St Matts Weekly Message

Join Claire (chaplain at Plymouth Marjon and member our church) as she carries on our "Back to Basics" series, looking at the often missed discipline of Solitude - space we all need in this busy life to reconnect with Jesus.

Why do Christians get together on Sunday to sing together? And is that even what worship is? Join Mike and our panel - Noah, Naomi, Claire and Graham as they discuss all things worship - why we do it, who it's for and how we can grow together in this area of our life as a church. Enjoy!

Sally speaks about the beautiful and fundamental practice of forgiveness. Forgiveness starts with God's great mercy, it flows to us — sometimes we need to learn to forgive ourselves and it enables us to make those difficult costly choices to forgive those who have hurt us: "To forgive is to set a prisoner free... and to find that the prisoner is yourself."

What's your experience of communion? A key part of your discipleship, or something slightly weird that happens up the front of church which you're not quite sure about? Communion was given as a gift by Jesus to his disciples so that we might remember and enter into the story of his death and resurrection- it is a beautiful picture of the promises of God to us, promises which we step into s...

We often pray 'Come Holy Spirit' - but what (or who) is the Holy Spirit? How do we understand the Holy Spirits work in the world and in our lives and how can we each invite Holy Spirit to come and make a home in us? Join Jeff as we explore some of these questions!

Are you feeling refreshed, rested and full of life? Probably not. God has built into the fabric of creation a rhythm of rest - it's called the Sabbath. Come join Mike as we explore what the Sabbath is and why the idea is so important for us... so we can Get Grace, Learn to Stop and Practice Delight.

Money is a funny thing - it doesn't want to just be useful in our lives but has this strange ability to exert control over us. But generosity is in the DNA of the Kingdom of God! WE have a God who has designed a world in which those that sow, reap a harvest of multiplication and the same is true with our giving- the harvest will be worth it. Join Teressa as she explores this important topic an...

Why has the Bible been the number 1 selling book ever since it was first published? Why should we bother reading it? Graham unpacks the message and purpose of scripture for us — it is the way that God has chosen to reveal himself, to impart life and to empower his people!

Mike begins our new series 'Back to Basics' asking the question Why Church? Have you ever found yourself asking why you turn up to church or why you are part of one? We look through 1 Peter 2:4-10 where we see the church as the People of God defined by grace, The Temple of God built on christ, and a Priesthood of believers whose purpose is to declare his praises. What a gift to us as belie...

As part of our 7th Birthday celebrations, Mike our curate reminds us how we can make faith simple, following in Jesus' way: Know God, Love each other and Make a Difference!

The last of our Summer series — Enoch was a man who walked with God for a really really long time. Jeff takes us through the brief mentions of Enoch in the scriptures and shows us how we can learn the kind of discipleship which is "a long obedience in the same direction."

This week we were joined by Becky Murray. Becky is the founder and CEO of One By One, a charity aiming to end the exploitation of the vulnerable across the world. As well as sharing about the story, mission and work of One by One, Becky also shared a message from the book of Exodus with the title 'I AM'. Becky encourages us to think about where God could send us to build his kingdom - whet...

Back to School Sunday! It’s a time of year when lots of people are getting ready for new things or getting back into old things. Mike continues our Summer Heroes series taking us through three episodes in the life of Joshua in the Old Testament and what they might teach us as we head into this next term, like Joshua, knowing God has big plans, living faithfully in the waiting rather than getting s...

Phil shared from the story of Daniel in the Bible. Daniel (of lions den fame!) was an amazing man of faith in the Old Testament who chose to live faithfully to God in a very hostile environment of exile. He was also gifted in interpreting dreams and had insight from God into the unseen spiritual world around us. We need to recognise evil in the world around us and these things can seem a little we...

This week we were blessed to hear Adrian share with us on 3 of his heroes from the book of Daniel: Shadrach Meshach and Abednego. These three men are praised for their unwavering faith in God, even when faced with the threat of a fiery furnace. Adrian challenges us if we would remain as strong in a similar situation. At the end of the message, we look a Peter and his denial of Jesus three times ou...

This week Teressa kicked off our new message series: ' Summer Heros .' In this new series, we will be looking at our speaker's favourite figures from the Old Testament and what learning we can take from their stories to help us in our own walk with Jesus. Teressa kicks us off this week in a somewhat unlikely place - the story of Abraham, Sarai and Hagar... We had an issue in recording...

Apologies for the delay in uploading Sunday's message- the whole team have been away at Creation Fest! In this, the final instalment in our Upside Down series through the book of Acts, Mike looks at our whole life mission as Christians. The passage for this weeks message is Acts 20:17-38.

In our penultimate message in our Upside Down series, Graham Smith takes us through the story of Paul and Silas in Prison in Acts 16:13-34. He draws on his experience as a missionary in China for 7 years to help shed some life on the experience of persecution millions have faced over the centuries up until the present day - including Paul and Silas in our passage.  Graham finishes by asking us the...

As the early church grew it also faced lots of difficulties. This week Sally, one of our Church Wardens, takes us through the story of Peter’s miraculous escape in Acts 12. It’s a story that starts with the church in crisis - James has been put to death, Peter has been put in prison and the church is being persecuted. In the face of all this the church pray - both earnestly and honestly, and Peter...

As humans, we all have underlying prejudices. The thing about prejudice is that it's not easy to spot it ourselves- sometimes we need some help. That's exactly what we see the Holy Spirit doing in today's passage as the boundaries of the early church continue to be pushed outward. Join Mike as we find out about an unexpected character seeking God, about a follower of Jesus making space...

Continuing with our Upside Down series, we were so blessed to have Claire McIlroy speak to us on Passion, Purpose & Perseverance through the lens of Acts 9:1-22.

This week was our Preachtastic service! Across the day we had 6 brilliant speakers give a message as part of our current series 'Upside Down'. Each speaker based their messages on the same passage from Acts 8:26-40. We've put all the speakers together in one podcast ready for you to catch up on! The speakers this Sunday were: Natasha Gilbert, Martin Haworth, Naomi Manuel, Beth Horton,...

We often think of the church in Acts as an idyllic community, and with the beautiful vision of community life in Acts 2 & 4 it's true — the miracle of Pentecost wasn't just visible in signs, wonders, and healings but in the creation of a new united family who shared and cared for those in need! But as with any community things quickly go wrong. Mike takes us through a story of crisis i...

Jeff takes us through our next exciting Acts story in the Upside Down series looking at the first miracle which happened after the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost. Miracles are defined as extraordinary events - but they weren’t extraordinary for Jesus and they were an expectation of the early church. They saw the overwhelming need around them, responded with obedience to the call of Jesus and t...

Rob Fowler, previous curate at St Matts takes us on a journey through the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 17, powerfully drawing out our reliance on God's unforeseen provision, the unexpected partnerships we get to embrace and and the need for instinctive love for the one. He also reminds us of our link with compassion and how each of us can get involved! If you’d like to sponsor a child why not fi...