The way God reveals himself to us-who He is and what He does -is given to us in the form of story both in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible: Adam and Eve, Mary and Martha, Moses, David, Peter and Paul-you get the idea! Indeed, the climax of this one large and long story of the personal creating and redeeming God is found in Jesus who comes to us as a teller of stories.

We call these stories ‘parables'. The word ‘parable' may sound religious to us now, but they weren't when Jesus told them. They were about life: like farming or money and trade. Parables were ‘folk tales', seemingly harmless, but also puzzling stories. Yet we are reminded that ‘Jesus did not say anything to the people without using a parable' (Mark 4.34). Why? Because they were far from harmless and they were puzzling for a reason. When Jesus was asked, "Why do you speak in parables?" He pointedly said, ‘though seeing, they do not see; though hearing they do not hear or understand" (Matthew 13.13). In other words parables were not only meant to reveal, but also to conceal, for both the story and the storyteller could be easily missed or dismissed if one so chose.

But reveal or conceal what? The kingdom or rule of God on earth. Often the parables begin with ‘The kingdom of God is like..." The parables reveal what the rule of God is like and what the ruler is like, who turns out to be Jesus himself! So this summer teaching series will explore nine of Jesus' parables. But warning! These stories are not to ‘teach a lesson' nor do they provide us ‘principles to live by'. The parables are to pull us into God's presence (His rule) now, not then, here not there. The parables are always about the local, the personal and the relational rule of God. "He who has ears to hear let them hear!"

This pulpit series will focus on Paul's letter to the house churches in the city of Corinth, the letter we call 1 Corinthians. It is a deeply personal letter written to persons Paul cared deeply about, but it's also a painful letter to read. As Eugene Peterson puts it, ‘When people become Christians they don't necessarily become nice.' That was certainly true of the Corinthians! They weren't ‘nice' to Paul or ‘nice' to one another. The church was marked by division, sexual immorality, drunkenness, power struggles and lawsuits, to mention a few problems. This reminds us that good manners and good morals don't necessarily follow once we decide to follow Christ. But 1 Corinthians shows us what it means to genuinely care for people through their problems, as well as, show us how to avoid the problems in the first place. Welcome to Corinth!

Who's in and Who's Out in the Biblical Story and Why it Matters

This teaching series explores the role of ‘the outsider' as a theme that runs throughout the Bible. We often think (correctly) that the Biblical story of God's exclusive covenant is with ‘the insider'Israel, from whom comes an exclusive Jewish Saviour, Jesus of Nazareth. However, this ‘one people', ‘one Saviour' and ‘one way' is shocking to a culture of ‘many ways to God'. Yet we discover that this God who elects and chooses one, is for the good and sake of the many. We will look at some of the Biblical figures such as Naaman, Esau, Rahab, and Ruth in the Old Testament and ‘the woman at the well' and Joseph of Arimathea in the New Testament, to discover their role and relationship as ‘outsiders'.

This series is for those of us who struggle with this ‘exclusiveness' of God, or who feel that they themselves are ‘outsiders' to the experience of God or of a real relationship with Him; or for those of us who consider themselves ‘insiders' and may have forgotten God's commitment to ‘the outsiders'.

What are the Ten Words? In English we call them the ‘Ten Commandments', but in Hebrew they literally mean the ‘10-words'. But more importantly than the meaning of the word is the importance of them for life, love and justice. They are more than simply a ‘moral code'. Without the 10-commandments there would be no basis for human rights. In a culture which is deeply confused about love, they define the nature of love. For example, ‘you shall not commit adultery' is not only a ‘no' to sexual promiscuity, but a ‘yes' to family, spouse and children. They both prohibit and protect. Martin Luther, the 16th c. pastor and theologian said that "whoever knows the Ten Commandments perfectly knows the whole of Scripture." Why would he say that? What about grace? What does Jesus have to say about the 10-commandments? What is their significance for a Christian spirituality of everyday life? Eugene Wu, Mark Swallow, Jonathan Webster and Brent Fulton will lead us in what we trust will be an important new teaching series.

In C.S. Lewis' fantasy The Great Divorce he writes, "There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done' and those to whom God says, 'Thy will be done.' All that are in hell choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no hell. And no soul that seriously and constantly desires joy [heaven] will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock, it is opened."

Two Christian doctrines that are difficult for the contemporary mind to accept are two subjects that Jesus talked a great deal about: heaven and hell. Yet even for those committed to Christ, these doctrines may seem remote or unreal, perhaps even unnecessary. This teaching series will not concern itself with ‘the furniture of heaven and the temperature of hell', but will explore the teaching of the Bible of the afterlife compared to how they are understood in our culture. Also, its our hope that we will discover why we need heaven and hell, if we are to live imaginatively and faithfully in the present and perhaps we will never look at this life, or the next, in quite the same way.

The teaching series on heaven and hell is examining what the scriptures say about these two realities. Bob is inviting any questions you might have on these topics as well as sharing any conversations you might have had with your family, friends or co-workers about the popular images or understanding of heaven and hell. Please submit your comments below.

In this sermon series we look at Acts: The Jesus Story Part 2. We know what a "Part 2" is. It's a sequel. A sequel is "Shrek2"! A sequel is a continuation of the original story; a follow up of where we last left the characters and the end of part one. Part 2 tells us that the story has not yet ended; that the author has more to tell - the adventure continues! So it is with Acts. Acts is the sequel to Luke because Luke is the author of Luke's gospel and Acts. Luke is part 1 and Acts is part 2 of the Jesus story. Luke writes to his sopnsor, Theophilus, "In my former book (Luke's gospel) I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up into heaven..."

What Jesus began in Luke's gospel he continues in Acts through the lives of the apostles and those who come to believe in Christ. This year's teaching series will explore how we can all get into The Story, how we all can find our place in this sequel, this unfolding drama of what it means to come to Jesus and follow Him and witness the transformation of ourselves and in those with whom we live and work and ultimately in our increasing globalized culture.

Advent comes from a Latin term meaning ‘coming' or ‘arrival.' It is the term the historic Church has used to prepare God's people for Christmas, for we understand that the God of Christmas is the God who comes, who arrives! And this God will come again. But just how does God come to us?

Our Advent bulletin and banner portray our Lord being carried as a member of a refugee family, because Jesus became a refugee after his birth. Matthew's gospel records an angel's warning to Joseph, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.' (Mt 2.13) Jesus is simply ‘the child'; a child like so many millions of others now and in the past, who along with their families flee the places of their birth and home. So Joseph and Mary fled their homeland of Palestine, seeking asylum in Egypt; fleeing a military death squad ordered by Herod. Jesus' family thus became identified with the 13 million of today's refugees and internally displaced people: stateless, landless, terrorized and most often poor.

We dare not ‘spiritualize' Advent or Christmas and dress it up to make it look like something it was not. If God's coming to us as ‘the Word made flesh' means anything, it means that our God came to us as poor Jewish flesh, who had to be carried away by his family for fear of violence and death. So this Advent and Christmas we will explore what it means for our Lord to become poor, homeless, and a refugee and what it means for us as the people of God. The apostle Paul would later write, ‘For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich!' (2Co 8.9) But the question is "what kind of riches?"

This is our summer 2008 teaching series.  Prison, isolation and exile: all are experiences with which the people of God are familiar and from which they've written.  From the prophets Jeremiah and John the Baptist; to John Bunyan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Watchman Nee; and of course the apostle Paul.  Paul spent about seven years in prison and wrote at least three letters during his periods of confinement, one of which is his letter to Christ-followers in the city of Philippi.  We'll explore what he wrote and why it should matter to Christ-followers today.

Doing justice, loving mercy, walking humbly with our God.

— Micah 6:8

Easter 2008

Jesus' modest entrance into Jerusalem on a donkey some 2000 years ago, marks the beginning of what is called 'Holy Week'. The week ends with our Lord's resurrection from a borrowed tomb. It was the final blow to death, sin and hell. Our fear of death, the reality of our guilt and the threat of oblivion is declared over. Christ is Victor. But between the donkey and the empty tomb lay the place of execution-the cross. It was a week that shook the world, for the world has never been the same. We are not the same. For in our Lord's acts of teaching, healing and finally in his offering of himself up to death in our place we not only find God, we find ourselves-our true selves. So we welcome you and invite you to take time to read, reflect and pray through this week as recorded in Matthew's gospel. Its time to re-live, re-think and re-consider whether or not we are actually willing to follow this modest King.

'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth'. Really? We live in a culture that is hostile to the idea of a personal Creator. There are loud and popular voices that tell us that ‘the God hypothesis' is unnecessary for life and meaning. And does the belief in a just and good personal Creator really make any difference or sense in a world of terrorism and genocide?

And what of a ‘good' creation? We are also the generation which is reaping the results of sweeping environmental degradation: our water sources are being polluted, over fishing has wiped out entire fish stocks, ancient animal species are becoming extinct through the clear cutting of forests and jungles and we, the rich of the world, squander our natural resources while the poor have not enough food, water and shelter necessary for human dignity. Indeed, as the apostle Paul writes, ‘the whole creation groans...'

The ECC 2007 fall teaching series will explore the first 11-chapters of Genesis and its implications: what it means for the Church to trust in a good personal Creator and it's responsibilities as stewards of a good creation entrusted to its care. We will explore such questions as what it means for men and women to be ‘made in the image of God'; the origin of sin and suffering; the meaning of work, sexuality, the Sabbath and the enjoyment and guardianship of the environment.

We will also investigate the deep link between this good Creator and his creative word which spoke all things into being and His Word ‘made flesh'-Jesus Christ, 'for whom all things were created by him and for him...and in him all things hold together.' In other words Christ is the meaning of creation; and so the connection between the Creator and Christ, between creation and redemption is both profound, but also wonderful.