Audlem Baptist Church Online Service for the
27th October 2024

Practising the Way

This is the second service in our current series.

 

 

Being Formed

Introduction

The sermons for these online services come from Chichester Baptist Church during very recent months. 

In our previous series we have talked about the huge impact that Jesus’s earthly ministry had on the way we think about God, the Trinity and the Kingdom of Heaven.  Now, in this series we move on to think about what it means for us to be one of his followers.  The early church was known as being people who followed in The Way.  The term “Christian” came much later.

This series is in large part based on a book by John Mark Comer entitled “Practising the Way”.  My hope is that as we go through this series we will go deeper in our understanding of what it is to be a true disciple.

Song:  Gratitude

 

In this series I have tried to use the same hymns that were used in Chichester before and after the message.  So this song is their choice for us.  It contains the thought that mere words cannot really express our gratitude for all God’s unending love for us.

Being Formed

The second message of the series is from September this year.  If you have a Bible at hand, please get it ready.  There is no single passage to turn to, but several verses are quoted from various passages in both the Old and New Testaments.

The speaker is the Reverend Andy Morgan, who is the Youth Minister at Chichester.

Click the filmstrip icon below to start watching the YouTube video.  It should start automatically at about 58 minutes into the complete service. 

I suggest that you stop the video after he has finished the message and has posed four questions.  I have reproduced them below for our prayer time.  We will follow that with a video of the same song that they sang.

                 You can view the video full screen by clicking the small button at the bottom right of the video screen (as shown highlighted on the small image on the left).

Prayers

Here are the four questions to ask as you pray:

·         Who and what are you becoming?

·         What are your daily habits and how are they shaping you?

·         Who are the most important people in your life and how are they shaping who you are becoming?

·         Which stories have shaped the way you live and where did they come from?

As you watched the message today was there a moment when you sensed the Holy Spirit speaking directly to you?  Then tell Jesus about it.  Or maybe you simply had a ‘lightbulb’ moment which you would like to thank God for.

Spend a few moments to thank God for all his goodness to you in the last week.

Spend a few minutes in confession.

Take a few minutes to pray for others who you feel burdened for.  If you have received the Church Email, it will give you some suggestions.

Now spend a few moments praying for the fellowship of the church to which we belong and its witness to friends, family, neighbours, the young and the old, and to the wider world.

Song:  Everything

 

The Chichester congregation sang this song to close.  The words formed the basis of Andy’s final prayer after we reflected on his four questions.

A Closing Prayer

God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thank you that you have delivered us from our former ways of thinking. You are inwardly renewing us day by day. Help us to see the big picture: that we are not what we will be, but we are not what we once were. Holy Spirit, fill my heart so that I can become more like Jesus each day. In His name we pray,

Amen.