The first talk of our mini-series on being part of bread: 'Join Us’. Ed looks at the overall vision for the church and the values that underpin it, specifically the value of love. The world senses that the church should be a loving and self-giving environment, but so often the church doesn’t get this right. What does the bible’s vision for the church family look like? How can we create a loving community in bread? And what inhibits us showing love to one another at times?

Experience of Power. The very same Spirit of God that empowered Jesus in his ministry is promised to us. Just before Jesus returned to his Father he told his disciples to wait for the Spirit to come to them. On Pentecost the apostles were empowered by The Spirit. This was just the beginning. Throughout Judea, Samaria and the Gentile world The Spirit was given, in different ways, to all who believed. He is given to us too. And always so that we might be empowered to do the things of Jesus. He is not a feeling or an experience. He is the living God, full of truth and power. He is ours if we ask.

We are all hard-wired for worship. Human beings will find anything and everything to worship. However there is only one thing worthy of our worship- the living God. Worship of anything else will drain the life from us. Worship of our Heavenly Father on the other hand fills us with life. Not only do we glorify God but he glorifies us. And in worship He meets us with His power and presence.

The experience of adoption is central to the Christian life; our potentially negative experience of our earthly parents does not have to characterise our experience of God as Father. We must continually be filled with the love of God, as our perfect parent, and know to the depths of our being that God is nice, and He likes you. 

The experience of fulfilment. In Christ we have everything we need. But there is always more. The Spirit fills us again and again to the fullness of our beings. He invades our hearts from the very depths of ourselves - overflowing and outpouring His love, and joy, and peace, and satisfaction. Until we can say 'I'm satisfied' there is always more. The Spirit never runs dry. He loves to bring total fulfilment to our experience.

The Spirit has always and will always be at work to bring about restoration, reconciliation and justice... He's fighting for all of it. For us, and for the whole of creation. Whenever The Spirit comes in power (just as the new testament church showed us) he fills us with his love, and the natural response is to want to share it with those in need; the poor, the downtrodden, the ones the world has forgotten... Because in his upside-down kingdom, they're his favorites. He comes to empower us, and he wants his righteous cosmos back.

In the second instalment of the series we focus on ongoing Christian experience of being cleaned-up. The Christian life is a spirit-filled life. We cannot make ourselves holy, only God’s Spirit can do that. Our job is to participate in what he is doing, allowing the spirit to change, forgive and renew us from within. A forgiven and sanctified life necessarily reflects the character of our father: we can accept it when others hurt us; we can forgive when others don’t ask for it; we can abound in hope and grace; and we can love when others don’t deserve it.

An introduction to the person and work of the Holy Spirit. If you have good theology of the Spirit but no experience, life is not going to be much fun. You’ll get by of course. But it will be a slog. On the other hand, if you have lots of experience but no theology, it won’t be a slog, it will be a sky-dive!  Exhilarating, but you need to know the theological parachute will actually open when needed. Otherwise, as thrilling as the ride may have been, there will be times when you fall flat on your face. And all the memories of the wind whistling through your hair, won’t, at those points, be much solace. So at bread let’s go for both/and. Experiential exhilaration and theological foundation.

Our first ever official service! Easter Sunday 2017! 

What do people put their faith in? The reality is that everyone exercises faith all the time. So what do Christians put their faith in? Christian faith is not wishful thinking, or for people too deluded to engage in the reality of life. Christian faith is not faith in an institution, the church, religion or a moral code. It is faith in one particular person. It is faith that Jesus was who he said he was, and that ultimately he proved this by rising from the dead. His resurrection opens up a new world for everyone - one of power, meaning and purpose; a revolution of the heart; and eternal life here and now. A life in all its fullness was how Jesus descirbed it.

What is the purpose of life? And what is our individual calling? These are questions that everyone asks from time to time. Jesus give his disciples both a specific and a general mission. He calls his disciples by name and treats them as the unique individuals they are. He also gives them corporately the general call to do as he has done: preach good news, heal the sick and deliver people from the power of evil. We are all uniquely gifted. We are all part of a bigger plan. Receiving these the specific and universal call from Jesus gives us the purpose we're made for in life. It is in exercising it that we become fully alive.