St Jude's Mapperley Archive Blog

Yesterday we began a new short series in Haggai. It's one of the less-famous books in the Bible, but it's still got a really powerful message for us today. It helps to understand the context. For hundreds of years, God's people had been an independent country, living in the kingdom of Judah, with its capital at Jerusalem. The Temple (as built by Solomon) was the centre of their society – it was where they met together to hear God's word; it was the one place on earth where God had promised to be; it was where they went to pray; it was where the sacrifices happened so that they could be put right with God when they had messed up; it was at the centre of all their festivals as well. Because this was before Jesus, it was much more important even than church is today. But then in 587BC, disaster struck. Nebuchadnezzar, emperor of Babylon, captured and destroyed Jerusalem. The temple was in ruins; the people were deported to Babylon – a period know...

Hi all, Here are this week's notices! Tuesday 7th, 7:30pm - Welcome Service for +Paul at St Mary's in the Lace Market Wednesday 8th - 10:30am Midweek Communion Service Thursday 9th , 8:30am Weekly Prayer Meeting Next Tuesday (14th July), 8pm Church Prayer Meeting Holiday Club - 26th-28th August Booking forms are now available – the club will run from Wednesday to Friday and on Sunday 30th there will be a special service and BBQ. If you would like to help with Holiday Club please either speak to Paula or come to the meeting on Tuesday 21st July 7.30pm in the church Lounge. Sunday 12th July 9:15am Holy Communion 11am All-Age Baptism Service - starting in the large hall followed by Bring & Share lunch - celebrating baptisms and welcoming Ben & Jackie All the best, John -- Rev. John Allister Vicar, St Jude's Mapperley revjohnallister@gmail.com

Greetings! Yesterday at St Jude's we were thinking particularly about how to share God's love and the good news of Jesus with our families and close friends. I said I'd found one book in particular really helpful, which was Bringing the Gospel Home by R. Newman (the link is to the IVP online bookshop, where it's only £5 at the moment...) Incidentally, Newman's earlier book Questioning Evangelism is also really good for thinking through how to share the good news in our conversations more generally. We looked at the theme yesterday through the lens of Jesus' conversation with the woman of Samaria in John 4 . As so often in John's gospel, the story serves to illustrate a lot of what has already been said about Jesus. So in John 3:17 we read that "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him", and in John 1:17, John sums up Jesus' message as " Grace and truth ". An...

Yesterday, we were continuing in our series looking at some of the basics of the Christian faith from a slightly different angle, and we were looking in particular at Faith and Doubt from Psalm 77 , which was written by David's chief musician, Asaph. A lot of people today seem to think that faith is the opposite of doubt, but that isn't how Asaph saw it at all. Instead we'll see that faith is something we choose (or don't), and that the opposite of faith is pride. But I'm getting ahead of myself a little... Asaph was in a very difficult situation (v1-6). He doesn't explain exactly what was happening, but he tells us that he couldn't sleep, and that his spirit "refused to be comforted". It feels like God is a million miles away; all that he has left of faith is a memory of times gone by when he enjoyed singing to God, and that memory hurts. More than that, Asaph probably didn't see it himself at the time, but he had becom...

Hi folks, This one is slightly late in the day! (Quick notice - there's a meeting at 12:15 on Sunday for all helpers at Holiday Club - let Paula know if you can't make it). Yesterday was Trinity Sunday, when we particularly remember one of the key doctrines of the Christian faith. It's sometimes seen as being dull and irrelevant, but it's anything but. On Sunday I hopefully showed how it comes from the very first chapter of the Bible into the very last chapter. Here's some of what I said about why the Trinity matters. The Trinity is Key to Understanding God because it shows us that God is all about relationships. T he Bible shows God to be a Trinity, three persons in an eternal relationship of love – always working together, always seeking one another's glory. He does not need anyone outside himself, and yet he is a God who is loving and can make the universe for love not because he is insufficient in himself, but because true love wants that love to o...

Greetings! Yesterday was Pentecost Sunday when we remember God sending his Spirit on the disciples in Acts 2. Here are three quick thoughts on what difference Pentecost makes. It means that we can know God directly . The prophet Jeremiah wrote this about God's gift of his Spirit. (Jer 31:33-34) ' I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbour, or say to one another, "Know the Lord," because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,' declares the Lord. 'For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.' We can know God directly because he lives in us; we can hear from God directly and share his word with others. Having the Holy Spirit in us means we can have transformed hearts . Here's God speaking to the prophet Ezekiel about the gift of his Spir...

Good morning all! Yesterday morning we continued our "back to basics" series looking at some of the basics of the Christian faith from different angles. We were thinking in particular of different ways that people relate to God at different times in their lives. Of course God is the same God, Jesus is the same Lord. We all need to keep doing the basics of meeting together as Christians, meditating on God's Word and praying. But we are also all different, each with our unique personality and gifts, and that shapes the way we pray and so on. Theologian Gary Thomas (in his book Sacred Pathways ) identified 9 different ways of connecting with God. All are valuable, but some people are better at some than at others: Naturalists love being outdoors and feel much more connected to God when they are surrounded by the natural world. Sensates find that awe, beauty and splendour, in art, architecture, music and so on are often paths which lead them to God. Traditional...