Counterslip Church

This week Matt unpacked the back story to the Exodus, showing how God is at work in His creation to bring about blessing and life but at the same time satan is also at work scheming to undo that blessing and in the midst of that, each and every day, we have a choice to make - to choose God and His way and His blessing, or to choose something else that opens us up to the lies and deceit of the enem...

This week Matt spoke from John 2, that well known story of Jesus turning water into wine. But he showed us that there is way more going on here than turning water into wine, it's not just a miracle but a sign through which the gospel is revealing so much more to us about Jesus.

Each month we are taking your questions about the sections of the bible we've been reading and spending some time talking through some possible answers. This month was the book of Genesis. You can jump through to the questions at these points: 1. (2:40) Is the flood story a literal account or a poem? 2. (11:00) Was it Hagar and Ishmael being sent away that led to Islam being brought into the world...

This week Matt took a look at the story of Joseph and what we can learn from his life about how we create space for the Holy Spirit to form Christ in us.

This week Emma took us through the life of Jacob, pulling out 4 key stories and lessons that he learned and that we can learn from God being at work in the life of Jacob.

This week Matt used to the story of Abraham (one of the first disciples) to talk about how we learn from God, and about God, by trusting in His word and what He calls us to.

Matt kicked off the new year, and our new bible in two years journey, by looking at the idea that what is created in Genesis 1 is actually a temple and why that is important and what that means for us today and how we connect with God and understand our world.

This last year a group people with a prophetic gifting got together to encourage one another and to listen to God for His church here at Counterslip, and so to encourage us for the coming year. This is the word they felt the Lord has given them for us, His church here, for this coming year.

As we draw our first two year trip through the bible together to a close Jo asks us to join with the psalmist, to look back and to remember that the loyal love of our God endures through all things and at all times.

The people of God so easily forget all that God has done. This week Anna joined king David in reminding us of what might have been "if the Lord had not been on our side" and encouraged us to look to the future with hope remembering the goodness of God that we have already seen.

This week Heidi led us through Psalm 118, showing us how the psalmist journeyed the difficult times by focussing on "who" was with Him, and this being a reason to choose to rejoice.

The bible tells us that our God is not a god of confusion, and yet so often when we read Revelation many of us end up confused! However, last week Matt showed us that to those who received John's letter (the book of Revelation) it made perfect sense through the lens of the Roman culture of their day. In this weeks talk Matt unpacks the other culture that these people were a part of and it's influe...

Revelation was written to reveal something to the churches that John led, but so often today when we read Revelation we're left feeling some what confused or weirded out. In the first of a two part talk, today Matt unpacked some of the context of the day which helps us to see that when the churches received this letter from their pastor they knew exactly what it was talking about - and as we disco...

This week Matt unpacks the context surrounding these letters from John and Jude to the churches in the New Testament and explores how some of the issues, and counter gospel messages, they were addressing 2000 years ago are still around in the church today, encouraging us to remember and hold on to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This week Dennis kicked off our time in Revelation by bringing us some teaching and context around the seven letters to the churches and inviting us to consider how Jesus is still speaking to His church today through the writing of John.

Today Matt used 1 & 2 Peter to talk about how the New Testament letters give us insight in to what it really means to be the church of Jesus. 

This week Emmanuel brought us a word from the letter of James, showing how with the Spirit of God it is possible to live a different kind of life, one that bears fruit.

This week Matt takes us through the rest of the letter to the Hebrews, giving us an overview of the authors key theme that Jesus is better than anything, anywhere or anyone else we could place our hope in.

Hebrews 1 opens with an announcement that the way God speaks to people has changed... in these last days he speaks through His sin. This week Matt explored with us what that means and how we can hear God speak to us today.

In this weeks service Matt shared with us from Paul's letter to Titus, looking at how it is possible for us to live the Jesus way and discover the fullness of life that Jesus came to give us, not just in the age to come but even in this present age.

In this weeks podcast Matt has included two parts: - the first 15 minutes are a little added extra to help explain some of the more difficult passages from Timothy that have caused people all kinds of issues with Paul's writings over the years - the second part is the recording of this Sunday's preach from 2 Timothy

This week Matt unpacks the idea of the day of the Lord - the future hope of the gospel, and how it shapes our lives today.

We are now meeting back in person, and so our services are no longer pre-recorded but live again. This means that our sermons will now be available via our podcast usually on the Monday after the service (this week was delayed due to the bank holiday). In this weeks service Matt brought us a message from the letter to the Colossians and talked about how Paul always brings everything back to the go...

In today's service Matt brings us a word from the letter to the Philippians in which Paul talks about taking hold of "that" for which Christ Jesus has taken hold of us. Matt explores what it is that Jesus wants us to take hold of and how we can actually embrace all that He has for us.

This week Anna draws out the encouraging and challenging message that runs through these Psalms and encourages us to trust God and look to Him as we enter into the beginning of a new season.