St Matthias, Brighton - Talks

2nd July | This week, Tom wraps up our Kingdom Culture series by interviewing Samara Levy, who works with Christians in Syria and set up Samara's Aid Appeal to provide aid to those displaced and persecuted. She shares her understanding and experience of religious and missional persecution and unpacks what this means for Christians around and the world and for us here at St Matthias.

18th June | This Sunday, Tom shares again from Matthew 5 looking at the beatitude 'Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy' and unpacks what it might mean for us to act with mercy. In order to have mercy and give forgiveness to others, we need to recognise how much we have been forgiven ourselves.

11th June | This Sunday, Abby continues in our Kingdom Culture series, looking at what it mean for God to bless the 'pure in heart'. We learn that to be whole-hearted is about integrity, wholeness of character and ways in which we can give our whole lives to see the movement of Jesus around us, not just part.

4th June | This week, Sarah continues our Kingdom Culture series by looking at 'Blessed are the peace-makers', drawing from her experience at Tearfund in working within areas of poverty and conflict. We are called to join in the work of peace-making together by cultivating connection with others and the world around us, encouraging curiosity for different perspectives and opinions and find...

28th May | On Pentecost Sunday, Rich shares with us about who the Holy Spirit is, how he moves and what he calls us into as a people of God. Through unpacking how the Holy Spirit speaks and guides, we understand how we can live in step with his voice and his calling.

21st May | This week, we hear from Sam who heads up Youth at St Richard's in Hollingdean, continuing on our Kingdom Culture series. Sam unpacks 'Blessed are those who hunger & thirst for righteousness', exploring how being hungry for God's presence and his movement is the best place to be to experience change and transformation.

14th May | Tom continues in our talk series - Kingdom Culture, looking at 'Blessed Are The Meek'. Tom unpacks what it might look like to live with a meek heart, being open to God using and working through us. In doing so, we hear from Jean Belgrove about her experiences in Hong Kong and Nepal and how God led her both to those places and to particular amazing situations in them.

7th May | Reflecting on Luke 17, Tom reflects this Sunday on the question 'How is the kingdom of God within your heart?'. Tom gives a little more space for us to reflect on the spaces where Jesus is moving and where we can surrender our hearts to him again.

30th April | Rich Merrick, who is joining us as Curate for a few months, continues in our talk series - Kingdom Culture: Blessing in Broken Places. Jesus proclaims that 'Blessed are those who mourn', and Rich unpacks what this means both for us as individuals experiencing loss and also how as a community we have our hearts broken in order to comfort others. He also interviews Jess about he...

23rd April | Our Vicar Tom kicks off our new talk series - Kingdom Culture: Blessing in Broken Places. Diving into Matthew 5 and the 'Beatitudes', we find out that the places we find God most active and at work aren't the places of achievement or false humility, but the places of brokenness and hurting. Tom also interviews Kerry about her story of finding God at the most broken times i...

16th April | This Sunday Flo, who heads up our Fiveways & Hollingdean Foodbank, looks at the story of the disciples walking to Emmaus in Luke 24:13-25 and speaks about how Jesus longs for us to return to him and trust in his ability to transform even the most difficult situations.

9th April | On Easter Sunday, Tom shares a quick thought about what Easter must have felt like for the first disciples and how Easter means we can all have a 'fresh start' to our new life.

7th April | At our Good Friday Reflection service, Tom shared three reflections on what the cross of Jesus means for us today. Through reading John 19, we see the reversal of three themes - Weakness over Power, Love over Hate and Life over Death.

2nd April | To finish our series on Noah, Tom looks at the narrative of the ark and how it shows us about God's plan to bring dead things back to life. As we look towards Easter, Genesis 8 allows us to see that fruit is able to be planted and grown on the other side of difficult times.

26th March | This week we welcome Piers Arthur-Crow, who directs The David House - a charity that explores Christianity through it's Jewish roots and theology and aims to reach Jewish people through sharing God's love for them. Piers continues our series on Noah, reading from Genesis 9:8-17 and exploring what it might mean for God to make a covenantal promise with us and how he wants to us...

19th March | As Part 2 of our Vision Sunday series, Tom reads from 2 Corinthians 9 and asks us how we can go deeper in our vision, action and blessing to our city. Following on from last week's call to abide in the presence of God in order to bear fruit, Tom explores how we can invest and play our part financially in bearing fruit in Fiveways.

12th March | On Vision Sunday, Tom challenges us to think about how we play our part in the vision at St Matthias. By looking at John 15, we see that Jesus' vision for each of us is to remain abiding in him and bear fruit and as we journey into the next stage at the life of St Matthias, Tom considers how we can go deeper into that abiding.

5th March | Tom kicks off our series looking at the life and story of Noah, in Genesis. After a difficult and strange week for Brighton and the community in Hollingdean and Fiveways, Tom reflects on what it means to live in a broken world and how God reacts to the problem of sin that is anywhere and everywhere around us.

26th February | We were so excited to welcome Clark Buys, part of the Theology team at Tearfund, to speak on Sunday. Clark shares his passion for making prayerful space for God to speak, explores what a contemplative spirituality could look like and mean for us and invites us to encounter God in the silence and stillness. This is one not to miss!

19th February | This week, Lisa finishes off our Gifted series by exploring the gifts of compassion and mercy. Through the Parable of the Lost Son in Luke 15, we begin to understand the movement of the Father consistently towards the lost and hurting and Lisa demonstrates what can be accomplished when we truly feel and understand God's heart for the broken, and are motivated to action.

12th February | Helena continues our Gifted series, exploring the ins and outs of what 'evangelism' means. She speaks about how doing evangelism can sometimes create discomfort and awkwardness but that when done well, evangelism is motivated out of love for others and a vision to see God's love change lives.

5th February || In an interview with Ali & Sean Avard, Tom asks how we begin to identify what spiritual gifts God may have equipped us with and how we can begin to use them. Sean shares from Romans 12, and encourages us that in using our spiritual gifts, our final aim should always be to love others with everything we have.

29th January | Tom continues our Gifted series, exploring how God can work through us to do amazing things by his spiritual gifts. In looking at the second half of 1 Corinthians 12, we see that Paul imagines the church as a body, where all of us have spiritual gifts that play our part in building up the collective whole and making more of an impact by working together.

22nd January | We are delighted to welcome Angie Green to St Matthias, as she shares with us about the gifts of healing as part of our Gifted series, exploring  how God can work through us to do amazing things by his spiritual gifts. She speaks deeply from 1 Corinthians 12, about healing and restoration and how might we deal with when prayer goes unanswered and healing does not occur.

15th January | Tom kicks off our Gifted series, which explores how we are all equipped to bring about change and transformation and how God can work through us to do amazing things by his spiritual gifts. By looking at 1 Corinthians 12, we gain a picture of how God might speak through us to our local community and those around us.