the word means – the word of the Author God is the Author- do we give him authority? In what ways might we demonstrate that? God draws us to himself as a loving Father, into the story he has written for you. Authority = being under the Author. One Bible character who lived contrary to being under authority = Absalom. Find where he appears in the Bible. (Leaders help […]

DEBRA GREEN: Nehemiah 10 – 13. The house of God.

Debra rounded off our series tonight. She began by talking about competing voices – a time in the week when there were 2 sat navs going in the church, which one do we listen to? God’s word to is the Bible, and Nehemiah kept having to come back to that, and call people back to what the Lord had said. 10:28 Now the rest of the people—the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the Nethinim, and all those who had separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the Law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, everyone who had knowledge and understanding— these joined with their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse and an oath to walk in God’s Law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord, and His ordinances and His statutes. At what age can a child understand and come into the things of God? Josh 24:15 – Choose who you will serve! As for me […]