The Bethel - Old Trafford Christadelphian Church

We are familiar with the Advent story. Perhaps too familiar. Richard explores an angle we might not have considered when looking at the shepherds that came as the first visitors to Jesus.

Ruth and Benedict lead our thoughts this morning about prayer, how we pray together as a church and the value of saying Amen together. Through exploring the word Amen throughout the Bible - as praise to God, as an affirmation that God is true, and as a church united - we can see Jesus is the Amen to all of God’s promises to us.

God is love. God's relationships are love-powered and it is love that drives the promise God makes that he and Christ will make their home in us - personally and as the church.

The Bible talks a lot about remembering. The ancient Hebrews remembered a lot with their various feasts and festivals. hat we remember on Sundays is that resurrection is more improtant than death, that we are here to celebrate, not to weep and be sad but to be filled with joy and to remember.

Our speaker asked that we not share the thoughts this week due to the inclusion of some personal information about people they work with.

How often do we forget to keep Christ at the centre of our minds? Andrew encourages us to have Christ-centred thoughts, motives and ultimately Christ-centred lives.

There are definitely times in our lives when we aren’t in the right place to come and worship with joyful songs. How often do we see the strongest of faiths in people who have the hardest of lives. How? Mark gives us his thoughts on this, based on some challenging chapters from the Bible: how to view the challenges in a measure of joy and how to keep our trust God.

We are told to "be transformed"!! But what area we called to transform in to? And for what purpose? And are we prepared to be transformed?

How would Jesus’ disciples have behaved differently if they’d realised that the Last Supper was the last one? And how different would the Church be if it believed that Jesus was coming again?

We find many examples in the bible of different people having contrasting skills and therefore different roles. In exploring some examples, Charles shows us that becoming a Christian is not about creating uniformity as we are all saved for an individual purpose. God doesn't need our love but we need to love God and this is apparent as that love spills over into the rest of our lives, affecting our...

The opening of Ephesians reminds us our lives must be centred on Christ. Paul’s making it clear that Jesus isn’t a twist in the story or the latest gimmick. Jesus is the Centre of what God is and will always be about. In the same letter, we are told that we are the completeness of Christ: as essential parts of the body we make up the full complement of the church of Jesus.

We are far more blessed than the material possessions that we accumulate through life. Colin discovered, after recently acquiring an electric bike, that he had a mouse problem in an outbuilding. This led him to realise just how he had become lazy, and forgetful of his real treasure. Refocusing on our real blessings, Colin reminds us that where our treasure is, our heart will be also.

Taking spiritual challenges is a big part of our relationship with God. We have got to challenge ourselves otherwise we won’t grow. Reflecting upon his own recent mountain challenge, David shows us some examples of characters from the Bible who had their own mountain challenges and the impact this had on their faith.

At the time of Zechariah the temple in Jerusalem was ransacked and the nation of Israel were dragged from their land. Ashamed, the ordinary people seek to rebuild their extraordinary temple. We ourselves are ordinary, but we have been given a real religion, a faith that makes us extraordinary. Zechariah shows the ordinary people that with prayer an extraordinary restoration can take place. Our God...

Judgement can be about how we feel about something. God's focus is not on our sin but on us and how he feels about us, and so there is a link between mercy and judgement in us and in God. Mike explores these ideas based on scriptures from Jeremiah 31 and Luke 6

David explores some reasons why Jesus died and why it had to happen that way.

In 2 Kings 5, Naaman, the Assyrian army commander, comes up against the immovable force of Elisha, the prophet of God. It brings him up short and he has to change his direction. For us, coming into contact with the power of the presence of Jesus should have the same effect on our lives. Richard unpacks how this might look.

Taking a small section from Revelation 5, Maurice expands and umpacks what it means for Jesus to be worthy and how that should affect us in our everyday lives.

Charles proposes that the opposite of trust is superstition. There’s a story in Judges about someone claiming to trust in God, but who in fact followed superstitions. We are encouraged, that despite not being able to see Jesus, we put our trust in Him. This is because we trust his name and what it stands for. We don’t have a physical Jesus we can reach out and touch - but we do have each other as...

Richard takes a fresh look at the lost and found stories of Luke 15 and reveals some uncomfortable yet encouraging gems below the surface of Jesus' parables.

Watching the spectacular free solo ascent of El Capitan by Alex Honnold in the eponymous 2018 film changed Tony. Part of the film dealt with how Alex's brain changed and these two changes inspired Tony to think about how we can be changed in our lives by our relationship with Christ.

Stories of adoption and the adoption process inspired David's exploration of our own experience of being adopted into God's faily as fully accepted children.

Peace is a big part of our faith, a quality of God, and something Jesus encourages wherever you go. Peace in a family is often hard to maintain, and being peacemakers can come into everyone’s lives at some time or other. There are those that often cause conflict and those who are trying to repair fractures, peacemakers and peacebreakers. We are called, and challenged, to be peacemakers, and to imi...

We are likely to have said over 700 million words by the time we’re 75! But words aren’t all good. Some can hurt and scar, and that’s one of the things that God said he detests - Paul lists it in various places when talking to other churches. We are here to build up and encourage - THINK! Is it True, is it Hurtful, is it Imitating Christ, is it Necessary, is it Kind?

Do we have confidence in Jesus who is the way, the truth and the life or do we adopt a rules and regulations style faith? Is it Jesus plus something else or just Jesus?