Selah2020: Pause and Reflect

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], March 2021]

As churches we are now planning to go back into our buildings. There are so many things we could be doing, but what will make our churches truly successful, and what will keep people coming back for more?

I know there’s been COVID but this past year has been quite exciting from a church leadership point of view because it’s really forced us to look outside the box. It forced us to reimagine what church would look like, to really move into that digital space with our church services, learning how to engage with people, learning how to connect with people rather than just increase our viewing count. It’s something that we’re trying to grow in and it’s been a real challenge but it’s been a good challenge.

But now we’re starting to think about how we move into physical church again and we’ve got that opportunity, we’ve got a rare opportunity that possibly will never come around again, to really rethink about how we do our church services, how we do church, full stop, not just confined to a Sunday morning. Really we’ve got an opportunity not only to reopen but to relaunch ourselves, so what is church going to look like?

I’m kind of spending a bit of time thinking about what Sunday services will look like and it’s so easy to compare and contrast ourselves to the churches that I see on YouTube; the churches where they’ve got the perfect lighting, they’ve got the perfect cameras, they’ve got the perfect teeth. You know, everything is right; they’ve got the budget, they’ve got the money and it’s so easy to try and emulate that in some way in what we’re going to do in our church services and what we’re going to try and do online.

It’s easy to try and also compete with the world and what the world offers but the reality is we just can’t, we just haven’t got that talent, we haven’t got that budget, we haven’t got that time, so what should we be emphasizing when it comes to attracting people into our church premises or into our church community? And also, how do we get people to stay, how do we get our teenagers, our kids as they’re growing up to not move away from church as so many are in the habit of doing? Is it about better lighting, is it about more entertainment, what is it?

Well this Sunday we’re starting a new sermon series called ‘Encounters’ and we’re looking at encounters that people had with Jesus in the run-up to his death on the cross and his resurrection which we celebrate at Easter. Each week we’re going to look at a different group. This Sunday we’re going to be looking at when Jesus healed a bunch of lepers, but what I really want to draw out of this is the reality that Jesus isn’t just some sort of historical figure, someone that lived in the Middle East 2,000 years ago nor is Jesus just some character from a fairy tale. What I want us to come to is the realisation that Jesus is just as alive now as he was those 2,000 years ago when he walked on this earth and that Jesus can have a massive influence on our lives and can bring transformation to our lives. He can bring healing both physically and mentally, he can fix those things in our lives that are broken, he can bring peace. And when I say peace I don’t just mean the absence of conflict, I mean it in a holistic sense where those things that are broken in our lives become fixed; the relationships, our financial situation. You see what people really need now in the 21st century is an encounter with Jesus.

See, I’m reminded of an account in Acts chapter 19 where the apostle Paul meets a bunch of guys who were disciples of John the Baptist. John the Baptist was a contemporary of Jesus and he went around baptising people in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. They were being baptised with the baptism of repentance and Paul asked these disciples of John “Have you have you received the Holy Spirit?” and they didn’t really know who what that was. Paul explains to them that their baptism was a baptism of repentance but they needed to be baptised in the name of Jesus and that’s exactly what Paul did. He baptised them and they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. They were transformed, they spoke in tongues, they prophesied, they had an encounter with Jesus despite the fact that Jesus had died some years previous because Jesus is alive and he is working in our midst by his Holy Spirit.

You too can meet with him and I’m sure that our communities and our churches are full of spiritual religious people, disciples but people who have not met the risen Lord Jesus Christ, who haven’t been baptised by his Holy Spirit. Maybe that is you. You see if you want to know what it means to be successful as a church, if you want to know how to grow a church, if you want to know how to draw people in, if you want to know how to keep your teenagers so that when they hit a certain age they don’t leave the church then they need to meet Jesus. You cannot ignore an encounter with our risen Lord; you can ignore flashy lights or great sermons but you can’t ignore Jesus.

Hi guys thank you so much for tuning in. Do remember that this Sunday we’re going to be starting our new sermon series ‘Encounters’ looking at encounters people had with Jesus and that’s our run-up to Easter Sunday. Thanks for watching, do remember to like and share this video. Please subscribe to our channel, hit those buttons, subscribe, hit that thumbs up. That would make a massive difference to us so thank you so much
… ’bye

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[1] YouTube link: What Will Church Look Like?
Bible references: ~
 

Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], February 2021]

As we approach the end of our teaching series ‘Me and my Big Mouth’ we ask the question why we should encourage. After all, isn’t there a danger that we’ll end up lying, or being insincere in order to make someone feel better? Is there a bigger picture to consider?

I must say it’s been lovely having all this talk of building people up and using encouraging words, to be careful what we say because we don’t want to upset someone, do we, but isn’t it all sounding a little bit PC, a little bit politically correct. Are we in danger of lying to encourage people rather than speaking the truth?

Could we end up with those X-Factor candidates, those people who have auditions because they think they’re the best singer in the world, because their family have told them they’re the best singer in the world, and yet Simon Cowell comes along and tells them that actually they’re absolutely dreadful and please don’t sing a note again. Or do we just end up with a bland insincere encouragement where we say nice things to people but we don’t really mean it, there isn’t any sincerity behind it, or do we only ever encourage someone when actually they’ve done something worth praising? Do we stay silent all the time? What what balance do we strike, how do we get this right, how do we encourage people in a good way? How do we build a community of encouragement that doesn’t end up either too PC or too insincere?

Well, first of all we’ve got to think about why we’re encouraging someone. We we want to encourage someone, not to make them feel better but to help them be better. We want them to be a better version of themselves, we want them to be who God has created them to be because the reality is for all of us there are so many obstacles that are stopping us from reaching our potential. They can be external obstacles but also, in fact, in most cases, they’re internal obstacles. Our worst enemy is ourselves. Those lies that we continually tell ourselves, that put ourselves down. It’s not so much the words others say, although that might have been the case in the past, but it’s about us perpetuating those lies that have been spoken over us. So all of us need encouragement from others to help us to be better.

Sir Edmund Hillary, who famously conquered Mount Everest, said these words “It’s not the mountain that we conquer, but ourselves” and we, nine times out of ten, need help to do that. We see, our help comes from external sources. I don’t want to go down the self-help route where it says “all you need to do is reach within yourself, every resource that you need is within you you just need to learn how to access that”. I’m not into that but what I am into is the power of community, and also the power of the Holy Spirit. Actually God can help us to break down and demolish those strongholds within our lives, those obstacles that need removing, so that we can be a better person. But also the power of being with like-minded individuals that have created together an environment of encouragement, not to perpetuate lies, not to make us feel better, not to placate us, not to be PC but instead to encourage one another, to build one another up for a purpose.

You see, the writer of Hebrews said a verse which is famously quoted but usually out of context. He says “Do not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing” and we say, well that shows you that you have to go to church because the writer of Hebrews says you shouldn’t give up meeting together, but actually in those same verses the writer of Hebrews gives a reason, gives a purpose for meeting together and that purpose is to encourage one another, to love and to do good works.

» to encourage one another, to love and to do good works «

Do you see that’s what the church should be? The church should be not a place, not a building, but a group of people who build one another up, who journey with one another, who support one another, who help each other to be the best that they can be, to encourage one another to love and to do good works. It’s a community that can do more than the sum of its parts. There’s a word for that, it’s called synergy where you get more out than you put in and I believe that the church is a community that has the potential to be just that. So let us continue to meet together, let’s continue to encourage one another, help us to continue to help each other to love and to do good works, to be Jesus in our community.

Hey guys, thank you so much for listening. Do remember to subscribe to our Youtube channel and to share this video on social media and do remember this is all part of our sermon series ‘Me and My Big Mouth’ which comes to its conclusion on Sunday morning with its fourth and final parts so do join us for that. You can find out on our YouTube channel – just search for Horley Baptist and also at eight o’clock on Sunday evening on YouTube you can come along and hear myself and Neil and Helen talk about this sermon series, to delve a little bit deeper and just to ask some broader and deeper questions and how we can apply these practical teachings to our lives. So do tune in^[2] and it’ll be great to have you involved with the discussion so thank you. ’bye

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[1] YouTube link: Why Should I Encourage?
[2] YouTube link: Going Deeper
Bible references: Hebrews ch10 v25
 

Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], February 2021]

Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me …
We know that saying is a load of rubbish, but do we truly know the damage words cause, and do we know that because of Jesus we have the means to bring healing?

I would normally be on a dog walk but it’s a bit miserable and it looks like it’s going to be miserable for the next few days and I find it really difficult to hold an umbrella, my book and the camera at the same time so I thought, rather than take you on a walk with my dog, I would introduce you to our other family pets, the chickens.

^[00:35] We all know the saying, the rhyme, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” and we know that that’s not true. Words do hurt enormously and yet do we realize how much damage long-term words can do? Actually, the things that we say to people can last for a lifetime and have a huge effect on not only how they think about themselves, but actually how they live out their identity in their life.

^[01:11] You see, when I was in my teens, I was tall but I was also very slim; in some ways I viewed myself as a normal person stretched, I still do. So many people would say to me “Martin, you are so skinny” and I hated that. I hated the idea of being skinny so much so that if I was out and about I couldn’t look at myself in reflections in shop windows or mirrors. When I got into my 20s I started having meal replacement shakes after each meal just to try and get my weight up. Now, it worked but I wouldn’t recommend it, though the strawberry flavoured slim fast is rather nice.

^[01:53] You see, people didn’t intend any thing bad by saying I was skinny. For some people it was probably a compliment and yet for me that had a huge effect on my self-esteem, on my confidence and it had an effect on my eating habits. You see, words spoken over us create places in our lives where negativity can get in and create a base of operations, a stronghold, a place where they can work in other areas of our life, other areas of our soul, and really affect who we are and what we are able to do in our lives. Things that someone said to you, maybe as a child, still have a huge effect on you now. It shaped you, it shaped who you are, it shaped your identity and what you can and can’t do. It may be that it was so long ago that you can’t remember those original words that were spoken and yet you can see the consequences in your life and your relationships

^[03:04] I mean this is probably why that when I was training to be a teacher they always said “talk about the behaviour and not the child”, so you say “you know that’s bad, that’s not good behaviour” rather than “you’re a bad child” because they recognized, we recognize that if we say someone is something that invariably that’s what they become.

^[03:26] I believe there’s a spiritual aspect to that too, not just a psychological aspect. I believe that the words that we say have spiritual power that allows negativity into our lives. I would call that negativity the devil, you might call it something different but when those words are spoken and when those feelings are not dealt with they can have a hugely detrimental effect on our lives.

^[03:54] As I follow Jesus Christ I believe that Jesus through his death and resurrection has given us power over those negative effects; that those strongholds that have been built on our lives can be demolished. In fact, it says these words in 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 4:

“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds”

^[04:31] I’d encourage you, as we’ve been looking in this sermon series ‘Me and my big mouth’, to think carefully about the words you say because your words have power. They have power to build up but they always also have power to destroy and to knock down.

^[04:47] So be careful with your words but also have the hope through Jesus Christ that if there are things in your life that are damaging you and holding you back that you can break free from them through the power of the Holy Spirit through Jesus working in your life. You can do that through prayer but the best way to do it is through conversation with us or another follower of Jesus Christ, to help you work through those things. Listen to God and allow the holy spirit to come into your life and mend those things that are broken.

Thank you so much for watching. Do please subscribe to our YouTube channel and share this video on social media platforms. Do remember also this is linked to our current sermon series teaching series ‘me and my big mouth’ which is shown on Sundays. You can watch that in our service or you can find that as a separate YouTube video. This Sunday Neil Robinson will be talking about the importance of the words that we speak, that we build up rather than knock down, so do tune in, do search for us – Horley Baptist on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
See you later. ’bye

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[1] YouTube link: Have Words Hurt You?
Bible references: 2 Corinthians ch10 v 4
 

Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], February 2021]

Do we realise how powerful and dangerous our tongue actually is? The words we use, and how we use them can cause destruction that is difficult to contain, damaging others and ourselves.

My morning routine pretty much every morning involves opening up the BBC app, reading the news, and in particular looking at the front pages of the newspapers. Usually without fail some particular tabloid papers seem to fill their front pages with attacks upon people, personal attacks against whatever policy they may be standing up against, or any misdemeanour they have carried out. It’s a reality of our newspapers, our press, our media in this country. In fact Meghan Markle was warned when she started dating Prince Harry of how bad our media, our tabloid papers actually are; she didn’t believe it until she experienced it for herself.

^[01:07] We are a nation that loves to see the mighty brought down. This makes us somewhat different to our American counterparts that make heroes of the self-made man. We tend to be the opposite; maybe it’s something to do with our love of Robin Hood. I don’t know what it is but we love to attack people and we love to see them fall, and this isn’t just confined to our newspapers and on a national scale; we see it in our lives as well.

^[01:52] On a packet of “England’s Glory” matches it said these words “It takes one tree to make a thousand matches and it takes one match to burn a thousand trees”, and that seems to be an appropriate warning for a box of matches because we’re seeing the devastation that a fire can do to huge areas of wildlife and homes. We see in our news from across the world how forest fires have brought such devastation. We see it to a lesser extent in our country as well. In the late 90s the band Stereophonics – of which I was a fan – used those words in their song to talk about how rumours and words destroyed their local community and in particular the reputation of one particular man.

^[02:47] In James chapter 3 verses 5 and 6 it makes a similar claim “Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark, the tongue is also a fire” The Stereophonics recognized it, James in his letter which we can find in the New Testament recognized it too that the tongue has the ability to set a fire ablaze that can cause an unimaginable amount of destruction and it can be incredibly difficult to control and it can consume communities, anything that lies in its wake.

^[03:27] From my own personal experience of leading a church I have seen the damage that the words of an individual can make, that an accusation made. An accusation that can be left upon and revelled in and spread can affect relationships, it can break down families. It can move from relationships into the workplace and also it can undo a huge amount of good work that a church can do. Fire caused by the tongue consumes everything and, just like an arsonist burnt by a fire of his own making, so too do the words of a gossiper bring destruction upon them as well.

^[04:23] A person can do great deeds, can do wonderful things, can act in a way which is very Godly, I guess, and yet all those good works can be undone by the way they use their words. The things that they say, the way they treat other people. That’s why we have to be so careful with what we say because we can ruin the reputation of others, we can ruin the reputation of churches and we can ruin also our own reputation through the things that we say and the way that we treat other people.

Hey, thank you for tuning in! Hopefully, unlike me, you are nice and warm but thank you so much for tuning in. Do remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel and do share this on social media – that would be amazing.

Just a reminder that this talk is very much just an introduction to our talk on Sunday. It’s part two of our series ‘Me and My Big Mouth’ and we would love it if you’re able to tune in either to our Sunday service or you can catch up on the talk later on YouTube. This week we will be having Helen talking about those verses I shared in this talk plus more from James chapter 3, so please join in and enjoy.
’bye

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[1] YouTube link: Am I a Fire Starter?
Bible references: James 3
 

Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], February 2021]

In our current times we see an increasing amount of anger and division. People certain that they are right, and everyone else is wrong. But how can we tell if we are right if we’re not prepared to listen to those who think differently?

Apart from COVID, the one defining thing of 2020, I think, is an increase in tribalism. People separating themselves, dividing themselves into their separate groups. I don’t know whether it’s the fear of COVID or just the fact that people have been unable to go outside and meet with other people, and have been spending more time in their social media echo chambers. But, whatever it is, the thing that has become fashionable in 2020 and again in 2021 is to be angry, to be outraged at anyone who could possible act differently or think differently to you. The battle lines have been drawn over race and gender, sexuality and politics.

People have responded to those with differing opinions themselves in maybe two different ways. One way is to mute them, to put them on mute, to stop them having a public voice, to cancel them, to petition against them, to have them removed from any position where their voice can be heard. But another way is to go out on the streets, to protest or to write angry letters or social media posts, even to loot and riot, to shout as loudly as you can in any way that will enable your voice to be heard.

See, whatever category these groups, these people might fall into in terms of their actions, what they have in common is their inability to listen to other people, to try and understand a differing point of view. Now, psychologists can give you numerous reasons why people don’t listen, why we don’t listen, why you don’t listen. I’m not going to name all of them but I’m just going to give a few examples. I want you to think about them and be honest about whether or not you fall into these categories:

• One of them is truth, this need to be right, to be true, that you hold the only truth and anyone who doesn’t agree with you has to be wrong.
• Another one is blame; the fault lies in the other person, that the problem is not you but someone else so why on earth would you listen to them?
• Another one is self-deception, that you can’t believe that you could possibly be wrong. Or there’s defectiveness, you have a real fear of criticism, of people telling you that you are wrong so it’s far better to just not listen rather than face the possibility of someone saying that you’re at fault.
• And then there’s coercion, the sensitivity that you are particularly fearful and uncomfortable with any idea that someone might be forcing you or coercing you to act in a certain way or to think in a certain way. In other words, you do not want to be told what to do and what to think.

 
These are just a few reasons why people don’t listen to other people, why people would rather surround themselves with people like them than actually take the time out to be curious, to ask questions and to try to understand a different point of view to your own.

But I want to leave you with a thought – a question really. The question is this: “What does it feel like to be wrong?” You might say that it feels embarrassing, humiliating, but that’s what it feels like to find out that you are wrong. See the truth is, being wrong feels exactly the same as being right. So how are you going to find out which one you are?

Hey, thank you so much for tuning into our mid-week message. Do remember to subscribe to our Youtube channel and to share these videos on social media and just a reminder that this mid-week message is linked to our Sunday service and we’re starting this week a new teaching series called “Me and My Big Mouth”, and this Sunday we’re going to explore the importance of listening, and find out what James, a leader of the first Church, had to say about the necessity to listen. So do tune in on Sunday and thank you so much for watching this video.
’bye

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[1] YouTube link: How do I know if I’m right?
Bible references: ~

Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], January 2021]

The movies tell us that love is a feeling worth giving up everything for, but what happens when the feelings die? Is love just a feeling or is it much more than that?

Would you say you are a romantic? Maybe you’re the sort of person that loves those romantic movies – you know the ones, they all seem to be the same. You have two unlikely people who come together and fall in love and, despite what the world throws at them, and usually despite some sort of misunderstanding, the feelings of love overcomes all and by the end of the film they’re together because the love, that feeling of love is worth more than anything else. It’s worth more than anything the world could possibly offer as an alternative.

^[00:58] Maybe you’ve experienced that kind of love. Maybe you are experiencing that kind of love, that kind of heady feeling, that madness when your love for the other person is more important than anything else. You just can’t think of anything else but, whereas in those films the film ends at the moment when the love is fully realized, in life life carries on and we live our lives. We get married, we carry on and the habits of life get in the way, the routines of life, and maybe that feeling of love starts to fade away. Maybe you wake up one morning, you think ‘do I even love that person any more?’ and unfortunately those feelings of love can be replaced with feelings of annoyance and even anger. Perhaps that’s why so many marriages fail. It makes you question the wisdom of marriage and monogamy.

^[02:22] Now the Bible says that God is love. If you wanted to define God with one word then that word would be ‘love’ and we as human beings know love because we’re children of God, because we are made in the image of God. But if love is fickle and temporary then what does that say about God and what does that say about us?

^[02:53] When I was growing up one of my favourite bands was “Massive Attack”. In one of their songs the lyrics went ‘Love is a verb, love is a doing word’ and maybe that one sentence gives us a clue. It gives us an understanding of why we’ve got love so wrong in our movies and unfortunately in our lives as well. That love is about action, it’s about doing things, it’s about demonstrating our love, and I don’t mean that by buying flowers or a box of chocolates. I mean love is truly love when it is enacted, when it is experienced beyond a feeling, when you do something for someone even when you don’t want to, even when you don’t feel like it, even when it makes things hard, because actually you recognize that love is about doing. It’s about action, it’s about demonstration. It isn’t about feelings.

^[04:17] I believe that’s what Jesus demonstrated in his life and his ministry, love in action, and I think that says something really important about God. God isn’t fickle, God isn’t temporary. Actually God is permanent, God is unchanging and God loves us beyond anything that we could possibly earn ourselves. In fact the Bible says that God demonstrated his love for us by sending Jesus to the cross himself, sacrificed for those he loved. That’s a real challenge I think to us, particularly as when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment is he said “well it’s basically love God, love others and love ourselves”. Not a fickle and temporary love but a love demonstrated by what we do.

Well, thank you so much for watching this midweek message. Do subscribe to our YouTube channel and do share it on Facebook. That would be really appreciated.
Just to say that our midweek messages are linked to our Sunday sermons and you can actually access those on our Horley Baptist YouTube channel. We’re actually finishing our series ‘living like Jesus’ this coming Sunday and we’re going to try something new on Sunday evening at 8pm on Facebook on the Horley Baptist Church Facebook page. We’re going to have a live discussion with Chris Tilling from St Mellitus college and Daz Jones from Horley Baptist Church about the sermon series, about those things that we’ve learned, those things that have challenged us, and we’re just going to take things a little bit deeper so do join us for that. Do watch live at 8pm on Sunday the 31st of January, that’s this coming Sunday.
Thank you for tuning in and do remember to subscribe. ’bye

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[1] YouTube link: Is Love Just a Feeling?
Bible references: ~

Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.