The Lord's Prayer is like a diamond with many different facets - Jesus is teaching us to pray this prayer containing so many different forms of prayer; adoration, submission, spiritual warfare, confession, petition - it's all in there. But the form of prayer I want to say a bit more about here, is intercession. Or more concretely the part of intercession where we seek God for him to reveal what his will is so we can work with him. That is what intercession is. We work with God, through our prayers, in seeing his will breaking through in situations and lives here on earth.  Read More

So we come to the end of this Vision and Values series. Reminding ourselves that who we are will always shape what we do. Our purpose as Kingdom bringers flows out of our identity as image bearers. Discipleship leads us to the Kingdom. This week in our sermon we recognised that our vision of following Jesus together as a covenant community is not always matched by our reality. Our individual and corporate imperfections – those bits of us that are not yet quite like Jesus – cause us disappointment and pain.  Read More

About a year after I became a Christian and was baptised I felt God call me to leadership – a call that he has confirmed many times since. That first time back in 1984 the call came through scripture – specifically Isaiah 61 – why don’t you take a moment now to read it through. Three things happened in my heart on that first occasion – what I realise now will have been the first time I would have read those words. Firstly I realised that it was all about the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me. Secondly that I was being called to preach the gospel and thirdly that the gospel was about more than just personal salvation – it was about the Kingdom of God.  Read More

Christians should love the church. Jesus loves his church, community is God’s idea and the church is his plan A for impacting the world with his kingdom. However, the reality is we can often struggle with church. The latest census reveals that in the UK 46% of people would still describe themselves as Christian – that is actually quite encouraging – but less than 5% are part of a church community. Why is that? When God exists in community, creates out of community, creates for community, saves through community and Jesus built community. What is it that causes so many people to identify as Christian, yet not commit to a local church?  Read More

Ephesians 2 verses 1-10 is one of the great levellers of the New Testament. You do not need to be a biblical scholar to understand it – though a bit of study will help you with some of the beautiful nuances. But at first reading it leaves you in no doubt as to its meaning. We were dead in our sin – unresponsive to the majesty of God. Lost in our own selfishness. There was no hope! But God – who is rich in mercy has made us alive in Christ!! The richness and generosity of God is brought to bear against my spiritual poverty. I am transformed by the grace of God. The grace of God secures my salvation and holds my salvation secure – wow.  Read More

Jesus points us to the Father and promises us the Holy Spirit. Jesus also models for us a relationship with the Father and a life lived full of the Holy Spirit. Although Jesus is fully God, he is also fully man, and as such he displays in his life how we can live our lives in relationship with the Father and dependent on the Holy Spirit. Jesus uses the spiritual disciplines of prayer, worship and study to engage with and deepen his relationship with God and his dependency on the Holy Spirit. This is not because he is being religious, but because he knows it is all about relationship.  Read More