Open House

Feel free to come to our house this week, for a drink and some company. Not much else is organised because next week on Monday we are planning on going to Sue's Christmas production at the Guildhall. If you want a ticket, please bring your tenner!

Advent Bible Study

 

 

Bible Study on Isaiah 9:1-7

 

1. Is Advent a spiritual high point in your year? If so, why? If not, why not?

 

2. Read verses 1-2 and then Matthew 4:13-15. How is Isaiah's prophecy fulfilled in Jesus?

 

3. Read verses 3-5. Why is the coming of the Messiah compared to a military victory? What yokes has Jesus shattered?

 

4. Read verse 6. 'A wonder it is that God should reveal himself as a baby' (Ephrem the Syrian). What does the Incarnation tell us about God?

 

5. Reflect on the titles given to the Messiah in this verse. How have you experienced Jesus as Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace?

 

6. Read verse 7. How is the kingdom of the Messiah different from earthly kingdoms? What does the increase of the Messiah's government look like?

 

7. 'The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this'. Why do we need to hear this promise?

 

You might also like to remind groups of the seven things they need to know about Advent (and what they can do to remember them):

 

- Israel: list Old Testament prophecies in the nativity stories of Matthew and Luke

- Light: light a candle (or a fire!)

- Joy: listen to advent music

- Liberation: memorise the Magnificat

- Incarnation: mediate on God becoming human

- Kingdom: invite others for meals as Jesus did as a sign of his new society

- Yahweh: praise God for his zeal for his people

Own Programme: Games Night

This week we are playing games at Kate and Foggy's house in Cosby. Someone keep an eye on Keith!

Thanks Kate and Foggy for hosting.


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Bible Study: Blessed are the peace-makers

1. For starters: We live in a world that often longs for peace and seems to value it. Why do you think it is so elusive – both on a global scale and in our personal relationships?

2. Now we think about the biblical concept of peace. Look up the following Old Testament passages in groups – each of which includes the
Hebrew word shalom (=peace) and each of which looks at ‘peace’ from a different angle.
• Exodus 4:18; Genesis 43:27
• Joshua 9:15; 1 Kings 5:12
• Psalm 122:6; Jeremiah 29:7
• Psalm 4:8
• Psalm 85:10; Isaiah 48:18 & 22
What do we learn about the biblical concept of peace from these passages?

3. What stands out for you from these passages about the nature of shalom / peace in
Scripture?

4. Jesus is the prince of peace. Look up the following passages from the gospels in groups:
• Luke 1:79
• Luke 2:14
• Mark 5:34
• Luke 7:50
• John 20:19,21,26
What do these passages tell us about the nature of the peace that Jesus brings?

5. Look up the following passages from the New Testament:
• Romans 5:1ff.
• Colossians 1:20
• Ephesians 2:13-18
How did the early Christians understand the nature of the peace that Jesus has won for us?

6. What stands out for you about the peace that Jesus brings from these passages?

7. Now we will think about our role as peacemakers. Look up the following passages:
• Ephesians 4:3
• Hebrews 12:14
• Romans 14:19
• 1 Corinthians 14:33
Why do you think there is such an emphasis on ‘peace’ as a characteristic of the Christian life in the New Testament?

8. Looking over all you’ve learnt about ‘peace’ from different parts of Scripture tonight:
• Can you think of situations / relationships in your life at the moment where God might
be calling you to be a ‘peacemaker’?
• How can we encourage one another as a homegroup to be committed to a biblical
concept of ‘peace’ – both in our life as a group – in our life as a wider church family –
and in the other relationships in our lives (e.g. in the workplace, in our families, in our
marriages, in our friendships...)

9. Pray for one another in those areas – maybe using Hebrews 13:20-21 as a starting-point.

Bible Study: Blessed are the merciful

1. For starters: Try and come up with a definition of the word ‘mercy’.
2. Can you think of a time in your own life when someone showed you mercy? What
happened – and how did you respond?

Read Matthew 5:7. Mercy is one of the defining characteristics of God in the Old Testament.
For example:
• Exodus 33:19
• Deuteronomy 4:31
• Micah 7:18

3. Can you think of examples in the Bible when God shows mercy to his people?
4. Why is it such good news for us that God is a God who delights to show mercy?
(Optional: see Eph 2:1-5)

5. Jesus tells us here that the people who show mercy to others are those who will
receive mercy from God. Why do you think a sign of a true Christian is that they will
show mercy to others?

Read Matthew 18:21-35 for a parable Jesus told, explaining this to his disciples.
6. What does Jesus want us to understand about God’s mercy here?
7. Why should we show mercy to one another, according to this parable?

Look at Matthew 5:38-48.
8. How do you naturally respond to someone who wrongs you? How does Jesus say
we should respond as his people?
9. Did Jesus practice what he preached here? See Luke 23:34...

10. What impact would it have on the people around you if you chose to show mercy to
people who insult you or hurt you?
11. Have a look at Romans 12:17-21. What encouragements are there here to show
mercy to those who oppose us?

12. Pray for one another – that you’d have a deeper understanding of God’s great mercy
towards us in Jesus, and that in response, you’d be able to show mercy to others.

Family Meeting

This week is our family meeting at Knighton from 19:30 onwards. There are a few important things going on including:

1) Finances
Danni is giving a short update on our Avenue finances at the moment.

2) Vote on Lisa
Lisa is studying for a year at All Nations Christian College and we are hoping to support her (£3000). This is the opportunity to ask questions, find out more and vote if you are a member.

3) Discussion about Graham Mckinnon
We are hoping to vote on Graham Mckinnon becoming an elder in the November meeting and this month is a chance to ask any questions of Graham and/or the other elders. So please be thinking about what you could ask, they don't have to be very serious or deeply theological questions - just anything you would like to know about him, how the elders work, or the whole membership/voting process.

Hope to see you there.

Own programme: Gospel Partnership Event

Our next meeting is an Own Programme and is the Gospel Partnership event at Enderby. It is a talk by Mike Reeves who is supposed to be a very engaging speaker. See below for the flyer. I think you can just rock up.

Bible Study: Matt 1-5

We are starting a series on the beatitudes from Matthew 5. This week is an overview of the first few chapters in Matthew to set the scene.

Read Matthew 1:1 and look over Jesus’ family tree.
1. Why do you think Matthew begins his gospel with this family tree? What is he trying
to tell us about Jesus? (See also Matt 1:22-23, 2:5-6, 2:13-15, 2:16-18)

2. How should this affect the way we think about the Old Testament – and the way we
read the Old Testament?

3. Look over the following passages:

• Matt 1:21-23
• Matt 3:16-17
• Matt 4:1-11

What do we learn about Jesus from these passages? Who is Jesus?

Read Matthew 4:17-25.

4. What did Jesus preach?
5. What did he call his disciples to do?
6. What do the miracles Jesus performs in vv.23-25 tell us about the character of ‘the
kingdom of heaven’ that Jesus has come to establish?

Read over the Beatitudes themselves – Matthew 5:1-12.

7. Not that we will answer them now, but take a note of:

• Things that stand out for you
• Questions you have about these verses

8. What do we learn about the people who belong to the kingdom of heaven from these
verses?

9. Pray for one another, that over the next few weeks you’d grow in your understanding
of what it means to belong to the kingdom of heaven.

Bible Study: James 1

Here are the questions from our last Homegroup. I meant to post them before the study but forgot, so thought I'd reproduce it here as we had such a good time - in case you ever want to review what we discussed.


1. How do you usually respond to difficult times in your life or in the lives of people you
know?
2. What difference does prayer make / has prayer made to those difficult times?

The letter of James is written to a group of Jewish Christians scattered across the 1st century AD world, who seem to be struggling in a number of ways.

3. Look up these passages in James and work out what some of the trials James’
readers were facing were.
• 1:9-11
• 2:1-7
• 2:15-16
• 4:1-8
• 5:1-6
• 5:8-11

Read James 1:1-18.
4. According to James, what is the right response to trials? What will be the result of
responding in this way? (see v.2-3, 12)
5. According to James, what is the wrong way to respond to trials? (e.g. 1:13)
6. What does James tell his readers to ask God to give them in v.5? Why do you think
they need God to give them this when they are going through trials?

[Leader’s note: the ‘wisdom’ James urges his readers to pray for is the ability to trust in
God’s good purposes for them, even in the midst of trials. It does not come naturally to us
to ‘consider it pure joy’ when we face ‘trials of many kind’ – so we need both to learn from
God’s word that God is good and loving and to pray that we would trust in him, even when
we don’t know what he is doing in our lives.]

7. In this passage, what is God like? (see vv.5, 13, 17, 18)
8. How does this passage encourage us to pray? What does this passage encourage
us to pray for in our lives?
9. What difficulties have you recently faced or are you facing? How might God be using
them to bring you to a more mature trust in him (v.3-4)?

10. Pray for one another – that God would give you the wisdom to meet trials with joy.

Optional activity:

Review what we’ve learnt about prayer across the past three weeks, and share with one
another which of these three truths you most need to hear / you most want to remember.

We pray
• Because thanks to Jesus, God is now our loving heavenly Father and he loves
to hear our prayers (John 17)
• Because we cannot live as God’s people without his grace and power to help
us (Ephesians 3)
• Because we need God’s wisdom to trust his good purposes for our lives
(James 1)

Bible Study: John 17

We are starting a new short series following the sermons on Prayer. Here are the questions based on John 17.

For starters:

• What do you find most difficult about prayer?
• Think of a time in your life when prayer has felt a bit more natural to you (that could be right now!). What factors in your life led/lead you to pray more?

Read over the whole of John 17 together.

• Make a note of:

• any words and phrases that are repeated
• any confusing verses or phrases

• What do we learn from this prayer about Jesus’ commitment to:

• His Father (vv.1-5)?
• His first disciples (vv.6-19)?
• All believers – including us (vv.20-26)?

• From your knowledge of what happened at the cross and in the history of the early church – how has God answered Jesus’ prayers here?

• What can we learn from Jesus’ priorities in prayer, as we pray for ourselves and for one another?

• Just as Jesus prayed for his disciples here, so other parts of the New Testament assure us that the risen and ascended Jesus is committed to praying for all believers today.

• Read over the following passages:

• Romans 8:34
• 1 John 2:1
• Hebrews 7:25

• What encouragement can we take from these descriptions of Jesus as our great high priest, who intercedes for us from heaven?

Time of prayer

Give time to pray as a group, basing your time round what Jesus prays for in John 17.

• vv.1-5 – for God to be glorified as people come to know him
• vv.6-19 – for God to be glorified as his people remain faithful to him in a hostile world
• vv.20-26 – for God to be glorified by the unity and love of his people

Pray for:

• your homegroup
• the church family at Avenue
• Christians you know of around the country and the world

"A cricket ground is a flat piece of earth...

... with some buildings around it."  Richie Benaud

We've been invited to watch some cricket from our very own Zak "Botham" Allard. It is a local Avenue/Knighton match and I'm sure will be of a very high standard!

It will be a nice excuse to enjoy a summers evening at the park. And afterwards we can either come back here for some hot chocolate or to the Allards (likewise if it is raining).

The game is at Uplands Park. Looking forward to seeing you there! 


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Bible Study: The prodigal God

We are on study number 4 - The Elder Brother. This study corresponds to chapter 4 in the book if you are reading it.

So there are two kinds of lostness. That's the reason Jesus put the elder brother in the parable. You can escape God as much through morality and religion as you can escape God through immorality and irreligion. There are a lot of people; there are a lot of Christians with an elder brother type of heart. If in your heart of hearts, you say "I try very hard, I try to be obedient, I go to church, I pray, I try to serve Jesus... therefore God you owe it to me to answer my prayers, to give me a relatively good life and to take me to heaven when I die".
If that's the language of you heart then Jesus is your model, Jesus is your example, and Jesus is your boss but He is NOT your Saviour.

We are meeting at Marge's house. Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Showtime: A variety Performance

Our next own programme is not on Wednesday 29th June but Saturday 2nd July, seeing Becs singing and dancing in her cabaret (woo hoo!)

Here is a picture of the flyer!

We will be going on Saturday 2nd July. Tickets are £5, so please let me know by this Friday (24th June) if you would like me to get you one.

Bible Study: The Prodigal God

This week we are meeting at our house starting a series of bible studies on Jesus' story of the Prodigal Son. The bible studies are based on a book by Tim Keller called The Prodigal God.  Below is a trailer for the video we're going to watch.


Trailer for The Prodigal God from Redeemer City to City on Vimeo.

If anyone wants to buy the Prodigal God book too, we could put in a bulk order here though this isn't necessary, as the bible studies stand on their own. Let me know on Wednesday.

It would also be a good idea to plan the term ahead, so bring your diary. Looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday.

Let them eat cake

Kate has kindly agreed to make a cake for us to enjoy and we're doubling up with Pete and Alaine's homegroup. They are bringing cake too! It would be good if others of us could bring some cake (or puddings) so that there is enough to go around. Here are some ideas if you need them http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/search.do?keywords=cake.

Looking forward to seeing you at our house on Wednesday.

FIsh and Chips

This week we'll enjoy fish and chips from Grimsby Fisheries- yum!

Bring your pennies.


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Bible Study: 30th March

Tonight we are at Kev and Melissa's. Here are the questions on Jonah 2

For starters

• At what time/times in your life have you been most aware of God’s grace towards you?

Read Jonah 1:17-2:10

• List the key things Jonah says about God in his prayer (maybe in pairs or small groups). How would you describe Jonah’s relationship with God at this point in the book?

• Look over the list you’ve just made.
• How do you respond to the characteristics of God Jonah describes here?
• Do any of them surprise you?

• In what way has Jonah experienced salvation (v.9)? How is his experience similar to that of Christians today? How is it different?
• What elements of Jonah’s prayer do you think we could learn from to help us praise God for his grace towards us? Try to think of practical ways in which we can remember to praise God more in our lives today.

Bible Study: 16th February

This week's bible study is on Ephesians 4v1-16.

We will look at the passage under these three headings:

A light-bulb: This should be something that shines out from the passage – whatever impacts you most or draws most attention.

A question mark: Anything that is difficult to understand in the passage, or a question you’d like to ask the writer or the people involved.

A thinking man: A personal application for your life.

General question:
What does Ephesians 4 add to Paul’s picture of the church and God’s purposes for it in this letter? And what does that mean for us as a church?

Looking forward to seeing you at Kev and Melissa's.

Spring Term Plan 2011

Here is the latest term plan:

When	What	Who	Where
26/1/11	Own Programme: Film and Pizza		Chris and Sue's
2/2/11	Bible Study	Zak and Sarah	Zak and Sarah
8/2/11	Family Meeting	Family Meeting	Knighton
16/2/11	Bible Study	Keith and Jenny	Kev and Melissa's
23/2/11	Own Programme: Games night		Merry's
2/3/11	Bible Study	Marge	Zak and Sarah's
8/3/11	Family Meeting	Family Meeting	Knighton
16/3/11	Bible Study	Chris	Chris and Sue's
23/3/11	Own Programme
30/3/11	Bible Study	Sarah W	Kev and Melissa's
5/4/11	Family Meeting	Family Meeting	Knighton
13/4/11	Own Programme