Please join us this Christmas!

Open day!

Happy Christmas! Please pop in on Saturday afternoon. If you'd like to visit, but can't make it on Saturday, come and ring the doorbell any time you see someone's in. Always welcome for a brew!

Men's half weekend away

We had a great time up in the Lake District, and read some really cool stuff together while we were there. Here's a few pictures:

Grand opening!

It's been a special weekend: the purchase of Northbrook Barn was finally completed. We flew in David Seccombe, ex-principal of George Whitefield College in Cape Town, specially to cut the tape for the grand opening..

Joe says it all...

"But I'm not a bishop!" "... You're the closest thing we've got today!"

"If you didn't grow up in a Christian family, you'll probably not be a Christian yourself."

That was a question asked this morning. Here's a slightly longer answer. In fact, three answers:

1. True. Your upbringing has a major effect on your life. It's hard to overstate how much your parents influence you in terms of morality, life-choices and behaviour - for good or bad. And if you grow up in a family that teaches you the Christian faith, of course you have a huge advantage over others in terms of the opportunity to respond to the gospel and follow Jesus. Which means that someone who grows up in a Christian family and then decides to turn away will have less to excuse them on the judgement day.

2. Following that, doesn't it show what a great responsibility we have as parents? If our job is to "make disciples" (Matthew 28:19-20), what better opportunity than to teach our children well - we are their biggest influence. John Chapman said that his biggest regret about remaining single was that raising children is a wonderful opportunity to raise Christians.

3. However, it is not true that others don't often become Christians. Many (most?) of our own church family at Wellfield are not from Christian homes. Everyone has to make their own decisions, and just as 'Christian' children can sadly walk away, so others can come to know Jesus - and do so all the time. Our job as a church is to be proclaiming the good news of Jesus to people who currently don't know about him. And often it's those who know absolutely nothing who have fewest misconceptions to put them off.

Mark's Gospel

Our new preaching series: the first 8 chapters of Mark's gospel. WHO IS THIS MAN? Who is Jesus? People have lots of different ideas about who exactly Jesus was. Mark will give us the definitive answer to that question.

How to pray (in public)

The idea of this is not to make hard and fast rules, so that we all end up sounding the same. It's good that different people are different, and do things differently. But here's a few tips to help people who lead us in prayer when we meet together:

How to read (in public)

Reading the bible out loud when we meet together is not something all of us are comfortable with or able to do. Not many of us are natural readers, who can just pick it up and read everything in the right way. It's important to go through the given reading first and practice. Why important? Because reading out loud well can make a boring piece of writing come alive, and reading badly can make a great piece of writing dead! Here's a few tips to help us:

The deeper roots of hope

What will give us confidence that God will 'win'? Where will we find confidence that his kingdom will succeed, hope to carry on with his work, as a church? John Woodhouse wrote this:

"As I write these words I find myself living and working in an evangelical theological college that has more students in training for gospel ministry than ever before. Should that give me hope? The missionary society with which I have closest links has a record number of candidates for overseas missionary work. Should that give me hope? In the city in which I live, these are exciting days for the gospel of Jesus. Plans and strategies for gospel growth are being formed and tried. Some of them are working! Church planting is the latest focus. We have Christian leaders with vision and quite remarkable ability. Should all that give me hope?

Many of the students at our college have come because they have been inspired by what is going on. They are hopeful that the kingdom of God is advancing in our day, and in various ways they hope to be part of the action. They see the value of giving their lives to this movement.

One of my longings for each of these students is this: Without dampening their excitement or cooling their enthusiasm or quelling their delight in the work of God that appears to he happening, I pray that their hopes will be given deeper roots. I long that they will so know God and his ways that their joy will survive - no, thrive - even when or if the numbers in church go into decline, and the strategy turns out to be a failure, and the church plant withers, and the movement that may have inspired them seems, to all appearances, to be over."

(John Woodhouse, 1 Samuel, p181)

Do Christians have to go to church?

“I don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.” Ever heard that? Ever said it? “I’m a Christian, but I don’t go to church.” Of course, there are plenty of Christians in the world who never go to church (Christians in prison, or isolated for other reasons). But it’s worth thinking twice before saying that sort of thing again. Here are just a few things to chew over:

The well of depression

One comment yesterday morning:

“When the black clouds are over you, and you get depression, it’s like living down the bottom of a well. All you can see when you look up is a tiny circle of sky. What you can’t see is that up there, there’s a whole load of sky all around.”


Have you ever experienced that feeling, with depression - or when life gets on top of you? Hannah helps us…

Choosing the right bank account

CT Studd

Here is the quote from Sunday, about investing in the right bank. It is part of a letter from CT Studd to General Booth:

"... And now we want to enclose a cheque for £1,500. The other £500 has gone to Commissioner Tucker for his wedding present. Besides this I am instructing our Bankers, Messrs. Coutts and Co., to sell out our last earthly investment of £1,400 Consols and send what they realize to you. Henceforth our bank is in heaven. You see we are rather afraid - notwithstanding the great earthly safety of Messrs. Coutts and Co. and the Bank of England - we are, I say, rather afraid that they may both break on the Judgement Day..."

Knowing God... vs knowing about God

 

         “Not many of us, I think, would ever naturally say that we
          have known God. The words imply a definiteness and
          matter-of-factness of experience to which most of us, if we
          are honest, have to admit that we are still strangers… Would
          it occur to us to say, without hesitation, and with reference
          to particular events in our personal history, that we have
          known God? I doubt it, for I suspect that with most of us
          experience of God has never become so vivid as that."

A life worth nothing

We are used to the idea that a life apart from Jesus is, ultimately, of little worth - “A waste of time between two accidents”, as someone put it. But it is possible for a Christian life to be worthless to.

Does that sound shocking? I think so. And yet the Apostle Paul himself writes of the possibility of his life’s work being “in vain” (Philippians 2:16). What will your life count for? And what will make it count for something?

Standing Firm

 “Stand firm in the one Spirit”

 (Philippians 1:27)

Do you fear that you might stop being a Christian? Paul’s great desire, as he writes to the Philippians, is that they would not drift away, but “stand firm”. But how? Here are five great ways NOT to stand firm:

Can't handle talking about Jesus?

Bishop Handley Moule (1841-1920) comments on the closeness of relationships we were looking at in Philippians 1:

“If I mistake not, there is far too little of this at present, even in true Christian circles. A certain dread … of what is foolishly called ‘goody-goody,’ has long been abroad; a grievously exaggerated dread; a mere parody of rightful jealousy for sincerity in religion. Under the baneful spell of this dread it is only too common for really earnest Christians to keep each other’s company, and even to take part in united religious work, and to be constantly together as worshippers, aye, perhaps as ministers of the Word and Ordinances of Christ, and yet never, or hardly ever, to exchange a word about Him, heart to heart; still less to ‘speak often one to another,’ and share fully together their treasures of experience of what He is and what He has done for them. The very dialect of the Christians life has greatly lost in holy depth and tenderness, so it seems to me … It ought not so to be.”

Still the case?