We start our new worship series in the book 1 Corinthians by coming back to the heart of worship. Our confession is that ‘Jesus is Lord’. And this is a work of the Holy Spirit. In church life it is easy to get distracted by many things, but the apostle Paul does not want us to be uninformed. True spirituality is built on the foundation of Christ Jesus being Lord of all!

We take a look at the type of church God is calling King’s Church to be. Reflecting on our journey so far and looking ahead to how we might play our part in reaching a city of over 1.3m people for Jesus. We are encouraged to look at the early church. A group of 120 disciples huddling in an upper room are transformed when the power of the Holy Spirit comes upon them. They are transformed, by the power of God, into being His witnesses, and He wants to do the same with us. We believe that Jesus has not finished His work. And He is calling us to play our part spreading His Good News to the people of Birmingham and beyond.

Paul writes and shows us in these glorious verses who Jesus is. That He is the one who came from heaven to earth, who humbled himself, going all the way to die. As we look at Him and His humility, we are called to do likewise. To follow His example to deny ourselves and obey our Father in heaven!

Paul states that the death of Christ is 'of first importance' to Christians. At the start of his letter to the recently-founded church in Corinth he puts some flesh on this claim. That Christians should follow and worship a person who had been executed, in the most humiliating way, as a state criminal is absurd. Yet, he explains, incongruously this is the way God has chosen to rescue the world and save individuals. This absurd event becomes a wonder as through its apparent feeble stupidity God exercises his power to transform people, of all kinds, into a community of pardoned, cleansed and liberated persons.

Jesus is challenged on his disciples behaviour on the Sabbath and responds with some strong claims about who he is and how we should behave one day in seven. What does that mean for Christians today?

Jesus gets some simple questions about fasting and responses, in typical fashion, with parables that upend our understanding of the world. We explore together questions like, 'what time is it?', 'how should you store wine?' and 'how should you behave at a wedding?'

In these verses we meet two kinds of people. Firstly we see Jesus calling Levi, a tax collector who is a sinner and knows he is. Secondly, Jesus challenges the scribes of the pharisees who are sinful people but believe they are righteous. Jesus shows both these groups that He is the great physician, the one who came to die for sinners like Levi, the scribes and us to be made spiritually well by Him. For anyone who recognises their need of Him, He is our great saviour!

Ben unpacks the famous passage where we're told nothing can separate us from God's love. We also explore what it means for us to be more than conquerors in Jesus.

Such a familiar passage - the healing of the paralytic. But when we rip the roof from the story and look at all there is to discover about Jesus, we find ourselves amazed by his authority and his tender love.

In these broad description of Jesus ministry and then Mark's zoomed in example of it, we encounter two very different ways to approach Jesus. The ones with all the access do it wrong, and the one who wasn't allowed to approach gets it right.