Genesis 28: 10-17. Everyone has a frontline – a place where we do life or work and where we encounter people who don’t know Jesus. We don’t need to go looking for these, we are already there. We just need to see these places with fresh eyes.
1 Peter 1:1–2. The church is a body of people gathering together and scattering out into the world. Despite being few, Christians can make a difference wherever they are, whatever they do, whoever they are. We are the church on mission – gathered and scattered – and we make all the difference in the world.
Acts 28: 11 – 31; Romans 1: 1-17; 15: 13 – 16: 2. It was around 60 AD (cf 79 AD Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii) when Paul sailed up to the Bay of Naples, seemingly on a large Alexandrian grain ship, (https://holylandphotos.wordpress.com/2019/01/21/puteoli-italy-paul-stayed-here-for-a-week-on-his-way-to-rome/) and then took the usual Via Appia walk (135miles, almost all uphill) up to […]
Acts 13: 1-12. Islands always seem to provide for good destinations. It is the first place the newly commissioned Paul and Barnabus (with John Mark) went once commissioned and they travelled the length of the island, 150 miles, (how long would that take? What would the terrain have been like?) taking the gospel message. Along […]
Acts 14: 23 – Acts 15: 29. Jerusalem has long been a key location in the life of the Hebrew faith, since David took it to be his capital city and the temple was built (and destroyed and built again). In the life of Jesus and the early church Jerusalem was very much the “power […]
Acts 29. “Be a church that’s willing to take a risk for Christ and so step up, step out and so step into all that God has for you. The church in Acts was unleashed in its power and potential as a carrier of God’s presence. But it was also unleashed from its old thinking and […]
Acts 1:8, Acts 9:1-31; 1 Corinthians 12. We describe our purpose as Bromsgrove Baptist Church like this: “Offering the transforming love of Jesus Christ in the realities of life”. For that to be possible, we ourselves first need to be renewed and transformed, and then as we come together in unity we can live out […]
Acts 2:42-47; 4:23-37; Isaiah 58:1-14. The place of generous giving in the early church is one that we focus on so readily! One preacher (Paul Scanlon) describes the first three words of Acts 2:42 as “the three most powerful words ever written about the early church; at the same time they are perhaps the 3 […]
Acts 1:37-41; 9; 1 Cor. 3, 5, 12:12-31 As the church in Acts began to move outwards, those who were convinced by their message wanted to know how they could belong. They listened to what the church said to them, accepted their words, believed, and were baptised. Huge numbers were added to the church and […]
Acts 5:12-39; Acts 8:1-8; Acts 17; Acts 25 We are called to be the presence of Jesus in the world around us, to serve the poor, the broken, the vulnerable and the lost (Acts 25). Whilst our Covid-19 lockdown has perhaps taught us new ways of staying connected with people, we also need to be […]