So Chris is going to speak now about our vision for 2026 at
Hope, which is really exciting. So I'm going to pray that we
hear God and are sensitised to our role or contribution within
that because it's our our shared vision.
Lord, I thank you so much that you, you work through the body.
That's your plan A, and there isn't any other plan.
You work through the body of Christ and then in Christ us to
bring about your reign on earth as it is in heaven.
And we count it the greatest privilege to be a part of your
body and to take our place with each other, standing side by
side with each other, contributing to your vision
coming on earth as it is in heaven.
And so I bless us today to hear your voice for us personally and
also corporately as as to what you're saying to us about your
plans and purposes for us as a community in 2026.
Amen. Thanks, Alice.
Good morning, everyone. Hi, I'm Chris and I'm a follower
of Jesus and Alice and I came to Bristol.
I'd never been here in my life before in 2000 and two, 2003,
because we've heard of this new church that had started called
Hope and it was doing quite radical things.
It was a building site at the time, which I loved building
sites and and it had these big dreams to, to reach out to
people on the edge of society, to be a prayer centre for the
city. And we just loved the engagement
within the church. And that was our that was our
reason to come to Bristol back in 2000 and two, 2003 and just
love being part of this community ever since.
And different times of growing in God in different ways and
seeing God do different things. And yeah, I'm excited to see
what what the future holds. I wonder when, when was the last
time that you felt you were out of your depth?
When was the last time you felt like you needed God to come
through for you? Otherwise, I don't know what,
Yeah, I think, I think for some people it might be like
actually, actually being here right now and you know, or it
could be every, it's an everyday thing.
And for others it might be actually, I don't know.
I felt pretty comfortable for a long time.
And actually I don't know that I, I'm happy out of my depth for
a while. And I kind of want to, I think I
want to, I wasn't planning to say this now, but I think I'm
planning to come onto land where I actually think we're designed
to be out of our depth. I think that's actually the
right place to be in life. And as Alice said, speaking a
little bit into some of our vision for this year.
And we shared a few weeks ago a prophetic word which relates to
this painting, which is behind us.
And a lady called Liz who's been encouraging us prophetically for
a while, shared this word with three elements for us for 2026
about going into deeper water, and I'll explain that in a
minute. So going and that was going
further from the kind of safe place or the place going further
from the church, actually sort of gathered and gathered church
place, experiencing God's power and substance in that place.
That's further from the church. And the third aspect was us
being more tightly knit together as a community so that there's
no gaps. People aren't left out and say
I'm going to speak into the first bit of that today.
And I think at other times in the next few months, I'll speak
into some of the other ones. But I wanted to speak about this
thing about going into deeper water, going further from, from
the sort of church. And we're going to do this by
I'm excited. Andy's going to share a story
with us from Philippines and I'm excited about that.
But we're going to also go through a passage in the Gospels
in, in, in Matthew chapter 8, where we see Jesus leading his
disciples into, into deeper water.
And that's we'll kind of track through that.
But first up, just, you mightn't be familiar with this picture
behind us. This is Hope Chapel.
As you can see, there's a river coming out of it.
And it's based on Ezekiel 47, which is a prophecy to the
people of Israel from the prophet Ezekiel.
And, and it was basically showing the temple and, and, and
out of the temple flowed this river of life.
And the river had these plants and trees and fruits and the
further away it got from the temple and the sort of more life
there was coming to it. And so, and for a year or two,
we kept on having people say, I've got a sense of God speaking
as equal. 47 over over Hope. This is your corner to see Hope
Chapel with water flowing like this.
So hence we've painted it. Rebecca stands.
We started off and Becks has been painting this large version
wonderfully. And and so I think for me, it
symbolises the people and the place of prayer and worship is
this is this is the source of our life, the source of our
energy, the source of our power, our hope and, and the
expectation that as we are live as the people of God worshipping
Jesus, lives oriented around Jesus and actually things within
us flourish. And there's an overflow of life
which, which which serves the city, the greater Bristol area,
wherever we are in our communities, our workplaces.
And that's kind of a vision really of of who we are as a
church and, and, and what, what, what we're about as, as, as
hope. We're expected and believing
that our contributions to society and life and everyday in
in in the little whether they're mundane things or whether
they're massive great global policy changes.
Whatever it is, we are the sort of light which is bringing the
life of Jesus. So Liz's word, the aspect was
about as you go further, and this is the same in Ezekiel 47
as you go further out from the temple as you get into deeper
water, so much so that your feet can't touch the bottom of the
river. And that's where there's a more
significant encounter of power. And actually that's part of Our
Calling on hope is to go, is to go to the edges and to go to go
to places that have maybe farther, further from God,
places people and to and to pursue.
And so I want to speak a bit into that this morning.
And so we're going to go through this passage.
And as we do, there's two questions I'd love you to have
in mind. What does it show us about the
heart of Jesus, his passion and his priorities, his responses to
situations? And secondly, what's the
experience of the disciples as they go with Jesus?
Because that could relate to us as we go with Jesus in this.
So we're going to go to, if you want to find on your tables,
there's a few Bibles in the same version, which is the NIV that
I'm reading from. It's Matthew chapter 8.
Liz, you can tell us a page number, Matthew 8, and we're
going to start at verse 14. Page 972, if you got one on the
table, Bibles. OK, And before we're going to
read from verse 14, Matthew chapter 8, verse 14 before.
So before we do, I just wanted to say a little bit about the
context. And so Peter and the other 12
disciples or other 11 disciples who are with Jesus, they lived
pretty sheltered. They lived pretty sheltered
lives. I, I, I reckon.
And if this is, this is Lake Galilee is my hand here.
And they lived over sort of over here in this sort of top left
hand corner, this Capernaum, the town old village.
And they kind of lived on the, on the east side, no West side,
sorry, over on this side here. And, and life of them would have
been pretty local, I reckoned in their village.
They'd probably have known everybody and they would
probably have all loaded. Loaded of them would have been
related cousins and you know, second cousins, 3rd cousins, you
know, they'd all have grown up together.
You know, nowadays we have a lot of movement that we people move
between towns and cities and villages.
They were much more, much more, stayed in the same place for
generations. They'd have had the occasional
trip down. Maybe some of them would have
gone once a year, maybe more than maybe two or three times a
year down to Jerusalem, which is what is that about 60 miles, 70
miles? I don't know.
So it's a bit of a journey, but I reckon other than that they
wouldn't have got out much. They'd have been pretty tight
and their lives would have been fishing, simple agriculture and
sort of subsistence living. They would have spoken Aramaic.
That was the language that they spoke and say.
And then they were also pretty religious people.
They were really immersed. There's a lot of time in the
scriptures and and keeping these really tight law code.
That was part of the Jewish faith.
So they wouldn't, you know, really care about what they ate,
about who they associated with. They wouldn't associate with
people who weren't Jewish. They wouldn't associate with
people who were, they wouldn't eat with other people who
weren't Jewish. They were really quite a sort of
quite a sort of closed life. And that was, and that was the
way they lived. And and so we'll read from
Matthew 8, verse 14. And so you can picture this,
this is happening in the top left hand corner of Lake
Galilee, Capernaum, up there in this sort of religious space.
When Jesus came into Peter's house, he saw Peter's
mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever.
He touched her hand and the fever left her and she got up
and began to wait on him. When evening came, many who were
demon possessed were brought to him and he drove out the Spirit
with a word and healed all who were sick.
This was to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet
Isaiah. He took up our infirmities and
boride diseases. So I'm just seeing how much I'm
going to read. When Jesus saw the crowd around
him, he gave others to crossover to the other side of the lake.
Then the teacher of the law came and said to him, Teacher, I'll
follow you wherever you go. Jesus replied, Foxes have dens
and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay
his head. Another disciple said to him,
Lord, first let me go and bury my father.
But Jesus told them, Follow me and let the dead bury their own
dead. So life on the West side of the
lake, top left corner is going really well.
There's really big crowds. People want to join, want to
join Jesus. But we see something here about
his priorities that we see quite often and that he just leaves
the he's actually, no, yes, things are going really well
here. I'm having a really successful
impact on this community. But actually I'm going to go
somewhere else. And that's a familiar theme that
we see as we read through the Gospels.
Quite often Jesus will leave a crowd and say, actually, I'm
going somewhere else. And we get the idea as we follow
Jesus and as we see we, as we see in the book of John, John,
John 5, Jesus says this thing, I do only what he says.
I do only what I I see. I do only what I see my father
doing. My work is to do the will of my
father and to finish. And you get the sense that he's
always got to got his ear out and what's, what's God the
Father saying to him to do now? So he's not looking at his
circumstances. They're not looking at the
impact where he is, but he's, and you get the impression that
he's probably the Father's saying to him, actually, I want
you to go across the lake. I've got something, I've got
someone for you on the on the other side of the lake.
So he and his disciples get into the boat and they're going to
and they're going to cross and they're going to cross the lake
here. And I just think this is a this
is a really big, I'm imagining this is a really big deal for
these disciples. I wonder if they've ever been
over to the other side of the lake before they were fishermen.
They'd spent a lot of time in the water.
But the area that they're going to is like a completely
different environment. I was trying to think of
examples. Would it be like someone from a
Somerset village going to a night out in Las Vegas?
I'm trying to like sort of picture, you know, what would be
a sort of comparison type thing. Because on the other side, this
Decapolis area is this kind of Greek and big cities that would
have been marked by sort of temples and sacrifices to all
sorts of idols and all that sort of stuff going on at big
theatre. And Roman power, Greek kind of
liberality of life, all the sorts of sexual ethics of the
morality of the Jewish world were completely different in
this space. So everything was everything was
completely different and would have been shocking to a Jewish
person. I wonder if they'd ever been
there. But they're going with Jesus.
They're doing their they're on this kind of Jesus mission.
So surely this is all going to go really, really well.
They get into the boat. Let's read let's read from verse
23. Then he got into the boat and
his discipled followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up
on the lake. So this so that the waves swept
over the boat, but Jesus was sleeping.
The disciples went and woke him saying, Lord, save us, we're
going to drown. And I think there's an
encouragement here, isn't there? Like they're going on this
special mission they're going into.
They're leaving the comfort of their family home where
everything's going really well. And actually it looks like
they're all about to die and it and it's and it's and actually
this as we'll see in a minute. And as you probably know, it all
ends pretty sweetly right here. But but actually there isn't a
promise. I don't think that that things
will always be easy for us and when we follow Jesus leading to
the edges. I was thinking of like Steven.
He was, he was killed for his faith.
Paul was put in prison. He was shipwrecked.
People just stoned him to death. He was flogged.
He was beaten multiple times. Peter and John early miracle in
Acts chapter 3, they hear the crippled beggar at the temple
and they're arrested. And, you know, so, so, so
there's another pattern here, which I think should encourage
us is that as we go to the edge and and we face opposition,
right? There's a question here.
Was this this storm that kicks up?
Was this like a spiritual, a spiritual thing for a sort of
spiritual event confronting them for the breakthrough that
they're going to see on the other side of the lake?
Or was it just a bad weather day?
You know, I don't really, I don't really know.
But nonetheless, they're not, they're not living in this sort
of bubble. If life is going to be sweet and
easy. We're we're with, with Jesus.
And yet at the same time there is this protection.
Jesus replied, you have little faith.
Why are you so afraid? Then he got up and he rebuked
the wind and the waves and the water was completely calm.
The men were amazed and asked, what kind of man is this?
Even the winds and the waves obey him.
Now we came onto the other side of the lake.
We're nearly there. We've already said that it's a
real move out of their their comfort zone.
And we're going to see even more now as these village kids go to
Las Vegas. So verse 28, when they arrived
at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, also called
Garrison in some, some places, and this is this is about, so we
were up here. It's probably over here on the
sort of three o'clock 4:00 to the side of Lake Galilee.
It's about 8 miles. So it's quite a long journey.
That's probably like here to the far side of Portishead.
So it's a Big Lake. You wouldn't have seen the other
side when you set out. It's a long way.
It's a big storm. When they arrived at the other
side, in the region of the Gadarenes, 2 demon possessed men
coming from the tombs met him. So tombs were another thing that
Jewish people always avoided. You don't go near dead bodies.
You don't go near tombs. It makes you unclean,
ceremonially unclean. As a Jewish person.
You don't, you don't go there. They were so violent that no one
could pass that way. What do you want with us, son of
God? They shouted.
Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?
Some distance from them, a large herd of pigs.
Was feeding pigs really unclean for Jewish people?
Pigs are like the worst animal. You don't go near pigs at all.
You avoid them. So you've got these protected
village kids come from their safe, their safe enclave of
family life, living with their grandparents and their parents
and extended and they know everybody and they've got,
they've come across this torturous journey across the
lake into really hostile territory.
People don't speak the language. Everything is just filthy and
polluting and offensive and vile.
And they're in a graveyard and there's mad people who are
really deluded or just like destructive and and there's
pigs. Everything is wrong.
And yes, that's the place that Jesus takes them.
And again, this is something that we see again and again and
again we see Jesus. Jesus heart of compassion is
actually I'm not going to. I don't need to be hiding.
He goes and touches lepers again.
We can't really probably comprehend that in our society.
Infectious fatal skin disease that scars you for life and
again makes you uncontactable with other people.
He touches leopards, he goes and he touches a woman who's
bleeding and bleeding for many years, again, really richly
unclean. He goes and he goes and speaks
to a Samaritan woman at a, at a well, she's a Gentile again,
she's considered the lowest of the lowest.
She's, she's had a sort of loose lifestyle because of her trauma
that she's been through. But again, he shouldn't be
talking with her, but he goes right to the edges every time He
heals the, the Roman centurions. How can you heal the servant of
a Roman centurion? They're the brutal oppressor of
the Jewish people. How can you do that?
And yet Jesus, Jesus goes there and he takes his disciples with
him. And what's lovely is we come on
in a minute to see the impacts of this mission where it looks
like Jesus, Jesus went across the lake.
I mean, it's interesting. It says in here that there are
two men, 2 demon possessed men in Mark and Luke.
There's only one. There's quite a few of these
confusing bits in the Bible where the where different people
are telling the story. And I wonder why they why I
don't know why. Why does one say there were two
one say there were one. Maybe maybe one of them was the
kind of main character he was the dramatic one that was doing
all the speaking and and the other guy was just sort of
hanging out with him. I don't know what the reason
was, but but in Matthew's Gospel there, there, there are two.
So distance from them. A large herd of pigs was feeding
the demons begged Jesus, if you drive us out, send us into the
herd of pigs. He said to them, go.
So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd
rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water.
Those tending the pigs ran off and went into the town and
reported all this, including what had happened to the demon
possessed men. Then the whole town went out to
meet Jesus, and when they saw him they pleaded with him to
leave their region. That's a crazy response, isn't
it? In Mark chapter 5?
I'd like this bit in the Mark version.
That's a lovely description of the man afterwards.
So this is Mark 5/15. When they came to Jesus, they
saw the man who'd been possessed by the legion of demons sitting
there dressed and in his right mind.
I just think that's so lovely for that man.
You know, he'd been tortured for years and years and years,
outcast from society, physically battered and in pain and
presumably had this continue in a in a torment all the time.
And I'll just read it again. When they came to Jesus, they
saw the man who'd been possessed by the legion of demons sitting
there dressed and in his right mind.
And they were so struck by it says that they were afraid fear
of God type moment. What's happened to this person?
He's completely changed and the impression is that Jesus,
because after this he goes back again, the impression was that
Jesus went across the lake just to do this, made this long
journey across the lake through the storm, all the trauma of
that, all the challenge of that just to heal this one guy.
And then it goes on again in the Mark version, gives a bit more
detail than we get in Matthew about what happens next.
As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who'd been demon
possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said
go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has
done for you and how he's had mercy on you.
So the man went away and he began to tell him the Decapolis,
how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.
This is the first example of a of a missionary being sent out
into Gentile territory into like a non Jewish area.
And it was this man who'd been so tortured and so tormented in
his experience. And he and he sent out and, you
know, people that have written about this say, you know, it's
unlikely that Jesus is a Jewish rabbi.
If he'd gone into this Decapolis area, these, these 10 cities of
Roman and Greek living, it's unlikely that a Jewish rabbi,
Jesus would have been accepted there.
They would have like hated the Jewish people who looked down on
them as being unclean and inferior.
And so Jesus is unlikely to have been welcomed.
But initially at first, but Jesus sends this one man and he
basically says he doesn't tell them to go and plant a church.
Just go, just go and tell them, tell them what you've
experienced, tell them what you've seen.
And we, we get some glimpses of the potential impact of that
later on, later on in the Gospels, we see that.
So Jesus feeds 5000 people and another time he feeds 4000
people afterwards. And they reckon that was
probably in the capitalist region that that happened in
this in the same area. And the people that were eat
those 4000 were probably people that had heard the testimony of
this, of this man, this man that had been healed.
And it says that they were waiting for Jesus when he came.
And it's another time a guy who's blind is healed by Jesus
and people are waiting for Jesus to come in the Decapolis region.
So that one man story may well have softened the area to be
ready to receive Jesus. So that's a that's a story.
It's an example of the Gospels and it's a sort of template.
It's an example of what we see so often Jesus leaving in many
going for the few going for probably one of the sort of
darkest places and experiences of life and and and he moves
there and he sees the power of God come.
And I think this is what we should have in mind when we're
when we're hearing God say to us, he's calling us into deeper
water, take more risk, move further out from from the
comfort of church, from the comfort of the gathered people.
Yes, I'm not saying that we don't gather.
It's vital that we do. This is the place and the people
where we are encouraged. We're built up.
We're resourced in prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit,
but the the energy and the, the leading of the Spirit is to go
out to the edges. And in a minute, I'm going to
give some examples of how we can do that this year.
But first up, we're going to hear from Andy.
He's going to tell us the story of from his time in Hong Kong,
Philippines. Yes.
I'll be brief firstly about going deeper, just a quick story
from last week. I took my kids swimming last
weekend and they can't swim but they're head cases so they run
into the deep end and they threw themselves in.
Sophie didn't know this yet but I'll tell her later.
So I had to, I had to fish them back out and then take them back
to the shallow end. And then I realised I've been
spending the last 4-5 years enjoying the paddling pool but
too scared to actually go in the deep end.
But actually it was quite easy just following my kids because
they're all in for the deep end. So I'm really excited for this
year doing it. Probably about nine years ago,
Sophie and I moved to Hong Kong and we thought that was us going
into the deep end. It was deep.
Like I got there, we're living with some like drug addicts or
murderers or whatever it be. And we also can't speak the
language and we're being mocked for it.
And so I felt like so out of my depth, It was about after week
one, I was like, can we go home? And then every day after that,
it was, can we go home? And then like 2 weeks in, they
said, oh, we forgot to tell you. In four weeks, you're actually
not staying in Hong Kong. You're going to the Philippines
for two weeks or two months and you'll be living in a slum.
And we're up. But we're already, we're already
doing the deep bit like what are you talking about?
And in that Jackie Pullinger style, she said, you're not
doing anything here. You're not helping anyone yet.
You need to actually understand what it is to really see the
poor. And so I was just even angrier
and desperate to come home because that's so offensive.
But we got on this flight, which actually felt really nice to be
getting out of Hong Kong because it's like living in central
London, but times 10. So we're on a flight and then we
land at the Philippines and I'm picturing beaches, lovely
weather. The weather was actually, no,
it's oppressively hot. But then we went over a bridge
and immediately could just see like slums.
I'd never seen anything like this.
They drove us into the centre of a slum and said at you get get
your bags out. We had forgotten you guys were
coming. So we haven't got accommodation
view yet but we'll see what we can do in the next couple of
hours. So I was immediately like I just
want to go home like and then it's the first time in my life I
went to the toilet, said so if I need the lid I just cried.
I was like I just want to go home.
And we did this for like 3 weeks, just cried, just wanted
to come home because everything was so intense.
Michael, can you put the picture up?
It's very small, but basically we'd gone into a slum area where
the group that they were really going after was families that
lived in tombs. So these guys had no houses.
So that's a baby hanging up in their cot in a graveyard.
And the families would, like, tunnel under the tombs to live,
to live in them. That was like, that was it.
That was all they had. And yeah, we had to look at this
for three weeks in a row. We'd go and meet these people
and all I wanted to do was come home.
I was absolutely terrified and still offended that being told
that you don't know what poor is until you really see it.
But I think what the the excitement for us was like going
deep was, yeah, for three weeks we just kind of pleaded with
each other, can we go home? But then the following five
weeks, it was like, I can't believe we're going to have to
go home. And when we actually left, we
got in the back of the car to go to the airport and we wept for
the opposite reason. If I don't want to leave these
people, I don't want to go home. I don't want to go to Hong Kong.
I don't want to do anything. We just want to stay here.
And it was because of the people, like, they had a really
simple way of explaining it of like, when you go into the deep
water, everything is overwhelming.
But it's not when you just go after the one, like just go
after the one person, the one thing you go into this community
with your eyes open. There's 100 people sleeping in
tombs. Like the baby caught my eye.
So it was like, right, we're going to go and see how we can
help the parents or do they need us to hold the baby so they get
food or do they have any food? And then when you live that
really simple life with Jesus, it was actually really easy to
do because it didn't feel overwhelming.
It didn't actually feel deep. And I think I've realised that
we just over complicate deep. But actually it was really
simple. Like we got to meet the people
we, we were working with, the people that lived in the slums,
like they had nothing. And I, I mean nothing, but these
were like the nicest people we've ever met.
And like, yes, we sing happy birthday here.
They, they celebrate birthdays like on their own steroids.
It's like crazy. The whole party goes out, but
they give away everything. So like, the best birthday party
ever, ever had was in the Philippines, where they do like
karaoke in a slum and they buy a chicken and cook it for you.
They can't afford a chicken for like their whole year's salary,
but they give everything away. And that felt doable because we
were just going after the 1. And I think Sophie and I have
been talking and it sounds offensive, but we're really
hungry to go deep again. It's hard when you've got kids.
It's hard when life and work is stressful and everything is
stressful and it's impossible to do it on your own.
But it's super exciting that as a church, we can do it this year
and in really simple ways of just going after the one.
And it also doesn't have to be you that goes after the one.
You can just have the eyes and someone else can have the heart.
So that we used to go into these areas and be like, I don't know
why that's caught my eye or if it was me, it was like, that's
caught my eye. But actually I can't deal with
that because that's a group of 10 women.
Has someone got a heart for it or there's a baby?
Could someone go to it? So just it doesn't have to be
you're the doer. We don't have to do anything
extreme. We don't have to be taking our
whole families into the prison. But you can just have the eye
and then share that. And then someone else will be
the one that gets stirred up and excited and then gets to go and
do it. Thanks, Andy.
Just have to say a little bit more about about being out of
our depth before I then mention some ways that we can engage
with this practically and then we'll finish by praying.
So that I said at the beginning, I wonder if it's good design for
us to be out of our depth. And I just want to expand on
that a little bit. And so last week Charlie did a
brilliant talk here about the Beatitudes, which I've never
really, to be honest, I've never really understood.
I've always found them a bit annoying because I didn't really
sort of get them. And for me last week, he made
them more clear than I've ever seen them.
And he was essentially saying we are sort of raised and live in a
way to kind of avoid pain and avoid suffering and avoid
discomfort. And, you know, the Beatitudes
say things like blessed are blessed are blessed are those
who mourn, blessed are those who are persecuted.
And it's sounds slightly strange, but but but the point
that Charlie was making was that actually it's right that we feel
sad in the face of death and suffering.
It's inhuman for us not to it's, it's, it's, it's wrong, it's
denial. It's, it's, it's, it's
avoidance. And, and he was talking about
actually to be human, to be alive, to be real is, is to
recognise brokenness and suffering and, and to, and to
feel the, the pain of it. And, and yet we spend so much of
our time trying to get into a place of comfort, trying to get
into, trying to get out of difficulty, trying to get into a
place of self-sufficiency. You see that right at the
beginning in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, you know, in that
story, which was written to show the human condition and they had
everything, you know, that they were right next to God, but yet
there was something in them that just wanted to be able to,
wanted to better sort of look after themselves without really
needing God. And I think that's the, that's
the story that you see, that's the, the, the pattern that you
see throughout humanity, throughout the Bible and
throughout our lives and throughout, we just want to be
able to be, if I just have enough money or just enough
comfort or just, if this just changes, then I'll be OK.
And it's, and you can see that again through the Bible, the
leading of God is taking people out of their comfort zones into
places of needing. We always need God, but we don't
always realise we do. And the problem is that we
forget that we need God and we sort of make life work in
whatever sort of way, in a way that we can get by without
really needing to connect with God.
And, and so Abraham leaves his family.
He leaves his home for a, for a different place.
You know, Moses has to take his people out of out of Egypt into
a different place. The disciples are called out of
their little village life, their comfortable village life in the
top left of Galilee. And they have, and they go into,
and then they go around the world.
Jesus sends the, the disciples and us as the church around the
world. That's that's our that's Our
Calling is to is to go to the edge, go to the most broken and,
and and lovely hearing from Andy's story, wasn't it that the
that the the when when out of one's depth and when in that in
that space, it actually I just I just need God here.
We find that actually, actually, I can swim.
You know, it's OK that my feet don't touch the bottom of the
ground. Actually, I'm I'm not going to
it's not all I'm not suddenly going to get washed away.
It's safe. It's like in the, in the Narnia
stories where Aslan is described, he's not a safe line.
He's not a tame lion, but he's good and he's kind.
And, and I think that all speaks into this, this, this thing of
being out of our depth in, in a right way, being out of our
comfort zone, which actually is how we're, we're designed to be.
We're designed to need God. We're designed to live in, in,
in, in relationship with God. So just a few things that we
could a few ways that we can connect with this as a church
and as individuals. And I know that people are
already, so I'm not saying we're not doing any of this.
If you're, you know, in that zone already be encouraged for
what you're doing. But we're looking at starting a
prison Sunday once a month. So we work closely as a church
with God's house and Pastor Ossian goes into HMP Bristol,
the the prison behind Lost a Road in Hawfield.
He goes in there every day actually and runs services most
Sundays. And we've been talking with him
about us going in as a church once a month and running a
service in Bristol prison. And he's really excited about
that. And it's, it's a yes, I've got
my security clearance. So we can go in as like teams of
of, I don't know, maybe it's like 6 or 6 or 8.
Typical format is, is they have a, a short one hour service, 10
to 11. Austin's seen over the last
couple of years, numbers go up from 8 or 9 people coming to
these services to now more like 4045.
They love it. They, they, they love to sing,
They love to hear story, a message about Jesus.
And then there's an opportunity to pray with people afterwards.
So would you like to come? Let's form a team.
You know, we, we, we considered a church, we'd considered like
an evening service and we've been scouting around that idea.
And one of the conclusions on that was actually let's, let's,
let's, let's plant a service in the prison.
Let's, let's do that. That would be a healthy thing
for us in line with Our Calling. It's going into deeper water.
So speak to me if you're interested.
Another opportunity is prophetic ministry to students, Bristol
students. So I mentioned Liz earlier and
like Sam's here, isn't it? I saw Sam Whitlock somewhere,
there he is. He, Sam's involved with this
ministry to students, prophetic ministry to students in the
universities. And again, that's an opportunity
to be out of your depth in terms of needing God to speak.
And Sam can tell stories about that.
But that's another opportunity for us.
Liz is keen that we grow in that area as well.
And that's, that's another one, as I said already, perhaps
you're already like in perhaps you're already in deep water
looking at Rose. I think it's some of the
situations that Rose is in and, and, or in your personal life or
in other hope boats, in which case, you know, be encouraged.
This is the heart of what you're doing is the heart of Jesus.
And then the 4th, my 4th suggestion was was prayer
support as well. So once a month on the Tuesday,
the first Tuesday of each month we have is our sort of prayer
focus day. I, I, I, I join in with a slot
that Simon and Becca host, which is praying for young people.
And we do that from like 6:45 to 7:30 in the morning.
And I think having some other prayer slots that particularly
accompany our our boats and our ministries, I think would be a
really useful and important feature.
So if we're going into the prison once a month, let's have
a corresponding prayer session for half an hour, 45 minutes
before that. We're praying for that.
And I was thinking that Christie's not here today.
He's been unwell. But Celebrate Recovery is a
brilliant boat within hope, brilliant ministry within hope.
And I was saying to Christie, it'd be great if we could form a
form, a press not within our Tuesdays where we pray for
Celebrate Recovery. You know, names of people are
confidential, but we can still pray for certain situations and
we can pray for that. So if you'd like to be part of
maybe like 1/2 an hour or 45 minutes prayer for Celebrate
Recovery each week, each each month.
Then again, maybe it's not best. Maybe don't, don't come and talk
to me about all these things because I'll forget, write it
down on a bit of paper or e-mail the office or or whatever like
that. You know, I'll let you take the
initiative and the best way to, to make it happen, but do but do
make it happen. And there'll be a myriad of
probably other things as well. So my main takeaway I think for
today is I think that we're called as humans actually, not
just Christians, it's humanity. I think we're designed to be out
of our depth. I think we're designed to be in
a place where we need God and we rely upon God.
That's actually that's actually solid ground to be tackling on.
Ironically, that's the that's the safest place.
And there is this cool we see in in the in the Bible and upon us
as a hope, as hope to go to the edge, to go to the go to the
vulnerable, go to the broken, moving away from the comfort and
safety of our of our right community.
That is important for us not, not not diminishing or
dismissing that at all. We need this safe and secure
home base but from which we we move out.
Yeah the full were prison Sunday university students prophetic
prayer the boat or life that you're in already your work or
personal life. And then the 4th 1 was prayer
support prayer. Mike is going to lead us in a
song with a nice watery theme. We sung this, we this is this
song, Oceans is the song. And then Alice is going to lead
us in some praying before we finish at 12:10.
I remember we went for a really difficult time maybe about 15
years ago and I just sat in this song for months.
It really spoke to me because it's the, it's the kind of you
call me out upon the waters. It's that call to.
He uses the metaphor of Jesus inviting Peter out of out to the
boat to walk on the water. And it's a slightly different
watery situation to the to this one, but you get the concepts
the same. It's about it's about needing
God. So Mike is in leads.
If you'd like to stand or if you'd like to sit, use this
opportunity to respond to what God's been stirring in you as
we've been in the scriptures, as I've been speaking, as Andy's
been speaking to us. And then Alice will close us in
prayer.