Sunday Morning Notes - Hitch

Hi everyone. Sorry for the break in my blog over the last couple of weeks, I have been away with the family for a couple of weeks holiday which was fantastic and refreshing.

I hope that you all had a wonderful Easter.

This last Sunday (15th April) we launched a new series called 'Reel Relationships.' During this three part series we are going to be looking at the foundations for great relationships. I started the series off on Sunday talking about dating. On each of the weeks we are going to take a different film and use it as the starting point for our discussion. This Sunday we used the film Hitch - which is a great film that is well worth seeing. You can listen to a full version of my talk by clicking here... here are some notes that summarise the talk.

The film is about Hitch played by Will Smith who is a date doctor. He helps men get dates. He has all kinds of advice to help people with their dating.

We looked at what God has to say about dating and the advice he would give. This is important stuff for all of us. Some of us may be dating, some may have kids who will be dating one day or may be already, some of us may be grandparents and need to have wisdom to pass on to our grandchildren about dating. Some of us may have friends who talk to us about dating...we all need to know this stuff.

I think that God has three key things to say that provide a foundation for dating relationships:

1. God has a revolutionary view of singleness

2. God has a revolutionary view of sex

3. God has a revolutionary hope of the ultimate family for us.

Firstly God has a revolutionary view of singlness. Where society and culture often tells us that the only way to find fulfillment is through romantic relationships, God says married or single, dating or not, it doesn't matter to him. In fact often times being single allows us to concentrate more fully on our relationship with God and his purposes for our lives (see 1 Corinthians chapter 7 verses 28-35). Christianity was the first religion or worldview to say singleness was not just ok, but that it was more than ok, it was a good and purposeful way to live. That means that when it comes to dating there is no need to rush in, to settle for something less than what we should do, that we need to compromise ourselves for the sake of a relationships.

Secondly God has a revolutionary view of sex. That sex is neither an appetite that we should fulfill when we feel the need, nor is it defiling or dirty. God says that sex is a wonderful and beautiful thing that invovles radical self donation of oneself to another person and the best context for that is marriage. What that means is that when it comes to dating we should wait for the sexual part of the relationship until marriage. That takes the pressure off and allows us to concentrate on other vitally important parts of the relationships.

Finally God has a revolutionary view of the ultimtate family. God provides a way for us to be adopted as his sons and daughters and has a perfect family awaiting us in heaven and that the church is a glimpse or a foretaste of that family.

These three things make up a Christian hope for dating and relationships that provides an amazing foundation upon which to live and to build great relationships if we let it.

If you want to listen to some more stuff on this subject we have been recommended a series called Love, Sex and Dating by Andy Stanley. Andy is a great speaker and you can access videos of his talks in this series by following this link: http://www.northpoint.org/messages/the-new-rules-for-love-sex-and-dating . You can select the different parts of his series by clicking on the part number at the bottom left hand side of the screen.

God bless

Chris

Teddy Bears Picnic

As I sit here in my office writing this I can see lots of parents and toddlers making their way back to their cars after their Teddy Bears Picnic. This event was hosted by the Premix team in the main hall here at the church building. It was our first social event for those under 5 years of age and their parents and it looks and sounds like it has been a roaring success!

35 children and 25 adults were here for it and they enjoyed great food, games, crafts and singing!

For some time we have been keen to launch a new 'mission stream' for those who are under 5 and their families that includes social events, special services, a revised creche on a Sunday morning. We have wanted to build on the success of the parents and toddlers group that has been running at EBC for years. I am really excited that this social event today marks the beginning of that new mission stream and I am convinced that God has some great stuff that he can and will do through us with this age group.

Many congratulations to the Premix team for their organisation and running of this event today. I am sure that it is the start of many!

See you soon

Chris

Sunday Morning Notes - iDream

This last Sunday morning Steph (our Assistant Minister) spoke on the theme of dreams in the last of our Face the Music series.

She used the story of Jacob's dream in the Old Testament (Genesis Chapter 28 verses 10 to 15) to challenge us with the dreams God has for our lives. It was also Mothers Day so she also talked about the dreams we have for our children. Here are some of the things that struck me from what Steph said:

If we were guaranteed to succeed at something what would we do? What are the dreams we have for our lives? God has dreams for our lives.

Jacob has a dream of angels travelling between heaven and earth and Steph said something that I thought was really profound. She said that there are thin places between heaven and earth where heaven breaks in here down on earth. When we align our dreams with God's dreams we see those thin places become a reality.

Jacob's dream for his life is shattered, but God has a bigger and better dream in mind for him. Jacob does not deserve all that God has for him, but he receives it because God is graceful. God promises Jacob that he will always be with him and God dreams that we would know that too and live in the reality of that.

God has dreams for us and for our children and for those who we love. We must lay our dreams down in favour of God's dreams for our lives and for our children's lives. Steph asked us whether we trust God for our children and entrust them to God and look for God's dreams for them not our own.

We must find out what God's dreams for our lives are and follow them.

God bless

Chris

Hope

I am doing this thing at the moment where I am trying to read through the whole Bible in a year. It is pretty challenging - it requires 2 chapters of the Old Testement, a couple of chapters of the New Testament and a Psalm every day. To be honest, I am not going to make it because I miss days. However I have been really impacted by God's story.

This week I have been reading Psalms in the thirties and I have just had to stop and reflect on it for a few days.

There are quite a few references in that Psalm to hope. For example it says "Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord." (Psalm 31 verse 24), "the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love" (Psalm 33 verse 18), "May your unfailing love be with us, Lord, even as we put our hope in you" (Psalm 33 verse 22).

I think that hope is a really powerful weapon for us in life. Not unrealistic, over optimistic, hyped up hope. But hope based in the reality of knowing God is for us, his love is unfailing, he has dreams and plans for us and we have the ultimate hope of an eternity spent with God in heaven.

If we live with that kind of hope it changes us and changes how we go through life.

Let's be great hopers!

God bless

Chris

Walk his trail

What an amazing morning we had on Sunday. We hosted the 'Walk His Trail' tour with Steve and Jaime Saint. It was truly inspiring to hear their story and having watched the film 'End of the Spear' the evening before at our movie night it made it even more real.

For those who don't know Steve's father Nate was killed in 1956 in the amazing jungle in Ecuador as he and four friends attempted to reach out to the Waodani tribe. What followed was an amazing story of reconciliation and forgiveness as the wives of some of the five young men who were killed went back to live with the Waodani tribe and Steve (who was a young boy at the time) was adopted by one of the men who had killed his father.

Hearing the story from Steve was remarkable and also hearing about what he and Jaime have spent the last 20 years doing as they have looked to help and support the Waodani was inspiring.

The worship music led by Cathy Burton was also great and overall we had a wonderful morning.

The challenge that they gave that most impacted me was what Jaime said as they finished speaking: "It is all very well to be prepared to die for your faith but it can be even more difficult to live for your faith."

I want to live for my faith, to demonstrate with every part of me the love that God has for me and for others. Quite a challenge!

To hear the whole of Steve and Jaime's talk click here.

God bless

Chris

Sunday Morning Notes - i Rest

On Sunday morning at our services, I spoke on the theme of rest.

The key take home message was that true rest is found if we yoke ourselves to Jesus.

I spoke about the difference between tiredness and weariness. That tiredness can be solved quite quickly and is not always a bad thing. Weariness however is always a bad thing and is never solved easily - we need a plan.

The solution to weariness is found in the words of Jesus recorded for us in Matthew's account of Jesus' life chapter 11 verses 28-30. Jesus says come to me all who are weary and I will give you rest.

He says that we should yoke ourselves to him. We need to remember that in Jesus' day a yoke was a beautifully, hand crafted and comfortable thing for a ox to wear. A yoke was not difficult or uncomfortable. However the burden it was strapped to might have been heavy. Jesus' burden is light because it brings us hope, peace and joy. If we choose to yoke ourselves to him and follow his will and plan for our lives we find that his yoke is easy and his burden light.

I spoke about 3 areas that we can easily become weary in. Physically, emotionally and spiritually. We looked at some gauges like fuel gauges and talked about things we can learn from Jesus to ensure our gauges stay topped up.

Physically we need to ensure we keep periods of rest and recuperation.

Emotionally we need to ensure that we have things in our lives that refresh us.

Spiritually we need to make time and space for God - this might include Sunday services, small groups and times of quiet.

To listen to a full recording of the talk click here.

God bless

Chris

iRest

On Wednesday this week I spent a significant part of the day thinking and praying about my talk for this Sunday. I already had an outline prepared and lots of notes in mind. My theme is iRest and is the beginning of our new series Face the Music.

The more time I spent on it on Wednesday, the more excited I became. I love speaking on a Sunday and always feel a sense of urgency and importance to the things we are looking at. However for some reason on Wednesday I felt a great sense of burden for our topic and a heightened sense of anticipation about what God can do in us through this message and its implications.

I am going to be looking at the difference between tiredness and weariness, what Jesus offers those who are weary and how if we choose to we can be free from the bondage of weariness and that Jesus has lessons for us to learn and implement into our lives to give us rest. We are going to look at the burdens we carry and how they can drag us down.

Finally we are going to spend some time responding to God and what he wants to do in this area of our lives and there is going to be prayer ministry available for those who feel weary and burdened.

I am convinced that God has lots in store for us on Sunday morning, please make every effort to be there (even if you don't feel weary at the moment, there will be lots to learn for you too.

And in the meantime, start asking God to build a sense of anticipation in you for what he wants to do with us on Sunday morning and pray that he would move powerfully amongst us.

God bless

Chris

Sunday Morning Notes - Grow Together

We had an amazing time at our joint 10.15am service yesterday. Over 180 people were there and the hall was packed out! We really enjoyed the dedication of Joshua Taylor and welcomed his family and friends. Our talk theme was 'Growing Together' and was the last part of our series Walking in His Footsteps. (To listen to the other talks from this series click here).

The main theme of the talk was: Who we follow determines how we grow in our lives and below are some of the key notes from that talk.

We are influenced in different ways by different people and circumstances as we grow up. Who we choose to follow determines how we grow. Jesus has always been after followers - people who are prepared to follow him. Jesus' first followers were a rag tag bunch of fishermen, prostitutes, terrorists, tax collectors etc. They followed him and as they did so they changed the world.

We are trying help each other follow Jesus and grow together to be the people and the church community he wants us to be. Our spiritual growth is our personal responsibility, but a church community like ours can help. We are currently launching a set of tools that we can each use and take advantage of to help us in our spiritual growth. These tools include workshops, resource lists and so on.

Next Sunday we will be giving everyone a booklet called Spiritual Transformation - Tools for the Journey of Faith which detail all of these resources. Don't worry if you can't be there we will make sure that you get one.

If you want to hear the talk you can do so by clicking here.

God bless

Chris

Sunday Morning Notes - Love people

Yesterday morning at our 9.15am and 11.15am services Steph (our Assistant Minister) spoke on the theme of Love People. This was part of a series we have been working through in January and February called "Walking in His Footsteps."

Steph challenged us in a number of ways about how we might love people and we promised to put up some notes from her talk, particulary the six ways that we can increase our capacity for love. Here they are:

1. Receive God's love for us and remember that we are to die for (Jesus died for us)
2. Ask every day to be filled with the Spirit of love
3. Ask God's help to see others through the eyes of his love for them
4. Be really present with others, giving them your full attention
5. Love with actions
6. Every time you see someone look at them and say to yourself "you are to die for" (especially the ones that get up your nose!)

Steph's key message throughout the whole talk was that people are to die for. We are to die for and those that we meet were also worth dying for. Jesus died because God loves us that much.

She reminded us of what is said in Mark's account of Jesus' life chapter 12. Jesus was asked "of all the commandments, which is the most important." He replies "the most imoprtant one is this: Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: "love yoru neighbour as yourself. There is no other commandments greater than these."

She also gave two other quotes which I thought were amazing:

1. "Loving well is the essence of true spirituality"
2. "Love is to reveal the beauty of another person to themselves" (Jean Varnier)

Finally she reminded us of what is says in the letter written to the Galatians "The only thing that counts is faith expressed in love."

To here the full recording of Steph's talk click here.

God bless

Chris

a new friend

I met a new friend this week. I was away for a couple of days and on Wednesday evening I went across to the fast food place just over the road from the travelodge where I was staying. There was no one else in the place and the guy that served me was called Naveed. I had to wait a while for my food and whilst I was waiting Naveed asked me what I did for a living. When I told him that I led a church he asked me what type. When I said a baptist church he said that he had no idea what that was. We then entered into a conversation and he told me all about his wife and daughter and that they were looking for somewhere to get her christened. Unfortunately Naveed lives about 50 miles from Bracknell but we talked about what his options were where he lived.

He made it quite clear to me that he isn't a Christian but we had a great conversation and he was genuinely interested in church.

Then my food was ready and we said goodnight.

I expect that I will never see Naveed again, but what the whole experience made me realise afresh is that people are really open to conversations about church and about God. He didn't give me any abuse, make fun or belittle what I was saying (and I didn't do that about what he was saying) and I think we both really enjoyed chatting. And who knows what the outcome of that conversation might be for Naveed and his family.

The point of all this is that we should realise that the opportunities for conversation and witness are all around us. It isn't difficult or stressful. We just need to chat! We need to be genuinely interested in other people and in what they have to say. We don't need to try to convert them in one conversation and we certainly shouldn't judge them or belittle what they are saying. Just being natural and enjoying other people is quite enough. And God can do some amazing things when we do just that. So let's do it, what's stopping us?

God bless

Chris