COMMUGNY : Jamie and Jim
THURSDAYS
KIDS ARE WELCOME
For those who live along the lake. Bellevue to Nyon.
Geneva life group: Easten law: GRAND & PETTIT- SACONNEX
COMMUGNY. HOSTED BY JAMIE AND JIM
THURSDAYS. FAMILIES WELCOME
March 29 Westlake Elders Making a very public endosement
29th March 2014 Westlake Elders Making a very public endosement and pledge to help and support the Magura`s
“As a church we want to recognise a parallel vision growing up. We are excited to be behind the Magura’s and knowing that we are able to help them. Our call as a church is still to the English speakers in the Nyon region. But we want to celebrate the launch of this new ALL AGE church with a particular focus on the 18 – 45 year olds in the Geneva region. To maintain the links of friendship and assist where we can.”
SIGNIFICANT DAY 10 MARCH 2014
HTB CHURCH planting training course.
WHAT a day. It will go down as one of the most powerful and significant day in my life. Great time of Mutual prayer, Key Scriptural word, Encouraging and waiting on God and encounter. Having Tom and Elli over that weekend, and also preaching, which was to be my last at Westlake, pretty awesome weekend. Also incredible to see God come through for me at Gatwick Airport and with the Suisse Immigration. I will share the story with you over a lovely drink. Happy to oblige just ask:).
Can a scientist believe in the resurrection? Three hypotheses.
Curated article by Ian Hutchinson MIT
I’m a professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, and today, I am celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. So are dozens of my colleagues. How can this be?
Hypothesis one: We’re not talking about a literal resurrection. Perhaps it is just an inspiring myth that served to justify the propagation of Jesus’ exalted ethical teachings. A literal resurrection contradicts the known laws of nature. Maybe scientists can celebrate the idea of Jesus’s spirit living on, while his body remained in the grave.
But the first disciples attested to a physical resurrection. How could an untruth logically support high moral character? How could it have sustained the apostles through the extremes of persecution they experienced founding Christianity? And is celebrating a myth consistent with scientific integrity?
Hypothesis two: We really believe in the bodily resurrection of the first century Jew known as Jesus of Nazareth.
1 year Anniversary Redeemer Grace
One year ago on Sunday 15th March 2015 Redeemer Grace Church opened her doors to Geneva. Holding our first public worship gathering, celebrating with hope and expectation and sincere belief in Jesus`calling, we prayed the ancient prayer of Moses recorded in Psalm 90.
May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendour to their children. May the favour of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.
One year later; it’s truly astounding as we look back to see how God has heard and responded to our prayers. The story of our church has been building for years before that March day. We first gathered as a small group of 8 in the Parkes’ apartment in Versoix. Shortly after we moved to a bigger apartment in Founex. Who can forget how hospitable the Hess family was, as they welcomed and served us amazing coffee and cake each week. That experience crystallised for us the kind of homely community we are creating.
Over the last year we have been on a beautiful journey. God does indeed do great things today. We have seen the presence and the power of God transform lives. We have seen those far from God experience His grace and publicly proclaim their love and devotion to Him. We have wrestled with what it means to join God in the renewal of this great city.
We have seen people who were once strangers learning what it means to be a family. The fact that we are brothers and sisters despite our cultural differences is a testimony to our culture, and shows that the church is not a program or an event but a people.
In the book of Acts it describes the church as being “one in heart and mind”. In a powerful way that is becoming the story of our church.
We have tasted the fruit of God`s fame and deeds being renewed and known in our time. We are humbled and amazed and yet we are not satisfied. We are more hungry and passionate than ever before. We have moved past asking what if; we have assurance that the hand of God is upon us.
We have laughed together, cried together, prayed for jobs together, celebrated together and said good-bye to so many great friends. All this in our first year.
And so at His invitation we gather again. We do so as people who relate around the table.
We feast together, we study together, we serve together and we take the Lords table as one.
Looking back at the favour of God over the last year, increases our faith and hope for the next year. Our prayer for the next year is the same as the first:
May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendour to their children. May the favour of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.
MAY the church once again spread in our time, through the gift of love. That the city of Geneva can say of the Church. “ SEE HOW THEY LOVE ONE ANOTHER.”
Thank you for beginning this journey.!
The Spirit breathes upon the Word/And brings the truth to sight
‘The Spirit breathes upon the Word/And brings the truth to sight’, wrote William Cowper in the 18th century. So what is the relationship between the word and the Spirit?
For Paul, the word and the Spirit are inseparable. God’s pneuma is both breath and Spirit. We may trust Scripture because it truly is the word of God, breathed out by the Spirit.
But Paul also affirmed that understanding and receiving the word was possible only through the Spirit. Those of us who spend much of our time reading – newspapers, magazines, reports, books (whether in hard copy or online) – get used to using certain skills and applying particular criteria in order to understand what we read. But, Paul wrote, God’s truth – in whatever form it comes to us – can be understood only through the Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 2:10-16).
A story is told of a young man preaching his first sermon, who was dismayed to see his bishop in the congregation. After stumbling through, he said to the bishop, ‘I realise that I didn’t pray enough’. The bishop replied, ‘No, you didn’t prepare enough’. Both were probably true. All the principles of reading and interpreting any written text apply also to our understanding of biblical texts. But we need to be in tune with the Spirit in order to understand and apply the word.
It is also clear, however, that the word of God has intrinsic power. It is ‘alive and active’, according to the writer to the Hebrews. ‘Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart’ (Hebrews 4:12). Perhaps we need to have more faith as we read God’s word, believing that it can indeed, of itself, guide, convict, and teach, correct, rebuke and train in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16).
Many of us may have had experiences in which the words of the Bible (even – dare I say it? – taken out of context) have spoken to us personally, into our particular circumstances. Indeed, we sometimes hear of people who know nothing of the Bible, who, through the Spirit, ‘hear’ in dreams phrases or verses of scripture that ultimately lead them to Christ.
May we seek always to be careful readers of Scripture and open and alive to the Spirit-breathed word..
Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?
Article Curated from RZIM written by Nabeel Qureshi
In the past week, I have received dozens of requests to provide my input on the matter, especially from those who are aware that I do not have “enmity toward Muslims.” As a former Muslim, I have many Muslim family members and friends that I spend time with regularly, and I often adjure Christians to consider gestures of solidarity with the hope that, somehow, this affection will trickle down to the Muslims I know and love. I have even recommended that Christian women consider wearing the hijab in certain circumstances, as well as counseled Christian men to consider fasting with their Muslim neighbors during the month of Ramadan, as long as it is clear these gestures are out of Christian love and not submission to Islam.
Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?
With this desire for love in mind, I turn now to the question: Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God? Like all good questions, the answer is more complex than most want, but I am confident of my position: Muslims and Christians do not worship the same God, but given the complexity of the matter we all ought to stop demonizing those who disagree with us.
A Mission to save marriages: The Marriage Course
Curated article from The Guardian Newspaper about the Marriage Course.
Happy together ... Sila, left, and Nicky Lee at home in London. Photograph by David Levene for the Guardian PR
Early in 2006, Peter Drysdale decided that his 26-year marriage to Gill was over. He bought an Idiot's guide to divorce, consulted a lawyer, and even told their two adult children. "I guess the crisis was precipitated by the kids' empty nesting," says Peter, 57, a project manager with Barclays. "There'd been a couple of false starts, but now they'd settled and weren't coming back. That left Gill and I to face each other."
When they did, neither was surprised to find the connection was no longer there. They hadn't resolved their marital differences along the way, just buried them. Money was a key problem area (Peter was a spender, Gill a saver). Their communication styles were another (Peter shouted, Gill withdrew). They had survived by carving out separate spaces. For chunks of the marriage, Peter had worked long hours in London while Gill brought up the children in their Berkshire home. With the children gone, she spent more time at their house in France. "We'd had one preliminary session with Relate then stopped," says Peter. "We argued all the way through and the counsellor told us that unless we were positive about wanting to save the marriage, it probably wasn't worth coming back. Even our children agreed divorce was for the best."
READ MORE From the guardian newspaper.
On Earth as it is in Heaven
Heaven on earth, what would it be like? What would it look like? Is it possible to dream about it without seeming foolish, idealistic? What if there were a way to bring heaven on earth? What if this was God’s will? What if this was our role as God’s people, a people called to bring heaven on earth?
In these last few weeks at RGC Geneva, we have been taking a closer look at the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:5-15 and these are some of the questions we have wrestled with.
In a prayer so dense in meaning, so counter-cultural and counter-intuitive, God, the maker of the universe, the one on whom we depend for everything, the one who does not need us, comes close to us and we can call him Father! Since when has our culture taken for granted who God truly is and the amazing fact we can call him ‘Father’?
And how does Jesus invite us to come to him? As a community. It’s OUR Father who gives US OUR daily bread, who forgives US. And what does Jesus ask his community to pray for? For ‘His will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven’. So how will His people react? Will they just wait for Heaven to come?
In praying this, God’s people share in God’s passion to see heaven on earth. In context of what Jesus did at the cross in sacrifice for us, where he calls us just a few lines before to ‘love our neighbours’, to ‘love our enemies’, to ‘be the light of the world’, to ‘be the salt of the earth’, doesn’t it make sense to assume he is calling us to be active participants in bringing his grace on earth, His hands and feet?
So what will it look like in our context, in our lives, in our time? It means having Faith, which means taking a risk, which means taking the risk to look silly or foolish, to care about others more than oneself. The refugees, the poor, the lonely, the disabled, the needs of this world are crying out and God has called his people. How will his people react?
A letter from Ric and Louie Thorpe from St Pauls`Shadwell London
Dear friends in Geneva
I am so excited about the new Geneva church plant led by Soul and Jeanette Magura. We have come to know them through our training courses here and through a connection with the HTB church family.
Here in London we are passionate about church planting and we are seeing God use this ancient adventure again and again in our time. We are seeing old churches coming back to life, new churches established and planted in new places, connecting with people who are far from God, and more and more people discovering the amazing abundant life that Jesus brings! We are seeing church plants of all kinds being established in every part of the city because we want every person to be within reach of a church that they can relate to. God is doing something new in the UK and he is doing something new right across Europe too. I've seen it first hand in many parts of Europe, including Switzerland!
You are part of that same journey and God is going to do something immeasurably more than you can ask or imagine! We pray God's blessing on this new adventure of planting that you are embarked on. I want to encourage you to join in with this plant, knowing that challenges that lie ahead, but assured that the God of the universe is alongside you and within you. Go for it and tell us how you are getting on!
With lots of love and every blessing,
Ric and Louie Thorpe, lead pastors at St Paul's Shadwell, Bishop of London's Advisor for Church Planting, and Tutor in Church planting at St Mellitus.
Rector
St Paul's Shadwell | 302 The Highway, London E1W 3DH