Walking on water

Some times I think that Peter gets quite a hard time. In this week's assembly - which I have posted below - Peter has already got out of the boat and is already walking on the water towards Jesus (from Matthew 14:22-33). He then notices the size of the waves and the strength of the wind, takes his eyes off Jesus and starts to sink.

Jesus rescues him and when they're safely back in the boat asks, 'you of little faith, why did you doubt?'

I think my reply might be something along the lines of, 'little faith - didn't you just see me get out of the boat and start to walk on the water? What about these guys (pointing to the rest of the disciples in the boat) - how about their faith? Didn't see any of them waltzing along the waves or Samba-ing amongst the swell. How about asking them?

But I don't think Jesus' comment was a criticism of Peter. Peter was now cold and wet. He had had quite a scare. No doubt his pulse rate was fairly high. But he could have avoided all of that - by continuing to trust Jesus.

When Jesus asks us 'why are you anxious?' or 'why are you worried?' I don't think it is an accusation or a criticism. But rather a recognition that there is a better way to live. You don't need to be worried - with all the negatives that come with that. So Jesus' question comes with a heart longing, that we learn to live this better way - not because Jesus wants to tick a box that says 'xyz finally got it - well taught', but because that way of living will be better for us.

Each Wednesday, during lockdown, I will post my Wednesday assembly videos here. If you know any primary school-aged children who are missing their assemblies why not send them a link.

When I do these assemblies in real life, I get a score out of ten from my youngest daughter who still attends the school. Normally, just before she leaves, she will hold up her fingers with a score out of 10. One of the criteria for a 10/10 is that she is picked as a volunteer (so that rarely happens, if ever). Anyway, if you're interested, this week I got an A score of 9 - which is unusually high!

Peter - Called by Jesus

One of the things that I used to do, every three or four weeks, was to take the Wednesday church assembly at a local primary school. These were whole school assemblies (so 4-11 year-olds), held in the local Parish Church, on a Wednesday morning. The school is a Church of England school and it is directly opposite the church. And these assemblies were taken by a team of local church leaders.

Obviously, with the national lockdown due to coronavirus, the school building is now closed to most children, and most learning has moved online. And so have the assemblies. This term we are going ahead with our plan for the summer term which was a series on the life of Peter, taken from the gospels and the book of Acts.

This series started last week looking at the Calling of Peter from Luke 5:1-11. One of the things about this story is the way in which the disciples left everything to follow Jesus. Is that the kind of disciple I am?

Paul's Prayer for the Philippians

Yesterday I introduced our new teaching series, Paul's Prayers, which we're going to start on Sunday here at CBC. If you haven't read that post I'd encourage you to do so now.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we're going to cover a number of Paul's prayers, coming from his different letters in the New Testament. (Paul wrote a big chunk of the New Testament - from Romans to Philemon.) We're not going to have a lot of time to explore the background to each of those letters, so each week I'm going to point you to the relevant Bible Project videos for the coming Sunday. 

This week our main reading will be from Philippians.

Paul's prayers - an introduction

This Sunday, 26th April, we're going to be starting a new teaching series here at CBC - looking at Paul's Prayers. We're going to see what Paul's priorities were when he prayed and what his perspective on life was like. 

When I first started to explore this theme back in the summer of 2018 - in those days when we were still able to go on summer holidays (we were camping in Cornwall at the time) - I remember being struck by how different Paul's prayers, perspective and priorities were to mine.

This new series isn't the culmination of two years of study in which I am going to share what I have learnt - rather it is an opportunity for us to explore some of these prayers together and to open our ears and our eyes to what God might want to show us.

Paul's prayers are recorded in his letters and we find these letters in the New Testament. Romans to 2 Thessalonians were letters written by Paul to churches, and 1 Timothy to Philemon were letters written to individuals (Timothy, Titus and Philemon!) 

Obviously, when you read someone else's mail, there's going to be a whole load of stuff that you don't understand, or potentially misunderstand because you have no idea about the background to the letter. Paul was writing to specific people in specific contexts - people and contexts which he knew. So there are going to many things that he simply assumes that they know - because they were there when they happened or were said etc.

We're not going to have time this series to go into any depth regarding the context of each letter that we look at. So instead, I would encourage you to look at the Bible Project videos for the upcoming passages before each Sunday morning. To help with this, each week I will post the relevant videos here on my blog.

So let's start with one of their newer videos, on how to read New Testament letters.