Jesus and his IPad

Do you ever have those moments when you recall a conversation you had and you can now think of a better response? I remember a conversation that I had with someone who was fiercely opposed to films being used in church to help with an example. Now I am the first to say that the film has to be appropriate and not too tenuous (something I have been guilty of before), but are they not the modern day equivalent of story telling? If Jesus was here today and someone asked him a question I think he would have got his IPad out (other tablets available) started a movie (of which he would have got legally off Itunes) and then afterward they had all watched the film have said, "the kingdom of heaven is like this film..."

Legalistic Faith

Rugby World Cup 2011: Devout Euan Murray questions Sunday matches
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/15016776.stm

As much as I admire him for standing up for what I believes, I am led to wonder whether faith is meant to be that legalistic. The Sabbath is a time to stop and rest, it derives from the word 'Sabat' meaning to stop, is there another day that he could do this on, does it have to be a Sunday. I know many of you may say yes and I agree that the Sabbath is an important part of the Christian faith, but I do not believe it just has to be a Sunday. God has given him a talent to use, then I say use it and find other ways to worship and practice your Christian faith, it's not like it's going to be forever, it is a couple of Sundays!

Questions of faith

Please pray for this area tonight as a small group of is discuss faith, Christianity and what it all means. It's not too late to come along and be part of an informal group based discussion. I'm not promising answers, but I am promising some thought provoking and maybe even life changing topics. It runs for 4 weeks (with a break between sessions 3 and 4). Contact me if you want to come an please pray whether you are coming or not.


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Twitter

You can now follow Horfield Baptist Church on Twitter as @horfieldbc come and join the conversation!

Church Publicity

I have just finished reading this little book from Phil Creighton about church publicity. I found it in an article from the Baptist Times and thought it would be a useful read, and that would describe it well. You should not expect this book to give drastic re-imaginings of how to do church publicity, but it does give you some new and interesting ways of viewing different things. Phil shows a good understanding of different churches having different abilities and finances to draw from, if you were to do everything in this book I think your budget would be very very stretched. Being 5 years old the book is a little dated in some respects, but the general concept and theology behind it is very sound and does not suffer from the 5 year gap from print to my eyes scanning it. It was reassuring to go through the book ticking off the things that we do at Horfield, and also thinking of some new ideas (some of which I hope to share soon). A good read if you are interested in this kind of thing, or are able to offer something to the table (any offers welcome if you are part of Horfield and want to get a team of people together to talk this through more!). I maybe would like to see an updates version with Social media featuring more heavily (watch this space next week for announcement on social media and Horfield BC taking a step more together), until then... you can get this book for under £3 from amazons marketplace.

The question you should know the answer to

The other day I was asked a question that any minister should have an answer to, but yet always takes me by surprise! 'what do you want God to do in your church?'. I quite quickly responded by explaining something that has been on my heart for a while. I want God to enable people, I want people to be enabled by what happens on a Sunday and for that to empower people to be who God wants them to be. I desire for people to be empowered to be Christ in the world and realise how our weekly gathering on a Sunday is just the start.


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Day of Prayer

Our day of prayer, setting a day aside specifically to pray together for our world, ourselves and each other. The theme is "moving onto fresh ground". What is the fresh ground in your life you are moving onto and are you ready to take that step, or is where you are standing too secure?


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Location:Gloucester Rd,Bristol,United Kingdom