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The New Year is truly underway and already it is making a mark on us. A questions that deserves to by asked by each of us is, “am I making a mark on my year?”.

Most people name their year after it is ended; our Queen famously named 1992 as her “annus horribilis” due to the happenings it thrust upon her. Yet we can name our year before it has begun and, whilst not being able to control many of its events, we can plot its course.

In this new year talk I set out the main priority in 2010 for New Life (Scunthorpe) and encourage people to realise 2010 as the year where they do their best; to name it as “my best year”.

If you want to discover how to cause a significant upturn in your ability to become all that creator God wants you to be, then listen to this podcast and follow along with the powerpoint if you wish.

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This coming Sunday I will be launching a new teaching series aimed at helping people become “big on the inside”. Each of the six sessions will be based on one of the chapters of Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus and I know it is going to be so helpful to all who hear it.

If you’ve ever felt trapped and limited in expressing yourself or your faith then the first session is for you, called “Unchained melody” it will give you keys to unlocking the constraints that the enemy and life places on you.

For those of you who like a bit of lightness in church, as a recognition of recent events I will be dropping in song titles performed by Michael Jackson throughout the talk. See how many you can spot!

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What a great time we had at The House on Sunday morning as New Life did church together. It was somewhat emotive too. Fathers were honoured and it was exciting to see a young student speak very highly of his exceptionally humble dad and then pray for him in front of the whole congregation. Later one of our more senior members read the Rudyard Kipling poem “If” and I for one was moved to tears as he neared the climax of that most wonderful of verse.

The message, “A Father’s Advice” centred on the Godly advice spoken through a wise man in Proverbs 3:5-6. I suppose if the Holy Spirit inspires the wisest King who ever lived to pen words to his son, we should at least take careful note; and perhaps more so on Father’s Day.

This podcast then drops in on the message after I’ve finished the preamble which included reminiscences of my own father and his words of wisdom.

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For the third and final part of a trilogy of talks I spend a little time explaining just a couple of aspects of what it means to be a truly big church – big in every way. This talk follows on from the talks “Big God” and “Big People”, both available to listen to from this site.

To be a big church we must be a church which is valuable to God and invaluable to the community. Committed to becoming a church that Jesus celebrates not tolerates. Rejoice and revel in the fact that God doesn’t need us but chose us – we are truly wanted.

We should also be a church which finds it releasing to celebrate and even promote its own flavour whilst at the same time celebrating and encouraging other expressions of church. This is truly enjoying God’s desire for variety and diversity.

Enjoy as you join worshippers gathered on a Sunday morning at The House, the home of New Life in Scunthorpe, England

Hi and thanks for visiting therevster.com.

I recently spent time away with some of the leaders of the church I pastor and as well as having lots of fun and enjoying each other’s company, we chewed over many of the various statements, mottos and axioms that we’ve used to describe our church. It was a helpful exercise and in the doing of it we arrived at an overarching phrase which we believe will express the whole scope of our flavour as New Life Church.

“Big God.. big people .. big church” is already becoming part of the language of New Life’s leadership. We believe in a Big God .. we build Big People .. who belong to a Big Church.

Heather Small, now a solo artiste was the lead singer of a band called M People when she sang the inspired song “What have you done today that makes you feel proud?”. What a grea song and what a great thought. I recently gave a challenge for the congregation of of my church to think of some things that they’ve done this year that make them feel proud. We know that the Bible teaches that having a proud heart is a sinful thing but being proud of personal development and achievement is not a self-exalting excercise – it’s a celebratory excerise. Perhaps if we find it difficult to list many things we’ve done which make us feel proud gives us a clue that we are not living life the way that Jesus intended; a life packed with lessons learned, battles won and successes earned.

This podcast features the bulk of a talk I gave entitled “Big People”. It was a call to the great people of New Life to listen again to the CALL of Jesus to “follow Him”, to take advantage of the consequence of followship which is a “life to the full” and then to take seriously the commission to become a true disciple.

You see the belief in a Gig God will cause a deep longing to see people become all they can be; for them to live life large and experience it to the full. For them to place body, soul and spirit into the service of God … to become Big People.

My team of leaders are committed to growing people in love displayed through our values, see them experience forgiveness, overcome weaknesses, resist the enemy and find freedom in God. We will join with the angels in celebrating every success and rejoice with everyone who is growing big on the inside.

In this second talk of a series you drop in on me talking about our need to be Big People. Enjoy as you join worshippers gathered at The House, the home of New Life in Scunthorpe, England

 


Hi and thanks for visiting therevster.com.

I recently spent time away with some of the leaders of the church I pastor and as well as having lots of fun and enjoying each other’s company, we chewed over many of the various statements, mottos and axioms that we’ve used to describe our church. It was a helpful exercise and in the doing of it we arrived at an overarching phrase which we believe will express the whole scope of our flavour as New Life Church.

“Big God.. big people .. big church” is already becoming part of the language of New Life’s leadership. We believe in a Big God .. we build Big People .. who belong to a Big Church.

We believe in a God who is who He says He is and does what He says He does. The God who is revealed in every page of scripture. A Big God!  Only by believing in a big God can we begin to successfully raise strong disciples; big people. The followers that Jesus wants are ones who pursue wholeness, learn to live life sold out to him and therefore learn to live life large, to the full. Only then can we build and belong to a big Church. A church that Jesus celebrates not tolerates. A church that is valuable to God and invaluable to the community.

In a series of three talks, I unpack aspects of this phrase to the church for the first time. “Big God .. big people .. big church”.

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In this first talk you drop in on me talking about our need to believe in a Big God. I use visual examples of us straightjacketing God to make him more palatable to society and later I literally tear the bible apart to make the point of how subtly we learn to compromise the God of the bible. Enjoy as you join worshippers gathered at The House, the home of New Life in Scunthorpe, England.