RTB Limuru 2014 - the programme

Less than two weeks to go.
Please be praying for us all - for a great time of fellowship, refreshing and refocusing as we listen to one another and most of all to "the Word of His grace".
And if you'd like to book to attend there's still time. Contact the office here.

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Christmas is for weeping people

Who is Christmas for? Happy families? Children? Is Christmas for those who have just lost loved ones in a bus crash? Or for those who lost parents or children in the horror of the Westgate massacre. Does Christmas mean anything to South Sudan as the bullets fly and chaos and fear escalates daily? How can we talk about Christmas when we’re surrounded by that sort of pain and sadness and mayhem? How can Christmas and death fit together? Well if Christmas is all about fun and family and eating and drinking and cute nativity plays then it obviously doesn’t fit with massacres and funerals and pain and suffering. But that’s not the real Christmas. There is NOTHING sweet about the real Christmas. There is NOTHING sentimental or cute about the real Christmas story. Pick up a Bible and read Matthew 2:1-18. That is a dark story isn’t it? There’s the nice bit about the star and the gold, frankincense and myrrh but basically it’s about a mad king hunting down a small child and

Utumishi wa Neno taster

It's finally starting! We had our first taster day for the church-based Utumishi wa Neno preaching course on Saturday. It was great to spend a few hours with 14 or so brothers and sisters and just spend soak in the Word. One of the crazy things we did was to read through the whole of Philippians out loud. How long did it take us? 15 minutes. And all of us enjoyed the experience and heard things we'd never noticed before. More thoughts on the day here . And for those who asked for the notes, they're available to download here . If you're in Kenya and want to get involved in the on-going Utumishi training see more info on the iServe Africa website .

The Big Idea

Ever wonder, "What is your point? What are you actually trying to say?" Imagine I'm preparing a sermon... Hopefully I'm working on a chapter or two of the Bible or at least at decent-sized chunk - the story or argument or poem or vision. Hopefully I've read the context all around it too, even the whole book or letter. Now - here's the test - can I sum up the whole passage in 8-15 words? It's what's sometimes called the 'Big Idea'; the heart, the core, the punch of the passage. And it’s worth finding it for at least four reasons: Good human communication (and the Bible is certainly that) has a certain coherence to it. It is about something . Mark’s Gospel is clear what it is about: Mark 1:1: The gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God - that is what the following 16 chapters are all about; that is the Big Idea. Or going back to the prophets of the Old Testament (as we'll be doing at Raising the Bar next week) they received a ‘Wor

Looking at Christ

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