Fasting! The Lenten discipline we all want to avoid, or perhaps reduce to avoiding chocolate. But what is the logic behind this ancient discipline?

Tim guides us through fasting in this new series on the 7 Habits of Occasionally Effective Christians...

Readings

2 Samuel 12.15-23

Acts 13.1-3

Matthew 6.16-18

Why do Christians prize forgiveness so highly? Is is even possible, when we've been sorely wronged? What would it mean to forgive others for God's sake? Deborah Wilson expounds the logic - and power - of Christian forgiveness.

Readings

Matthew 18.21-35

Professor Jonathan Boston continues the Lenten series on the Habits of Occasionally Effective Christians. This week - charitable giving, or as it used to be called, "almsgiving". How do we give intelligently and faithfully in a world so different from the world Jesus encountered in 1st C Palestine?

Readings

2 Corinthians 9.6-15

Matthew 6.1-4

Geoff Troughton unpacks the 6th Habit of Occasionally Effective Christians, the discipline of study. What does it mean to love God with all our minds, as well as our hearts and souls. And what does this have to do with Palm Sunday?

Readings

Psalm 118

Deuteronomy 4.6-9

Matthew 21.1-17

The texts for the day were Psalm 46, Ephesians 6.17-20 and Matthew 6.5-8.

Rebecca speaks about prayer as a way of dwelling in Christ and seeing God's presence everywhere, particularly in the wilderness times in our lives.

She mentions Tim Mackie's talk Paradise Now.

In the telling of the Christmas story before the sermon, we read the recipe for Christmas.  Ingredient 10 appeared to be missing, but it was written in invisible ink.  When we heated it over the Christ candle, we discovered that the missing ingredient was God's love.  Listen on...

Jeremiah 31:27-34 • 2 Timothy 3:14–4:5 • Luke 18:1-8

Māmari reflects on Colin McCahon's painting Storm Warning, karakia, and prayer/inoi.

We hear a lot about the cost of discipleship, and rightly so.  Following Jesus is about taking up our crosses to follow.  But, is it all about cost?  In this sermon, Matthew reflects on both the costs and the treasure, the joy and the reward.  And he notes that Pascal's Wager rather withers under the promise of eternal life.

Psalm 139

Tim explores what the Kingdom looks like in the practice of hospitality.  What is hospitality, and what isn't it?  And what about hospitality is conducive to the spread of the good news?

Tim references a John Mark Comer sermon that explores some of these issues really well - see https://bridgetown.church/teaching/preaching-the-gospel/part-3-practice-hospitality/

Year C, Ordinary 22

Luke 7.1, 7-14

Tim McKenzie ditches his weather forecasting career to ask what it means that Jesus came to bring division, not peace.  The readings were the lectionary readings for the day:

Isaiah 5.1-7