Lots has been going on in the life of RED.  Recently we finished our first Alpha course.  This was good fun for all and two people made commitments to Jesus, whoop whoop!  We will be looking to put on another Alpha sometime after Christmas. 

Hannah has been very busy and last month started as the first employee of the church, doing 5 hours a week.  She continues to do all sorts which has included teaching a mid week parenting course and also a stand alone session for couples called ‘Lets stick together’.  As well as this she, along with her brilliant team, have started ‘Little Treasures;’ a Friday morning group for pre-schoolers and their parents.  A worker from the Birmingham Pre-school Alliance paid a visit to the group and said it was ’a lovely morning with a beautiful singing time’.

The next big step for Redeemer Church Birmingham is a public weekly meeting.  We are planning on going to this in September with the venue to be announced soon!

This Tuesday gone we held an Alpha Taster evening at a local pub.  Alpha is an informal, relaxed and free course where people can investigate the life and claims of Jesus.

We put the Alpha Taster on as an introduction to the course.  The evening involved a free buffet meal and a short talk.  In the talk I asked if Jesus had answers to some of life’s big questions.  I suggested that he did and that the sheer size and attractiveness of what he said made it only reasonable to check him out further.

Next week is the first main session looking into what Jesus claimed.  The format of the evening will be similar to the Taster but with pudding instead of a meal, again followed by the talk but with chance for discussion and questions afterwards.  If you would like to come along we would love to have you, just be in contact to let us know and to get details.

Recently we have moved from meeting on Tuesday evenings to Sunday Afternoons.  We decided to go with momentum and the feeling amongst us that Sunday was a goer.  We have met mostly in our home.  At times it has been a bit of a squash and not always obvious how to best cater for adults and children but always good fun having everyone together.

We have not at this stage committed to a ‘service’ as such each week and will be looking to do different things together some Sundays.  Meeting on Sundays has been a big step.  At some point we will need to move to a venue.  We are still waiting to see when and where this will be.

Back in March we held a Thanksgiving service for Rhian (our second child).  We did this as we wanted to acknowledge publicly that Rhian is a gift from God and say thank you for her.  It was great to have a number of friends and family all together to share this occasion.  The service was made up of singing, prayer and a short talk, followed by food, cake and bouncy castles.

For me having children has raised big questions.  It’s one of those big life experience that makes you think.  I want the best for my girls, but what is best for them?  As I’ve pondered this it leads to more questions - what do I want in life for them and what is it to live a satisfying and worth whiled life?  One minute I am thinking about changing nappies and who’s my favourite Disney princess the next I am pondering the meaning of life!

The second of the sessions on our key beliefs was on faith, sin and repentance.

Faith is simply trusting in or depending on God.  In this we acknowledge God as the source of all we are and put Him rightly at the centre of our lives.  This leads to seeking his purposes and glory.

On the other hand sin is trusting in or depending on ourselves.  This is to reject God as giver of life and to put us at the centre of our lives.  This leads to being self-seeking and proud.

Repentance is a change of mind, basically turning from faith in ourselves to faith in God.  Recognising that dependence on self is damaging to ourselves and others, and offensive to God.  Sin is life sapping, joy stealing and God rejecting.  Faith in God is life enthusing, joy giving and God glorifying!

To become a follower of Jesus (a Christian) is to start a life of repentance.  That is a life of increasing joy as we continually turn more fully to the author and giver of life!

In the past few months on a Tuesday evening we have been going through a number of beliefs which we see as vital for living life to the full.  The first of these was grace.

Once we trust in Jesus the way God sees us and feels about us dramatically changes.  From this point on God the Father feels the same way about us as he does his dear Son Jesus.  This means God has 100% delight in us 100% of the time.  He is always well pleased with us as he is always well pleased with Jesus.

This is because when we trust in Jesus his perfect life and death are considered as our own.  God no longer sees our offensive thoughts, feelings, words and actions but instead these are washed away and replaced by Jesus’ own goodness.  The Father has infinite delight in this goodness as it is his very own reflected in his Son but given to us.

Grace is God’s underserved, unearned, unending pleasure in us, won by and received through Jesus Christ!  Once we trust in Jesus we are brought into his own friendship with God the Father as the Father’s very own children!

Enjoy Grace.

Below are the values we went through in our last meeting.  These are intended to help guide our decisions and create the church culture we want to have.

a) Honour Jesus – What most honours Jesus is what is right and best.
b) Knowing God = understanding and experience – Spiral.
c) Spirit & Word – Don’t truly have either without both.
d) Love God and People – Intricately linked and cannot be separated.
e) Growth/save – All actions are to serve the purpose of growth through salvation.
f) Engage without comprising – Love truth and culture.
g) Live in the now for eternity – Not for the now or in the future.
h) Thanksgiving – attitude of gratitude, we are always doing better than we deserve.
i) Humility – Correct perception of ourselves, God is God and we are not.  It’s all about Him, we are nothing without Him and yet have everything with Him. We have no reason to look down on or think ourselves superior to any other human being. Don’t steal the glory/credit but enjoy the gift.
j) Honesty – be real, no masks, no pretence, no keeping up appearances, no superficiality.
k) Friendship – to genuinely know and enjoy each other.
l) Fun – Laugh together and enjoy the ride.
m) Quick to forgive – Sometimes we will annoy even hurt each other.
n) Balance – To have a correct expectation of what to serve/be church looks like, commitment without overloading.  To recognise what is achievable and what is not.
o) Guts (courage/risk/faith) – to not, not do something because it is scary but to act on who God is and what God wants.
p) Grit – Life is tough but so is God and so is love.
q) Generosity, it is always better to give than to receive – to be able to give/serve is itself a joyous

r) Sole dependence on God – only God can sort our issues no-one/nothing else.
s) Interdependence – Human help and support.
t) Win Minds and Hearts – In all things never seek to force, but to lead people by winning their understanding and emotions to the cause.   
u) Question – Freedom to ask why.  No, no go areas.
v) Communication – Keep informed.
w) Innovate – Try things, it is not wrong to fail.
x) Excellence – To aim at making what we do (appropriately) good.
y) Prayer – this makes it all work.
z) God is in total control – He knows what he is doing and no-one or nothing can stop him.

Now that the new year has started we are upping the tempo with growing the church.  We intend to meet weekly alternating between a prayer, praise and teaching evening and a social event of some sorts.

This Tuesday gone, at our home we held the first meeting of the year.  The intention of the evening was to start going through what we are about as a church plant.  Below is some of what was said.

The Mission (the goal)
To advance the Kingdom in depth and width! (Matt 22v37, Matt 6v10, Rom14v17)

The Plan (the how)
i)The Person – The plan is Jesus: Who He is, what He’s done, doing and going to do! 
-Know Him, Love Him.  John 14v6, Acts 8v 11-12

-Enjoy it, share it.  Romans 1v16, 1Cor 1v18

-The church is community/family on a mission.
-Church is God’s Plan A for the advance of His Kingdom and there is no plan B.
-Be it.  Matt 16v18, Ephesians 3v10

It’s…
-Grace enjoying
-Christ following
-Spirit drenched
-Bible believing
-Good news sharing
-City serving
-God glorifying
community (gathered and dispersed).

I also went through our values which I will post another time.  In the coming weeks we intend to go through the beliefs we hold dear and see as vital for a life lived to the full.  2013 bring it on!

This weekend we hosted a little Christmas drinks party.  Hannah put on a wonderful spread of yummy nibbles, mince pies and mulled wine and mulled cider.  We borrowed a friends outdoor fire grate which gave a extra Christmas feel.

We were really glad that a number of neighbour’s came along.  Some who we are already getting to know and others we had not properly met before.  We are enjoying getting to know the crescent and feeling more part of the community.  It’s surprising how much more homely a place feels when you know the others living there.

I am so glad to be part of my local church family but on top of this so glad to be part of a world wide family of churches.  This week we went back to Exeter (from where we moved) to the church we were part of in order to let them know how we are getting on.  They were all glad to hear how much we love Birmingham and impressed with facts such as ‘Birmingham has more canals than Venice’.

As well as having fun in seeing friends, it was great to receive prayer, input and words of encouragement from people we know have our best interests and God’s glory at heart.  It is certainly true that we can do more together than we can apart.