 |
Welcome |
 |
More about us |
 |
Diary & Information |
 |
Community Café |
|
Clubs |
|
Contact Us |
|
Movie pages |
BlogHere are the thoughts and news of the people in our community. Leave a comment as you wish. If you want to join the blogging ask Mark.
Monday, May 28, 2007Tendai does decorating
  ... himself, that is... Posted by: Mark | 9:37 am |
Wednesday, May 23, 2007Community DreamsThis is a really interesting post by Jason Clarke on Community. The first point grabbed my attention in particular. It was a good reminder that community in and of itself is an illusive goal. Community is a by-product of doing something meaningful together. It really links with what Bonhoeffer said about loving the idea of community more than the reality of community itself. The idealism of community is the surest way to kill of community. This is the heart of the Gospel - to love peope against the odds. There are always surprising ones, ones that hit hard against us in our consumerist, individualistic society, where the personal rights, and the freedom to choose are the highest values. Hence we could baulk at 'renouncing choice' and having 'clear rules' and needing 'leadership'. The post is based on reseearch into communities and actually the list resembles that on the 'building community' page, based on research done by Randy Frazee. I firmly believe that the essence of church is community, but just to say that isn't enough it seems. thoughts? Labels: church, community, discipleship, mission Posted by: Mark | 1:56 pm |
Monday, May 14, 2007Rhoda's travels
 I caught Rhoda on msn the other day, and she sent me through this photo, so I thought I would share it with you all. It is of Ankor Wat in Cambodia. Looks like one crazy place. Rhoda's looking well though! Posted by: Mark | 9:11 am |
Friday, May 11, 2007Introduction to IsaiahHaving finshed our current run on "Practices for Growth", we have now launched into the next series: a good look at the book of Isaiah. I am really looking forward to it actually, though it may be a little more challenging than some of the others we have done. The series was kicked off on Sunday with some great stuff from Adam and Adrian. After Adrian's very helpful "why read it anyway" introduction, Adam gave us the historical and geographical context. I have to say that this is some of the hardest stuff to communicate well, and Adam did a great job [certainly better than I would have done]. Adrian followed up by adding in his English teacher skills looking at the poetic aspects of Hebrew prophetic writing. Honestly, this great bible teaching. [trouble is they left me no time to do the preachy bit!!!] Download it here [it is my fault by the way that it misses the funny intro...]: Here are my introductory thoughts on Isaiah: The book of Isaiah has been called "the gospel of Isaiah". Why? Because contained within this Old Testament book are all the elements of God's great plan to redeem the world, fulfilled in Jesus. It s outlining this great plan and laying out how God is going to do it and the promises of what it will be like capture the heart of the Gospel expressed in the New Testament Gospels. Of all the great Old Testament books to read, this one is right up there! There are many bits of Isaiah that would be quickly recognised as texts often used and quoted with reference to Jesus. We, obviously, are not going to read every chapter of the book, that would take too long, but equally we are not just going to read the bits that are clearly about Jesus. We are going to attempt a sweep of the book that captures the flow of the narrative it tells and identifies its various themes. I am sure we will find it intellectually interesting, spiritually enriching and theologically deepening. This is from an Introduction sheet written to accompany it, downloadable here. Labels: discipleship, podcast, theology Posted by: Mark | 2:28 pm |
|
