Twice per month we enjoy the privilege of gathering together on Sunday evenings to pray for our church, and our gospel mission in this fair city of Bristol. But it is our constant desire to grow in praying for other churches and other nations.

So, continuing on Sunday 21st June 2009, we going to be taking some time out during our prayer meeting to highlight and pray for a couple of different churches.

It’s a great way for us to connect to our wider mission and partnership being part of Sovereign Grace, and its great for us to support other churches, praying for God’s grace, strength, favour and kindness upon those we will probably never meet this side of heaven.

The week before the prayer meeting, we’re going to be highlighting the churches we’ll being praying for here on the blog, providing some background information about the church – where they are, bit of church history, a who’s who, etc… and then we’ll be handing out some pointers during the prayer meeting to help us pray effectively!

All this week we will be focusing on, and praying for 2 different churches.

Firstly, we’ll be highlighting and praying for our new friends, Steve & Naime Phillips (who visited us recently) and the church in Vilassar De Mar, just north of Barcelona in Spain.

Secondly, we’ll be meeting Dave and Emma Taylor. Dave currently serves as a pastor at Christchurch, our sister church in Newport, South Wales. In 2010, Dave and Emma and their young family are moving to Australia to plant a Sovereign Grace Church there.

Previous churches we have prayed for:
CrossWay Fellowship Church, Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3
Grace Community Church Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3.

On Sunday 14th June we began a new 10-week preaching series exploring “Christ in the Old Testament“.

Audio of the first part of the series from yesterday’s sermon, entitled: “The Story of Scripture” is available here.

I’m really excited about the opportunity to get to know the first portion of our Bibles better. But why have we decided to do this? The following quote provides an answer:

“The most compelling reason for Christians to read and study the Old Testament lies in the New Testament. The New Testament witnesses to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the One in whom and through whom all the promises of God find their fulfilment. These promises are only to be understood from the Old Testament; the fulfilment of the promises can be understood only in the context of the promises themselves. The New Testament presupposes a knowledge of the Old Testament. Everything that is a concern to the New Testament writers is part of the one redemptive history to which the Old Testament witnesses. The New Testament writers cannot separate the person and work of Christ, nor the life of the church, from this sacred history that has its beginnings in the Old Testament.”
–Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel & Kingdom (p.18)

In light of this new series that will occupy us right through the summer months, I thought it might be useful to provide some resources and extra information so that we all might enhance the ongoing benefit of this series to our minds, hearts and lives.

First up is some documents that provide a rough outline of some Old Testament history and chronology. Secondly, you will see a list of recommended books for you and your children that will serve in deepening your understanding of Christ in the Old Testament.

An Outline of Old Testament Chronology
An Outline of Old Testament History
The Two Lines of Man in Genesis 4-11
Recommended Resources for Further Study

As we think about “re:LAUNCHING” as a church and moving into bigger space and how we can be the church that God wants us to be, I was reminded of our series on evangelism from 2007 and thought it might be worth us making the audio available so we can be refreshed by the truth of God’s Word regarding our privilege and responsibility to “Represent” God and His gospel to our city.

My good friend Kenneth Maresco, provokes me as to our task when he says:

“What we are involved in here is far more than a religious club. It is not just simply about men and women praying a prayer. Our assignment is far more significant than that. It’s participating in God’s plan of redemption. His plan to reach down onto this earth, and save rebellious sinners, to touch their lives, to transform them completely, so they can know the one who made them and the purpose for which they were made. That’s our task, we have the privilege of going in his name and proclaiming his message to a lost, rebellious, dieing, sin-filled world.”

Each One Reach One Series:
Part 1 – The Heart of Evangelism
Part 2 – What’s So Great About the Great Commission?
Part 3 – Cultivating Compassion
Part 4 – Barriers to Evangelism
Part 5 – 3 Things You Should Know About Being God’s Ambassador

The audio from the recent “NEXT” conference (formerly known as “New Attitude”) is now available for FREE.

You can download all sermons from the main sessions by D.A Carson, Joshua Harris, Kevin DeYoung, CJ Mahaney and Sinclair Ferguson, and also the breakout sessions.

Visit the resources page for downloads.

The audio for our latest series, “re:LAUNCH re:LOADED” is now available on-line!

Part 1 – “What Christ Wants for His Church (Revelation 2-3)”
Part 2 – “What the Church Needs of Christ (Revelation 4-5)”

If you missed the original “re:LAUNCH” series you can access them here.

In the last few months I’ve been reading and re-reading “Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be)” by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck.

It’s been a very helpful book in thinking through how we do church in a post-modern culture, and dealing with the current challenge of the “emerging church” movement.

I used a couple of quotes from the book in my sermon, “What Christ Wants for His Church (Rev2-3)” in our current “re:LAUNCH re:LOADED” series, and thought I’d post them here for your reflection.

It is sad but true. Theologically astute churches and theologically minded pastors sometimes die of dead orthodoxy. Some grow sterile and cold, petrified as the frozen chosen, not compromising the world, but not engaging it either. We may think right, live right, and do right, but if we do it off in a corner, shining our lights at one another to probe our brother’s sin instead of pointing our lights out into the world, we will, as a church, grow dim, and eventually our lights will be extinguished.
– Kevin DeYoung (p.244)

[We] need to catch Jesus broader vision for his church – His vision for a church that is intolerant of error, maintains moral boundaries, promotes doctrinal integrity, stands strong in times of trial, remains vibrant in times of prosperity, believes in certain judgement and certain reward, even as it engages the culture, reaches out, loves, and serves. We need a church that reflects the Master’s vision – one that is deeply theological, deeply ethical, deeply compassionate, and deeply doxological.
– Kevin DeYoung (p.248)