bread church

By breadReligion & Spirituality Christianity

bread church episodes

January 23, 2022 Revelation: The End of Fear
One of the most misunderstood and misapplied books in the Bible, Revelation
has tended to either scared people off or unhealthily preoccupied them. In
this introduction to the series we explore what this curious book actually
is, and importantly what it isn’t. Ultimately this is a book a much about
our present as it is our future - and it’s one which expands our vision to
the extremes of how big and awe-inspiring Jesus is. His first words spoken
in the book are ‘do not be afraid’ - he is good, he loves us, and he has
been and will continue to be victorious over all evil.
38 min
January 17, 2022 2022 –Leave Behind Your Box - talk + QA
We are happy to have had Mark Chase with us (virtually that is, as you’ll
notice by the not so great audio quality). We observed how each of us
clings to a box, that thing we take comfort in, where we feel safe, where
it’s predictable and it’s often what we can put God in. But God isn’t meant
to be put in a box, he comes to shatter our boxes and offer us something
much more valuable: life with him. When we let him get a hold of us, we can
partner with God to create a better world that looks after the
marginalized, seeks justice, and is meaningful. God comes to release life
and flourishing for all and you can join him. This is what his kingdom is
about and he does this by his Spirit. All of this is followed by a Q&A
where Ed and Mark chat about what this looks like in our church. Take a
listen.
50 min
December 13, 2021 Christmas Service – We’re in Uncertain Times
And as a species we don’t tend to do very well with uncertainty - it makes
us anxious. When world-views are shaken and things we thought were solid no
longer appear to be, our brains will do everything they can to stop us from
experiencing uncertainty. We can be tempted either to double down on
certainty (despite all evidence to the contrary) or demolish the whole
edifice of our beliefs entirely. Many people feel caught between these two
extremes when it comes to their Christian faith. But the story of Christmas
invites us on a different path. Jesus did not take flesh in order simply to
be believed in - but to be met. He became one of us to be with us. Putting
our faith in Jesus (as opposed to a belief system) is a lifelong journey of
him forming and challenging all our beliefs and actions. And it means that
we neither need to hold onto certainty dogmatically, nor throw everything
away as soon as doubt creeps in. Rather we allow God’s spirit to change us
from glory to glory. And we can meet an uncertain world in confidence, not
our own, but his. Because Christmas means that once and for all: God is
with us - so we never need to be afraid again.
21 min
December 05, 2021 Advent –Hope in the Messy
The timing of Jesus' arrival is worth noting, he comes at a height of
imperial power, social unrest, and religious clashes all under a false
peace. In the messiness of it all, Jesus is born in manger and of him it is
declared 'Prince of Peace' and 'King'. This is something the writers of
Matthew and Luke want to highlight because it shows that in our own lives,
Jesus doesn't mind clashing with the things we've made kings, he isn't
intimated by the mess in our personal lives, in our relationships, or in
the world around us. He arrives in the midst of it all and we can know him
to be the bringer of peace, and the King. This is the hope of Christmas.
37 min
November 28, 2021 End of Year Giving Campaign (2) - Give To Something Of Lasting Value
The currency of the kingdom of God will always be people. Jesus began his
ministry by finding 12 disciples in whom he could invest - not projects, or
buildings, or courses, or initiatives, but people. Bread church exists to
carry on this mission and to invest in people - both those who are near and
far off. When we give our financial resources to the church we are
investing in this currency. We're looking to see people from all
backgrounds, experiences, and understanding of faith grow to become more
and more Jesus-like. In so doing we’re acting in faith and helping build
God’s kingdom of peace and justice and mercy and freedom here and now.
44 min
November 21, 2021 End of Year Giving Campaign – How is your relationship with money?
It’s easy to judge others about their use of money (most often the very
rich or the very poor), but less easy to consider our own relationship with
money. Jesus talked a lot about money because he knew how a healthy
treatment of money was so important to our spiritual health. Allowing Jesus
into our finances is one of the most challenging but transformational
things we can do. We’re called to put out faith in him, not money. And in
so doing we can be free with money - to earn it, to save it and to give it
away in such a way as to have a huge impact for God’s kingdom.
50 min
November 07, 2021 Where Help Comes From –Peace in the Wait
Waiting doesn't come naturally to humans. It's inconvenient, it's annoying,
but most of all it's painful. We're are all familiar with waiting and so
was the community behind Psalm 85. Like us, they're waiting to bounce back
from a less than ideal situation. In it all, they hear from the One who
promises peace or 'shalom'. God is the one who offers shalom. Its
completeness and wholeness to our fractured situations, relationships, and
souls. And in him is where we find our enoughness. So in the wait, we can
know and experience the living God who brings shalom.
31 min
October 31, 2021 Where Help Comes From –Honestly Confronting Waiting on the Lord
In Psalm 130 we’re shown one way to approach our Righteous God: crying out
honestly, demanding God’s attention, but also remembering his compassion
and mercy. Even more, as a “Psalm of Ascent,” the poet of Psalm 130 insists
that waiting is a legitimate and embodied prayer. Waiting is an under-rated
theme in the whole of the scriptures, and the second half of this Psalm
gives us some encouragement in how to embrace waiting as a spiritual
practice in our own lives. Ultimately, we wait for Jesus’ return to set all
things right, and as he is even now “making all things new,” we wait in the
now-and-not-yet of his Kingdom, in hope.
36 min
October 24, 2021 Where Help Comes From – Find Your Soul Again
What does it mean to lose our souls? How do we get it back when it’s gone?
The soul is the core of a person. It’s the soul which yearns for more of
God. When we’ve been disconnected from God it’s our soul that misses him.
It can ache if it goes too long without him.
This tends to happen when our desires have been left unchecked. Desires, as
opposed to needs - like food, shelter, warmth etc - will always have the
potential to consume us because they can never be satisfied. And the more
we desire, the more our desires are unmet. The more unmet desires we have
the more we grow agitated, competitive and aggressive.
The Psalmist encourages us back from the chaos of unmet desires, to putting
our hope in God once more. He is not something to be desired, but he is who
we need. He alone satisfies all our longing. This is a call to come back to
him once more.
40 min
October 17, 2021 Where Help Comes From – Freedom from Shame
We kicked off this new series by remembering first what the psalms were
for. They were the ‘hymnbook’ of the Jewish people, sung and recited at
every gathering and worship service, which shows us that to them, worship
was more then praise and gratitude, it was the full gamut of all human
emotion. Many of them were written by King David, who embodied what Israel
knew itself to be: called and broken.
Psalm 32 is the perfect confession prayer for this condition - a condition
that we share too: called and broken. And it builds to a declaration of
what God called David, because of Jesus, we get to be called too:
righteous. But as a starting place, we have to truly believe that being
disconnected from self, other, and God himself (or the condition of ’shame’
as it’s more widely known) was never ever ever what God wants for us to
feel. This can be the hardest part for many of us (especially if the church
has historically been the place where we’ve experienced shame the most) but
it’s true: God never ever wants you to feel shame.
36 min