The Bethel - Old Trafford Christadelphian Church

We are familiar with the Advent story. Perhaps too familiar. Richard explores an angle we might not have considered when looking at the shepherds that came as the first visitors to Jesus.

Ruth and Benedict lead our thoughts this morning about prayer, how we pray together as a church and the value of saying Amen together. Through exploring the word Amen throughout the Bible - as praise to God, as an affirmation that God is true, and as a church united - we can see Jesus is the Amen to all of God’s promises to us.

God is love. God's relationships are love-powered and it is love that drives the promise God makes that he and Christ will make their home in us - personally and as the church.

The Bible talks a lot about remembering. The ancient Hebrews remembered a lot with their various feasts and festivals. hat we remember on Sundays is that resurrection is more improtant than death, that we are here to celebrate, not to weep and be sad but to be filled with joy and to remember.

How often do we forget to keep Christ at the centre of our minds? Andrew encourages us to have Christ-centred thoughts, motives and ultimately Christ-centred lives.

Our speaker asked that we not share the thoughts this week due to the inclusion of some personal information about people they work with.

There are definitely times in our lives when we aren’t in the right place to come and worship with joyful songs. How often do we see the strongest of faiths in people who have the hardest of lives. How? Mark gives us his thoughts on this, based on some challenging chapters from the Bible: how to view the challenges in a measure of joy and how to keep our trust God.

We are told to "be transformed"!! But what area we called to transform in to? And for what purpose? And are we prepared to be transformed?

How would Jesus’ disciples have behaved differently if they’d realised that the Last Supper was the last one? And how different would the Church be if it believed that Jesus was coming again?

We find many examples in the bible of different people having contrasting skills and therefore different roles. In exploring some examples, Charles shows us that becoming a Christian is not about creating uniformity as we are all saved for an individual purpose. God doesn't need our love but we need to love God and this is apparent as that love spills over into the rest of our lives, affecting our interactions and informs what purpose we are saved for.