We looked at how Paul was trying to bring a corrective to the Corinthian church with its emphasis on spiritual gifts and status. Paul starts with pointing them to Jesus and then showing how the variety of gifts should help the church to strengthen and grow. He then points them towards unity in their diversity.

Continuing our series on 1 Corinthians we look at 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 and how Paul asks us to treat the Lord's Supper.

We looked at the role of women in the church from 1 Corinthians 11 and saw that the traditional teaching that has often been portrayed of women being subject to men is not what Paul was saying! Paul actually had a very high opinion of the role of women as leaders in the church. Instead he was trying to ensure that the church got it's priorities right and that it also valued the role of the women leaders of the church

Loosely based on 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. We looked at how God led His people in a time of transition. How he needed to prepare them to live as His people. God is preparing us for a new time. We are being taken out of our comfort zones by God and seeing Him working in what we are doing. We saw how we believe that He is calling us to go Deeper and Wider. Deeper into Him and Wider into our community

Paul is under pressure from the church in Corinth. They are questioning his motive and his authority. Paul responds by asking them to look at how he lives his life and how he focusses on the lost. Paul challenges them to win the prize by keeping training for the race that God has called them to.

Continuing our series working through 1 Corinthians we looked at 1 Corinthians 8. The key for Paul here is that we are not part of an individualistic faith but rather we are part of a community and our attitude is vital. Paul points out that people can use knowledge as power and that can break peoples faith rather than build it up.

Part of our series looking at 1 Corinthians. Today we looked at 1 Corinthians 7:25-40. We look today at why Paul focusses not on whether we are married or not but rather on whether we are focussed on Christ

We're looking together at the events that led up to Jesus's death and how they formed a perfect storm - a set of events that multiplied the effect of the conditions that were present.Today Donna looked at the cleansing of the Temple and the strange event of the cursing of the olive tree

We are taking a brief detour from looking at 1 Corinthians to take time to look at the Easter narrative. We have called it “The Perfect Storm”. A perfect storm is an event where a rare combination of events drastically aggravates the situation. This is The perfect storm as these events are a once in history combination of events that forever changed the world.In this passage Jesus is deliberately setting off towards Jerusalem for the final confrontation. There is a sense of anticipation and nervousness amongst his disciples. Although he tells them what is about to happen they don’t understand it and misinterpret his words. So, James and John come and ask and focus on Jesus coming to power and ruling in Israel (even though he has just told them that he is about to be crucified!). The same all too happens with us – we all too often don’t listen to what he is saying to us and the path he is leading us on. We all too often want a comfortable path and one we can take it easy on – rather than the path he calls us to.But Jesus is clear we are called to follow him, wherever that leads, and we see the disciples who think that they see worried and getting the wrong end of the stick and we see the blind man Bartimaeus who asks Jesus that he might see and then just gets up and follows Jesus. Jesus knows where he is taking us – all too often we need to trust in the way he is taking us, even though it leads to the cross. Jesus and all the New Testament writers realised that the way of Jesus would lead to suffering for the sake of others.

In the first session we considered how human beings' relationship with their universe, their understanding of what Reality is and how they relate to God, has not always been the same. We explored the transition from pre-Modern, to Modern and PostModern ways of understanding these relationships, which roughly show a transition from the human being understanding herself as a spiritual being deeply connected with a vast, enchanted reality surrounding her - and accessible through prayer and life's daily round - to a far more contemporary understanding of the individual as an isolated being at the centre of a disenchanted world.