Alpha Starts Tonight!

Here at Redeemer we want to be a church which encourages people to ask questions, and seek deeper relationship with God. You might be reading this and have a friend who has lots of questions about your faith, you might have just started coming to Redeemer and are looking for deeper relationship with God, you might not be a christian, but you’ve got an interest in finding out exactly what it looks like to live as a follower of Jesus.

If any of the above applies to you, then I have good news! Tonight is the beginning of our next Alpha course! We will be meeting at Osteria del Portico every Wednesday night for the next 9 weeks, eating great food together, hearing a talk on an aspect of the Christian faith, and then taking time to ask questions and have friendly discussion together around the topic which has been spoken on.

Alpha is a fantastic opportunity to get to hear different people’s views, and discuss what we believe as Christians, and why we believe it is worth talking about! We also hope that over the 9 weeks you will get to build great friendships and learn things about the Christian faith which encourage you to dig deeper into what it means to be a Christian.

You can hear just one story of Alpha below:

We hope to see you tonight for Week 1 - ‘Is There More To Life Than This?’

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE AB FAB FILM

Earlier this week, I had a great conversation at my meetup. The general message we were discussing was this: you can’t pick and choose what bits of Christianity you believe – take it all, or leave it all.

With that in mind, two headlines caught my eye. Both are attention-grabbing, and both are cinema-related:

1. New Emma Watson film makes £47 at UK box office

2. Audience members ejected from cinema for laughing at Absolutely Fabulous

Both of them look like ridiculous, out-of-the-ordinary stories…but in fact both are non-stories, for different reasons.

The Emma Watson film was never intended to make money through cinema screenings, aiming for the home streaming market instead. So the headline should really have read:

New Emma Watson film basically makes exactly what it hoped to through cinema screenings

Not quite as catchy, I’ll grant you.

How about the Ab Fab story? Well, four people were kicked out of a screening – rare, but not unheard of. Why were they kicked out? The four people say they were told to ‘laugh on the inside’, and the cinema says it was because they were annoying other cinema-goers by talking loudly. So the headline should really have read:

Audience members ejected from cinema, most likely for valid reasons. 

So neither story is really news, is it.

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Let’s agree on one thing. In a perfect world, there would be no need to make up news, but that’s not how the news business works.

Think about it. Newspapers, news websites, news TV channels and radio slots – all of them produce frequent news updates. They don’t publish news when there’s news, they publish news when there’s a publication deadline.

The net result of that is journalists tasked with filling space rather than finding the best news story – and so stories are written based on the angle rather than the truth.

And that’s much more fun, isn’t it? Take a tiny detail, one piece of the puzzle, and make up an interesting whole-picture story that fits that one detail.

Could we really build a new hospital every week if we left the EU? Of course not, but saying ‘an insignificant sum goes to the EU in exchange for tangible and intangible benefits’, while a fairer reflection of the truth, isn’t a good enough angle.

So how about Christianity?

The same is true. We are all tempted to embrace angles on Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, church life…

I invite you to regularly lose every misconception and filter that’s built up over time, and come back to the purity of Christianity.

And you can do that this coming Tuesday evening, in Ealing Broadway. Email hello@redeemerlondon.org to find out how you can get a free meal and an opportunity to properly explore Christianity!

OPEN UP OPPORTUNITIES BY SLOWING DOWN

X-Men Apocalypse was an OK movie. Not up there with Marvel's best, but entertaining all the same. The most memorable scene for me was Quicksilver moving faster than thought to rescue the students at a school while an explosion 'slowly' expands to engulf them.

Quicksilver is quick, but from his perspective he has plenty of time - real time appears to slow to a crawl.

We can't compete with his physical speed, but our minds can.

We think faster than we talk, which is a great advantage when studying, negotiating,  planning etc.  But if we are not careful it can be a handicap when spending time with friends.

When we are in conversation with someone, it's too easy for our thoughts to jump ahead of what they're saying. We miss out on what they are actually telling us about themselves and about what is important to them. This is particularly evident from the questions we ask.

We tend to ask closed questions, which invite a simple answer. When you ask, “Did you spend childhood holidays in the UK?" you're not asking them about their holidays, you're telling them to confirm what is in your mind.

If we slow down a little and actively listen, we'll learn so much more.

Open questions are much harder, but invite a more involved answer on their agenda. “What about childhood holidays sticks in your memory?”

We fall into the same trap when thinking about Jesus or reading well-worn Bible narratives. We can be quick to assume rather than explore.

A simple example is assuming that three wise men visited Bethlehem, because they brought three gifts. But the narrative doesn't tell us that. There may have been a horde of wise men, or only two.

More importantly, we may assume that following Jesus is a chore, but if you ask folk at Redeemer they will tell a different story. It's natural to superimpose our preconceptions on God and make assumptions based on those preconceptions. We ask questions of God with an expectation of what the answer will be, rather than open our minds to explore alternatives outside our expectations.

So, I have two challenges for you.

1. Next time you are catching up with a friend, actively listen. Slow down and explore what they are sharing with you. You'll soon build a stronger friendship.
2. Push aside your preconceptions about Jesus and explore what he has to say. If you do, you'll quickly discover someone surprising.

You can do both of these over a meal in a restaurant this Tuesday.

Redeemer will pay.

Redeemer is hosting 'Christianity Explored', an opportunity to ask some really searching questions. 

Quick, email hello@redeemerlondon.org to get the details!