The weekly message from Community Church Edinburgh. This talk is from Sunday, 4th Dec 2022.

As well as being a deeply personal experience, shame is a relational one, affecting every area and level of society. In this message, we explore what it could look like for our families, workplaces, schools and churches to become places where we find healing and freedom from shame, through the practices of truth-telling, tender-heartedness and re-connection.

The weekly message from Community Church Edinburgh. This talk is from Sunday, 27th Nov 2022.

How does the good news of Jesus touch the deepest places of shame in our lives?  Places that we perhaps feel trapped, stuck, or just going around the same issue again and again?  As we continue this series on shame, Rupert explores the shame of the cross, and how Jesus journeys into and through that shame, without any of the destructive, sinful patterns of behaviour that flow from shame (that we have looked at earlier in the series) and is then honoured at the right hand of God’s throne.  In so doing, he breaks the power of shame (and sin & evil) and becomes the pioneer of our faith, making a way for us to journey in and through shame, towards the ultimate goal of being free from shame (even if that is only fully realised in the coming age).

The weekly message from Community Church Edinburgh. This talk is from Sunday, 20th Nov 2022.

This talk comes near the end of our series of shame. Amy shares the story of the woman at the well. This story beautifully shows our compassionate Christ in action! Christ cultivates a connection to the woman; the woman feels seen and is promised her value without any judgement. We know the feeling of shame can be overwhelming and isolating. Jesus shows us in the story that we can live wholeheartedly without shame . Shame is an epidemic in our culture and the church has the key to freedom.

The weekly message from Community Church Edinburgh. This talk is from Sunday, 13th Nov 2022.

Have you ever found yourself re-acting in aggressive and angry ways? Or maybe you’ve found yourself reacting but found that you are unable to express your anger and instead you’ve reacted in a passive aggressive way? Perhaps you’ve been left thinking ‘why did I react so strongly?’. Or maybe you’ve been on the receiving end of some of that anger and aggression and wondered what has been going on? This aggressive angry attacking behaviour is one of the four typical responses that shame can produce in us as human beings. Rupert explores this behaviour and looks deeper into how we can find Good News for the shame that we all live with.

The weekly message from Community Church Edinburgh. This talk is from Sunday, 6th Nov 2022.

Malcolm continues our series on shame with a talk about ways in which we try ‘casting a spell’ on those around us. This (often unconscious) response to shame is more about what we can get from others as opposed to protecting ourselves (responses we have looked at previously in the series). We want to illicit positive affirmation, so we need to be seen as competent or successful, clever,  attractive, rich, special, or even humble! Maintaining this persona can be exhausting and may even lead us to engineering certain situations (such as the story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11).

The weekly message from Community Church Edinburgh. This talk is from Sunday, 30th Oct 2022.

This week Kirsty Hook continues our current series, with a talk titled ‘Shame on Jesus: Appease’. Kirsty looks at 1 Samuel 1v1-19, where Hannah, who is childless at this point, is in the temple being taunted about not being blessed with children. Kirsty talks about a number things that can cause us to feel shame, how we can recognise it and why we respond in certain ways, with a particular focus on the habit of putting ourselves down and reducing the expectation of our abilities.

But what is the good news that Jesus brings to our shame?

The weekly message from Community Church Edinburgh. This talk is from Sunday, 23rd Oct 2022.

This Sunday Colin Symes starts his own new mini-series with a talk titled ‘Tracing our roots; a disciple Church’. Over the coming months he will be continuing with this series and looking at the foundations of CCE; the story of who we are as a church and how we got to be where we are now. Colin begins with both a personal story and story behind the community of CCE.

The weekly message from Community Church Edinburgh. This talk is from Sunday, 16th Oct 2022.

There are mostly four main responses to shame and after outlining what these are, Naomi goes onto describe one of these in greater detail; the desire to run and hide – where we withdraw, isolate ourselves, or procrastinate. Naomi looks at Acts 24: 1-27, uncovering why Felix may have felt shame so acutely. She then describes how God repeatedly seeks after his people when they try to ‘run and hide’. God wants to demonstrate his love to us, bringing us to a place where we can connect with others, fulfil our vocational calling, be creative and flourish.

The weekly message from Community Church Edinburgh. This talk is from Sunday, 9th Oct 2022.

Rupert Ward begins an eight-week series called ‘Shame on Jesus’. He looks at Genesis 2v25 to 3v10. The passage is a well-known one but Rupert draws our attention to aspects of the passage that we may have over-looked, primarily that this passage is about the experience of shame. We believe that God is calling us to be an unashamed community – join us as we learn to notice where shame is at work in our lives, and hear from Jesus the Good News of joy, hope and freedom

Here is  a PDF document with a summary of the sermon and some suggested further resources. These can be used for reflection or discussion and suggest some ways to ‘put it into practise’.

The weekly message from Community Church Edinburgh. This talk is from Sunday, 2nd Oct 2022.

Allan and Lizzie Cox start with a scripture from Romans 8v5-17. Allan asks us to consider what might be holding us back and limiting the flow of the Holy Spirit in our lives? How can we make space for the Holy Spirit? He encourages us to remember and hold on to prophetic words we have received. Lizzie then goes on to suggest that God wants to speak to us in the places where we feel vulnerable, let down, disappointed or hurt. She encourages us that God can bring deep healing to those places. Please be aware that this talk contains a testimony of abuse – if you are affected by this please get in touch for support ([email protected]).