As Christ laid his life down as a living sacrifice, he calls us to do the same. Servant leadership is costly but beautiful. The question we must ask ourselves is, are we really following Him or are we expecting Him to follow us on our terms and at our convenience?

Introduction to the series. In a world where structures of leadership present us with systems and cycles of control and dominance and where power and authority are wielded with selfish regard, we need a new vision for leadership. So we look to Jesus. These cycles were present in his day too and he speaks clearly to them and presents to us that to lead in the Kingdom of God is to serve.

In Jesus we have the promise of home fulfilled and as we live into that promise we also get to discover its purpose. As followers of Jesus, we get to extend ‘home’ to everyone we meet in beautifully simple and radical ways and when we do that, we are doing it for Jesus himself.

Shining God's light, Jesus took away the darkness. Making the Christingles together.

Knowing the truth and joy of Christmas, that Jesus came to rescue us and restore a relationship with us.

“Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfil his promises to her.” We live our lives in the tension of a promise. There are things fulfilled, there are things longed for. There is a promise held out to us at Christmas, it is a promise that was spoken of by many prophets over generations – the one we’ve been waiting on, is coming.

Talks by Edwin Backler on Following Jesus, Odele Harding on Being Family and James Cant on Loving Edinburgh, introduced by Neil Costley.

Throughout this whole section of Scripture we are given options and alternatives again and again. Jesus finishes this manifesto in the same manner – two ways, two teachers, two pleas and two foundations. As we follow Jesus, as family together and with a deep love of this city, how do we live steady and wise lives, what are the choices before us, how do we make the right ones? We live in an information age where we assimilate a lot of info and rarely do anything with it, this is not what Jesus has called us to. He has called us to be practitioners of his teaching.

Do we believe that God is good and will actually respond to our requests? Jesus seems to want to turn our narrow view of who God is and how he deals with us on its head. God’s love for us is real and it is active, our attitude to God is transformed when we remember that God is ‘Father’ and that he is infinitely good and unfailingly kind. How can we, as followers of Jesus, live expectantly in God’s goodness and his kindness?