bread church

Alpha is a six week course exploring the big questions of life. It’s for anyone interested in discussing spirituality, god and the christian faith, in a non-judgmental open-minded context. Each week there’s a great meal, a short talk, and discussion in small groups. People who come to the course are from lots of different backgrounds - no faith, other faiths, brought up christian, and agnostic. Ev...

Jesus steps down from his mountaintop experience of glory into the chaos of scribes, crowd, demonic oppression, and most importantly, the other disciples’ failure to represent Him in their battle with evil. They have not remembered what they have been taught. They have not been able to manage without him, and it shows us (and it showed Jesus) quite how far they still have to go, in their journey a...

Alpha is a six week course exploring the big questions of life. It’s for anyone interested in discussing spirituality, god and the christian faith, in a non-judgmental open-minded context. Each week there’s a great meal, a short talk, and discussion in small groups. People who come to the course are from lots of different backgrounds - no faith, other faiths, brought up christian, and agnostic. Ev...

The transfiguration is a rare moment of respite and balm for both the disciples, and Jesus, in the middle of the struggles of ministry. Despite the teaching, the healing, the deliverance and the miracles, Jesus is still opposed, threatened and misunderstood. Even his closest friends don’t really get it. And soon, he will make it to Jerusalem where suffering and execution await. But here, on the mo...

As we kick off the new year, we continue our series in Mark’s gospel. For many, this time of year is about making new resolutions. Jesus, though, comes to bring something greater than anything human resolve will ever accomplish. He knows our fundamental need is not a material one, but a spiritual one. So, he warns that whilst we may gain the whole world through our human endeavors, we can still lo...

This week, we take a closer look at one of the most well-known parts of the Christmas story: the angels appearing to the shepherds. Who were the shepherds, and how can we relate to them? What is God’s glory, how is it used throughout the Bible, and how can we live Into our identity as image (glory)-bearers of God? By Tavia Grubbs

For as long as our history is traceable, we homo sapiens have been progressing, and by all accounts we’re set to hit warp speed on all that with the dawn of AI. But the Christian joy that is celebrated at Christmas is not about progress, it’s about a different kind of rescue altogether. The wisdom of God stands totally outside of all our ideas of progress and advancement (which we’d be fools to pu...

There is an epidemic of anxiety in the west. 50 million people in US have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. The number is rising. In today’s talk we find the disciples in distress. Something they experience whenever they are, or feel, separated from Jesus. This is something we will all experience. Whenever we’re dislocated from Jesus, our anxiety will rise, because we’re made for closeness...

Who is leading you? Jesus sees the crowd in Galilee as sheep without a shepherd. But rather than be the revolutionary zealot leader the people want him to be, he reveals a different kind of leadership. He is the servant God who gives his life up for the sake of others. And in word and deed, he alone is the bread of life who brings satisfaction to the human condition. We’re called to let him, the r...

In a rare moment when Jesus does not appear in the gospel, Mark tells the story of Herod’s beheading of John the Baptist. Herod’s story is a cautionary one about the misery that comes when someone devotes their life to the pursuit of earthly power. Where Herod’s power destroys, Jesus’ power, exemplified in the life of John, by contrast, creates, redeems and sets free. It’s his power that we are ma...

This might be as good a moment as ever to be reminded of the type of power Jesus came to display. God of all creation, gave everything up, to live among the poor and downtrodden, and face the offense that this wrought. Jesus' lowly statues was an offense to everyone - to the elites, the priest, and in our passage, his hometown. And his answer in Mark 6? To send out the disciples in his power; to g...

Power over disease. Power over demons. Power over death. What would a power like that feel like? Is it scary? Is it intimidating? Is it comforting? Is it kind? In this talk, we zoom into two miracles given to seemingly opposite people, and find out that they have more in common than meets the eye. Along the way we’ll see how the power of Jesus and the kindness of Jesus are intertwined, and how Jes...

Jesus declares himself Lord of the Sabbath. This is less about him arguing over Sabbath law, and more about him establishing his Lordship over everything, including that which we most hold dear. This is confrontational and necessarily requires his hearers, as well as us, to consider where our hearts have wandered to other gods. When we’re confronted like this we have a choice: we can react defensi...

Jesus first encounters opposition to his ministry when he begins to proclaim the forgiveness of sin. Things get confrontational when Jesus refuses to be limited to the surface issues of our lives. Declaring himself as the one who forgives sin means not only equating himself with God, but tells us we have a fundamental problem which only He can solve. Often our requests to Jesus reveal that we only...

Jesus’ first public pronouncement concerns the arrival of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is God’s just rule over the universe where all pain and evil cease and joy and peace abound. The Kingdom has come because Jesus, the King, has come. So entrance into the kingdom is available to all who follow him. Its markers are evil banished, the sick healed, and the authority of Jesus revealed. By Ed Flint

Jesus doesn’t enter the world in a vacuum, he’s the long awaited Messiah. But he’s more than a human deliverer. He’s the divine Son of God. This intro to the series is an invitation to expand our view of who Jesus is, and a challenge where we’ve restricted who we’re willing to let him to be. By Ed Flint

The command to rest was written into God’s rhythm for life on earth, and was an instruction given to his people from the very beginning. Jesus demonstrated his human need for rest (including quiet time alone, and down-time with His disciples) with prolific frequency. So, what can we learn from that? That he’d got it all done in time for chilling? Or that he knew how badly he needed quiet time with...

Part of maturing as a Christian is learning to identify and live within the limits God places on our lives. There are limits to our capacity, our resources, our gifting and our calling. When we push beyond the boundaries of where God would have us we end up causing ourselves and others pain, and harming our relationship with him. We do this inevitably when we reject God’s lordship of our lives and...

To close out our series “Come Alive,” four folks in Bread’s community share about how they have come alive in Christ. Through their testimonies, we hear about how Jesus brings life even when we’re at our lowest.

Given the current cultural moment, it would be wise for disciples of Jesus not to sleep their life away and, instead, to wake up to the realities surrounding them. We are not the first to be charged with that task! Paul’s challenge to the church comes with specific advice on how to partner with the Holy Spirit in not only learning to tell time, but to redeem it! By Bill Dogterom

To celebrate what God is doing in our community, this week’s talk was comprised of 3 ten minute sermons given by members of bread in their first time preaching. On the shared theme of obedience Amber, Paul, and Rebekah teach on obedience as an expression of our love for God, the joy that comes from obeying him, and the blessing that obedience brings to others.

“Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” [Romans 7:24]. This is the dramatic way Paul ends the seventh chapter of his letter to the Romans. But just one chapter later he writes “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us!” [Romans 8:37]. What revelation did he have that got him so excited and full of faith after voicing such despair? And w...

As we continue to look to Jesus to “Come Alive,” we’re considering the layers of meaning in Jesus washing his disciples’ feet in John 13. In spite of our resistance, Jesus is constantly moving toward us to show us his strength, his care, and ability to set things right in our lives. His Spirit is washing us from shame, fear, anxiety, or even just the disappointment of life. Are we slowing down eno...

In Week 3 of our Coming Alive series, guest speaker Jon Hans returns as we take a look at the first half of Luke chapter 7 with Jesus’ encounter with a Roman Centurion and a grieving widow. Who or what is the controlling authority in your life? Will you let God’s heart break for you or allow Him to speak dead things back to life? Jon explores these questions and more in our pursuit to come alive....