It was great this week to welcome back to Counterslip Dave Hewitt, who was pastor here from 1978-89. This week Dave shared with us from Judges 13 looking at the character of Manoah's wife, and how God used her to achieve His purposes, taking points from this story about the kind of church/people we need to be to make a difference in our world today.

This week Emma unpacked how Paul was convinced that the whole Old Testament was pointing to Jesus, and the new covenant that He would bring. This was a shock to some of the people of the Old Covenant, but Emma explained that it shouldn't have been. She used the narrative arch of scripture to show how God is the same yesterday, today and forever, but He does not do the same things yesterday, today and forever. However He does choose to use people who are in relationship with him, and obedient to Him, to steward the things He is doing. Her encouragement and challenge to us was that - to be in relationship with God, to be obedient to God, and to steward well the things He gives us to do in the world.

This week we looked at what we could learn from Acts 1 about preparing ourselves so that we can be the kind of church God longs for us to be, as we see in Acts, a church full of the Holy Spirit.

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 Psalms. You can jump through to the questions at these points:

1. (2:07) What does Selah mean?

2. (9:13) What is a song of ascent?

3. (14:15) Are we really sinful at birth (Psalm 51:5)?

This week Matt walked us through Joshua 7 and the issues that arise there, asking why. We discovered that there are certain things in the world that we can be drawn towards to find our worth, value and identity, but the only place we truly find these things is in God.

This week Matt took us through Joshua chapter one, a story that begins with loss, and unpacked how we, as Christians, can remain strong as courageous at all times because of Jesus.

This week Matt took us back to the very first Psalm and looked at how it teaches us to discover the nearness of God in our lives.

This Sunday we had Nigel Coles (Team leader - Webnet & Counterslip pastor from 1991-2000) come and share with us from Psalm 50. Nigel reminded us again, than contrary to our societies cultural view we as the individual are not lord, judge or god, and that we will only find the hope we need when we truly turn to the one who is Lord, judge and God - Jesus.

This week Jo took us through Psalm 31 and the journey of pleading, praising and lamenting that David went on and how it led him into deeper relationship with God.

This week Heidi took us through Psalm 27, looking at the context of the life of David and how in the midst of many things he was able to hold on to and remain confident of the goodness of the Lord.