About this series:

In some senses nothing has changed - the church is still the church, with the same values, the same vision and the same people. Yet, so much has changed - we are now onsite and online, people are still going through a historic event and church life will never be quite the same again. A series on the church is therefore very timely and will hopefully remind people of the unchangeable nature of the church as well as envisioning people for what has changed. We’re framing this series of Sunday talks around eight terms used in the New Testament to describe the church - people, family, community, temple, unity, body, disciples, witnesses. These are the words the New Testament uses to describe the Spirit-empowered people of God and these are key elements for how we want to build Citygate.

About this talk:

Scripture: John 17:20-26

Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is reflected in various NT passages, such as Ephesians 4, where our unity in practice comes out of the fact that we are already united in Christ - unity is a fact before it is a feeling. The practical questions that then arise include: What does unity look like? How do we keep the unity of the Spirit? What do I do when I am wronged? How can I promote unity? We also talk about multisite, as an expression of being one church, though in multiple locations - touching on multisite principles such as one leadership and evangelism and Life Groups happening locally while other things (training, Connect, prayer) happen centrally.