The Bethel - Old Trafford Christadelphian Church

What do we understand by what Jesus said when he proclaimed he was The Way, The Truth and The Life? What did Jesus mean? Tony unpacks the practical application of the words of Jesus on our lives today.

When you’re afraid, what do you do? There’s so much in our lives to make us worry, to tell us to be afraid. Mostly though, don’t we fear being out of control, out of grace or out of breath? In the letter to the Philippians, Paul’s focus is not on the short term problems but on the eventual solution. The Psalmist encourages us to trust, and Malcolm encourages us to have no fear and take comfort in...

If you want your whole being to proclaim God, you'd better get ready to show your emotions. Steve explores our strange relationship with our emotions and encourages us to demonstrate by how we live and what we display emotionally, what matters most to us. In this we will show how much our relationship with Jesus and God means to us.

Andrew Downton visits us with news from Riga, where he and Mel have been helping at the winter food kitchens for a few years. He brings with him the lessons learned from those they met, saw baptised and heard testimonies from. Not all churches have the same needs, but in Riga it’s simple: they all need each other, and the love they share, seeing each others problems and showing that love in any wa...

Ruth explores the concept of us having a good shepherd to protect, guide and comfort us along our faith journey. We draw on number of sources to illustrate how the good shepherd cares for us.

“With desire, I have desired to eat this meal with you, ________.” The Sykes’ thoughts, read by Sheila, centre around Mark’s rendition of the Passover meal shared by Jesus and his disciples before Jesus was taken to be crucified. It is a meal, shared with love, with passion, and with desire - to meet with us, and show us God’s love for us. What’s more we’re told it’s personal - God desires a perso...

Knowing we often suffer from a scarcity of joy, Andrew's encouragement came from Romans 15 and 16. To expand our joy, we can hold on to courage practically by not heardening our hearts and encouraging one another. We can rely more on God and we can practice resting - opening our awareness to God's blessings in our lives. In letting go and trusting in God, we can demonstrae our hope to others and p...

What we do now matters! Jesus spoke many parables and they all related to right behaviour in some way. Mike looked at some of the hard teachings and tricky parables of Jesus and explored how they relate to us today.

God speaks to the people he cares about through the mouth of Jeremiah - that’s you, me and Israel - but they were stubborn and didn’t listen. Tony lays out the context for us and draws comparisons with the Pharisees that we read about in Matthew. He shows us that the messages echo between both Jeremiah and Matthew, that we need to dedicate ourselves to God and respond practically.

David begins this mornings thoughts on the recent news articles about some research that suggest we don't become wiser as we get older. So what wisdom are they talking about. What kind of wisdom should we seek, and how? God's wisdom is considerate, peace-loving and selfless.

Neil builds on the message Malcolm shared last week. God loves us, we need to let him. There is a response to that which is letting that love work on us and working with that love to spread it to other people in the way we care for them.

God’s ways are higher than our ways. How does this affect the way see the world around us?

This is Love; Not that we loved God but that He loved us. Malcolm springboards from 1 John 4 into exploring the story of Mary and the empty tomb. The story reminds us that God's love for us turns up in the darkness and the pain, it shows up in the hopeless places. God loves us because there is a part of Him in us.

The challenging passage in James 5 has three direct calls to the rich. Accusations of Hoarding and wastefulness, Witholding wages and Living lives that have the aim of self-indulgence. Martyn encourages us not to dodge the challenging bits of the bible just because we want to make the message we hear conform to our preconcieved attitudes. Then Martyn encourages us to pray with the commitment and s...

Mike's thoughts this morning centre around one simple vignette of Jesus' ministry. When Jesus came across a man who'd been sitting by the pool at Bethesda for 38 years, he overturns the very structure of the man's existence. Mike demonstrates what this kind of complacency can do our faith and challenges us to stay alert and question our old self and trust God.

It is a very hard and seemigly paradoxical thing to offer unconditional forgeiveness and also to corect and rebuke anyone at the same time. It is also more often driven by our own messy interiors. The pride and insecurities within ourselves more commonly lead our desire to correct others rather than our selfless love for them. Mike unpacks how we can all make progress in holding this delicate bala...

John explores the theology of apology. Saying sorry is important. It is often very hard to do and more so depending on who you are saying it to. Saying sorry is restorative to relationships and it changes us. And from the back of apology, forgiveness climbs. It is our responsibility and our privillege to forgive and it helps to change us.

Inspired by the text of a poster in the late Nineties and the meat of Deuteronomy 30:19, Charles shared thoughts on obedience. We aren't intended to be robotically programmed, but obedience is about choces that come from the heart. With increased trust, comes increased obedience as we see in the monumental growth of Moses in leading the Israelites.

Space to share news, thoughts and group-sharing of our eucharist reminder of the life of Christ - our centring and grounding meal together. Encouragement to find practical, tangible ways to share the love of God with each other.

Jesus says to us that he’s with us all the time - do we honestly feel that in our day-to-day? Is it actually a pretty scary thought - that Jesus is with us all the time, regardless of what we’re doing? But what would Jesus be like at our sides? Alan reminds us of Jesus’ compassion and tells us about what it would be like if we accept Jesus into our lives fully - not just on a Sunday - and say “For...

What get's you excited in life? For Zoe and Tim, it's Christmas (or other similar 'life nostalgia') - but do we get as excited about the Kingdom? From the challenging verses from Revelation to the Kingdom parables, Tim and Zoe show us that God really wants us to live in joy and not in fear - to enjoy life and live in excitement for the Kingdom - but not just a kingdom in the far-off distance, but...

In the letter to the Philippians, Paul writes: Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Martyn unpacks this as an imperitive to put into action the one command of...

Synopsis to follow

What if we saw ourselves how God sees us? This is the springboard for the thoughts we were encouraged with today. We are loved, forgive, accepted and seen as perfect having taken on the covering of Christ. Lets also try to see eachother in the same light.

This morning Tony draws our attention to the language used around Jesus' healing miracles. The tenth leper returns and Jesus tells him that his faith has made him better - but it turns out the word used is more often translated as 'saves'. How does that change the relationship between healer and healed? How does that change our relationship with Jesus? Tony explores the lessons we can learn and pu...