Our Sunday meeting this week was a Celebration and a time for both our congregations to meet together. This week was a time of sharing to encourage each other. Listening to people sharing is both encouraging and empowering, hearing how God is working amongst us all. People talked about how Read more
Making Jesus Known “You will be my witnesses.” – Acts 1:8 We often think of witnessing or evangelism as something quite specific: explaining the gospel to someone, inviting them to church, or perhaps asking someone if they would like to become a Christian. And those things can be part of Read more
Good, Good Father — The Father’s Heart | The Healing Room #1 We want to begin our Healing Room journey with something that might seem very simple: God is good. It sounds obvious. Most Christians would probably agree without hesitation. But what if we stopped for a moment and asked Read more
Some weeks seem to bring a lot of bad news. This week, I found myself hearing about the tragedy at the Big Church Festival, alongside some other awful things happening in Sheffield, right on our doorstep. It’s easy, when faced with difficult things, to find ourselves asking: What is God Read more
I am a creature of habit, a man of simple tastes, with very little interest in the “finer” things in life. Hence, when my wife asked if I wanted to go with her to the theatre to see By Royal Appointment (a play exploring the relationship between Queen Elizabeth II and her Read more
The theme of Sunday’s Celebration was ‘education’. As we think about education, perhaps our first thoughts should centre on how we define education. A dictionary describes education as: “The process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through study and training.” Or: “The process of teaching, especially at a school, college or Read more
This week I’d like to share something I’ve observed from being involved in leading worship. To help me prepare for worship, I have accumulated a vast array of resources (and instruments – shush! Don’t tell Fran!). The songs I regularly use I keep in a file and, because I’ve not fully Read more
In July, we were thinking about service in the context of meeting the practical needs of others: www.oakscc.org.uk/servicepart1 Definition: Service is the expression of Christ-like love through meeting the practical needs of another. It’s fair to say that we are all good at this! But this month we were challenged Read more
Often our concerns and issues are our focus but there is always a bigger heavenly perspective to prayer. Life lived with the understanding of eternity can take us to another level. Scripture tells us that God hears the prayers and cries of His people, they are answered and never wasted. Read more
Read Jesus wants to encourage his church, and he wants the church to encourage the church too – ‘mutual encouragement’ (Romans 1:12)! The word ‘encourage’ (encourages, encouragement) occurs 39 times in the New Testament alone. Not all are positive, but the vast majority are. It is a word that ‘does Read more