This week, after catching us up on the story from Genesis 16-34, Matt took us through God's call for Jacob to meet with Him at Bethel - what that journey meant for Jacob's story, what it means for our story and how to make that journey home to the House of God.

This week we looked at the story of Abram, Sarai and Hagar, and we discovered a God who is always looking to bring us hope and promise. But we have a choice to trust him or trust our own way, which as we saw from the story doesn't always work out like we might hope. And yet even then our God continues to be committed to bringing us hope.

This week we kicked off our bible in two years chronological series, and Matt unpacked where it all begins, and how the Genesis story reveals to us something of Gods heart for us and our place in His creation.

This week we looked at the over all structure of Revelation and saw how every part is pointing to the end, which actually is not the end at all but a very hopeful new beginning.

There are slides and a handout that go with this talk. To find them go to: www.counterslip.org/revelation

This week in Revelation 12-13 we discovered how Heaven saw the Christmas story, how it was more than a baby in a manger, it was a cosmic event that impacted all creation, and still affects our lives today.

This week Matt kicked off a series of a few weeks in the final book of the bible: Revelation. This book is rather strange of often leaves people confused about what on earth is going on, but this week Matt walked us through the first chapter and showed us that the main point of this weird book is actually rather simple, its key objective is to give us a bigger vision of Jesus so that we might have hope.

This week Barb shared with us from Daniel, looking at how he was devoted to prayer and how we can deepen our own prayer lives.

This week Matt spoke from Daniel 1-5 looking at how, like Daniel, we are to live distinctive lives in the midst of our culture and that when we do God is able to move powerfully through us.

Each month we've been taking your questions about the sections of the bible that we've been reading and then spending some time talking through some possible answers. This month it was Ezekiel and Jude. You can jump through to the questions at these points:

(1:01) Ezekiel 3:1-3 - Did Ezekiel actually eat the scroll, is it metaphorical (meaning he took in the words), or was it a vision/dream?

(8:00) Ezekiel 11:5 & 7 - Why does one verse say “this is what the LORD says” and the other say “sovereign LORD”?

(16:00) Ezekiel 20:25 - Were God’s laws good or bad?

(21:24) Ezekiel 21:21 - Why will the king of Babylon examine a liver before moving down a road?

(30:35) Ezekiel 28:11-19 - Is this about the King of Tyre or Satan?

(44:18) Ezekiel 38:1 - Who is Gog and where is Magog?

(1:05:23) Jude 20 (Group discussion) - What does it mean to “pray in the Spirit”

It was great to have Maki, the Pastor of Cairns Road Baptist Church, with us this week sharing from 1 Thessalonians, and reminding us again that if the good news, is good news, then it really can transform lives, starting with us.