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 […]

Why I believe – Part 1.

I heard the Marxist phrase about religion being ‘the opiate of the people,’ which made me sound clever in the pub and came to regard Jesus as a mythical figure, or if he did ever exist he was either a irrelevant prophet or a religious nutcase out to stop people from having fun.

Ecclesiastes 5: Motor Mouth.

Kris Tucker at Ivy Mcr. This forms our grow group notes for this week: ‘I will let my words be few…’ Read Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 Some of us love silence. Others can’t wait to fill it with something. which are you?! Kris shared a time when he went to the beach to get really quiet, but there was no way he could get quiet inside. Even when we are in silence- do we wait ‘long enough to hear the silence itself.’ Mother Teresa: ‘God is the friend of silence.’ Are you? How do you get on with silence? Do you see it as a friend? Have a time of silence… Then discuss! God said to Kris: ‘Your worship is one style – you come to me with lots of words.’ This passage tells us, there is a time for silence. How do we make time for silence in busy lives? Kris then showed us a video clip from The Blue Planet- about a Blue Whale. Watch something like that, (link below) then put your hand over your mouth, and silently stand […]