HTB Live Stream | 11.30am Sunday 26 September

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] hello and welcome to htb it's feeling pretty autumnal here in london today we've got our autumnal colors on our autumnal colors got my knitting the leaves coming down i'm so happy and i'm so happy that you have joined us here as well my name is jess and my name is lewis and it is great to have you if you're in the chat why don't you uh say hey say good morning and also let us know where you're tuning in from yeah and say hi to james as well our wonderful chat host and is as always if you'd like to access the stream in bsl british sign language then you can do that by heading to the link that will be on the screen now and the wonderful mark is waiting for you there today is going to be an exciting service it's going to be a big one i'm really looking forward to we've got the amazing nikki gumbel the vicar here at hcb who's going to be speaking on the theme of rebuilding and it is time to rebuild i am i very sneakily watched it at the 9 30 as well there's uh some really good pictures i don't want to spoil anything but some really good pictures that nikki himself has taken so i'm very excited he's quite handy at the old photography these days so i don't know what that is just you know he really is um but if you are new here to our community and you would like to join us um if you'd like to join the team or if you'd like to join a connect group and you can do so by scanning the qr code that is on the screen now absolutely and uh if you'd like prayer at all um during this service then there is um an amazing uh group of people an amazing team that would love to pray for all you have to do is head to hcb.org forward live stream prayer and it's just a great way to be supported through the power of prayer so make sure you jump in on that and we mentioned this in our pre-service chats if you missed it we'll say it again alpha started on wednesday and it was amazing i was doing a youth alpha group online but there was alpha in person here at h2b church for the first time since march 2020 and it's week two but as we all know week two is by far the best week to join alpha so if you think oh no i've missed it you haven't it's never too late it's never too late too late you can still join a group whether online or offline absolutely we'd love to have you here at um at alpha we had the amazing governor b isaac walkway who was speaking which is amazing apparently he might also feature at some point during the summer feature yeah very exciting one of one of nicki's picks one of nicki's picks the big server um but should let's pray together before we head into the service heavenly father i thank you so much for your spirit i thank you that you are here with us and wherever we're watching today god i thank you that you want to transform our hearts and our minds and i pray that we can listen to what you want to say to us through nikki today still our hearts still our minds to receive from you afresh in jesus name amen [Music] good morning church family someone encourage us to lift up our voices as we praise the king of kings [Music] in the presence of my [Music] louder than the unbelief [Music] i raise a hallelujah [Music] my weapon is [Music] [Applause] [Music] for me is [Music] [Music] [Music] hallelujah [Music] [Music] [Music] hallelujah on me [Music] is [Music] sing a little [Applause] [Music] sing a louder louder [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] louder is is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] hallelujah [Music] fight for hallelujah jesus forever on our side you will fight for us jesus this is why we lift you high oh [Music] [Music] death is defeated the king is alive [Music] so bless the lord oh my soul oh my soul worship his whole leaning and sing like never before oh my soul i'll worship your whole [Music] it's time to sing your song again and whatever maybe [Music] bless the lord [Applause] like never before [Music] cause you're rich enough [Music] your name is great and your heart is goodness i will keep on singing [Music] 10 000 reasons for my heart [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] me [Music] [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] the end was near and my time has come still my soul will sing your praise on ending [Music] ten thousand years 10 000 [Music] so bless the lord oh my soul [Music] oh my [Music] is it was [Music] lay down your burdens lay your crowns the great i am is here this place is [Music] fear to trip come and worship him he's here with us [Music] [Music] you're the light that leads [Music] [Music] bring him [Music] [Applause] [Music] a living sacrifice worthy of our god more than these words [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] through [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] begin to shake hallelujah he is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] he is with us [Music] is [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] lifted away [Music] he is with us [Music] he is with us [Music] lord jesus we thank you that you are the holy one lord jesus thank you that you are the everlasting god jesus we thank you that you are the cornerstone the cornerstone who holds this world together the cornerstone who holds our lives together we ask you this morning would you help us to trust in you help us to lay our lives upon your strength help us to lean on you to depend on you to live our lives on the rock that is jesus [Music] in jesus name we pray amen please do have a seat as we continue to pray heavenly father we lift up our world to you and even though the world is shaking at this time we thank you that you are building an unshakeable kingdom and we pray this morning that your kingdom come and your will would be done we particularly want to lift up areas in our world where there is conflict unrest where there is hurting and brokenness and we pray that you would pour out your spirit we pray you would comfort those who mourn we pray for parts of the world where young women and children live in fear and we pray for wisdom to be poured out on our leaders both in the world and in our nation as they lead us through this time of uncertainty and rebuilding we pray for the church in the uk right now we pray for every church that is running alpha and we pray that many people in this season as they're searching for meaning for purpose for community and for hope that they would find all those things in the person of jesus we pray that people would come to know you experience your love experience your hope and a joy that can only come from you and we pray all these things in jesus name amen amen a very warm welcome to htv particularly if this is your first time here and a very warm welcome to everyone watching online we're so glad that you're with us today there's lots coming up this week catherine what's happening well if you haven't heard alpha has started both in person for the first time in 18 months and online it's happening at 10 a.m morning alpha online and in person in the evening at seven o'clock and this is the much kept secret here at http is that week two is the best week to come and try alpha so if you've never tried alpha before we would love to see you there wednesday 10 a.m or seven o'clock in the evening and groups live is back this tuesday the 28th of september we would love to invite you to join us to groups live if you've never been to greenslide before it's our opportunity to gather all of our hdb groups across all of our sites including online to gather together as a church we'll be joining online on tuesday to study for four weeks the book of haggai if you're already in a group we look forward to seeing your group there but if you're not part of an http group yet we'd love you to either join a group you can find out all the information on the website or you could just start a group grab a few friends have a tuesday evening together watching groups live and we look forward to seeing you there on tuesday everything at hdb happens because of your praying your serving and your giving and we want to say thank you to your incredible generosity during this time we would love to encourage you that you're part of the community here that you can give by visiting http.org forward slash giving or scan the qr code and we just want to give you a small taster of how your generosity is enabling so much to happen and if you just like to take a video look at this video you can find out a little bit more about what your giving has contributed to in this season take a look at this it starts with prayer igniting something in our hearts sparking revival from within like the fire under a volcano reminding again of just how deeply we are loved our hearts overflowing with a joy so great we can't keep it to ourselves spurring us to action stirring our hearts for justice moving us to generosity a hope that catches and grows between us each of us are linked in a chain of our own unique purpose united in a common course we want to see the hungry fed help those struggling with financial burdens bring hope into prisons empower a rising generation worship together in person and in spirit grow together in our faith strengthen relationships and see a thriving church in every community most of all we want to invite our friends our city and the world to meet with jesus we believe that worship is more than what we do on a sunday morning we can reach our city one prayer one joyful moment and one gift at a time our god is on the move and with us all together playing our part we believe we'll see the evangelization of the nation the revitalization of the church and the transformation of society welcome again to everyone here at htv brompton road welcome to all of you joining us from the other htv sites and to all of you joining us online today so thrilled to have you with us i want to look today at the book of nehemiah if you have a bible i mean you may like to turn to nehemiah chapter two as page 487 in the church bibles uh but the verses will also come up on the screen what happened in the book of nehemiah took place in the year 445 bc and as many well i expect all of you know the exile happened in the 6th century bc the people of god israel were sent into exile in babylon they were there for approximately 70 years and they came back to rebuild the temple which was what we're going to be studying on tuesday the book of haggai in groups live as you've heard and then nehemiah who was a layman a civil servant like most of you he was in just in the workplace he was called by god to rebuild the walls the walls of jerusalem remained in ruins and this is what we read in chapter 2 verse 17. then i that's nehemiah said to them you see the trouble we're in jerusalem lies in ruins and its gates have been burned with fire come let us rebuild the wall of jerusalem and we will no longer be in disgrace i also told them about the gracious hand of my god upon me and what the king had said to me they replied let us start rebuilding so they began this good work but whence and ballot the horror night to buy the ammonite official and geshem the arab heard about it they mocked and ridiculed us what is this you're doing they asked are you rebelling against the king i answered them by saying the god of heaven will give us success we his servants will start rebuilding i want to talk to you today about it's time to rebuild let's start rebuilding what is the holy spirit saying to us today as a community to you online what we sense is that it's time to rebuild our lives to rebuild our communities the church and the world it feels like we have been in a kind of exile especially during the pandemic i wanted i don't know what you associate with the word exile but i wanted to see what what would most people associate with the word exile so i googled the word exile and you know the first thing that came up taylor swift singer songwriter uh and uh you know i i i had heard of taylor swift you'd be surprised to know but what i hadn't realized has how many followers she has do you know even on just on instagram she has a hundred and eighty million followers swifters they're called i don't think i qualified to be a swifter yet but i love the words of her song called exile she wrote it during the pandemic and she writes this now i'm in exile you're not my homeland anymore so what does the bible mean by the word exile it means disruption trauma loss of the life we've been used to it means heightened anxiety increased fear sadness trouble devastation ruins a sense of failure self-doubt defeat i don't know about you but i can relate to that perhaps you can relate to some of those things the pandemic has devastated so many lives there's been the physical crisis physical health crisis it's been a financial crisis some people have lost jobs some people have lost businesses but there's also been a mental health crisis an increase of anxiety depression the loss of the life we knew loss of holidays loss of routines loss of freedom and before i had the opportunity to we had the opportunity to get away for for holiday over over the summer i reached a point which i don't think i've ever reached before in my life i've been very tired before but i've never reached a point where i was actually close to exhaustion and i don't think it was my age i i read an article in the week which says now middle age starts at 60. so actually i'm just emerging from youth and it'll be many years before i'm old so it wasn't that but it was something about this exile that we i think so many of us have experienced and the question that i want to ask today is what can we learn from the book of nehemiah about how to cope what have i learned here's the first thing i've learned and the first thing that we see in the book of nehemiah the pace of grace nehemiah says the gracious hand of my god was upon me the god of heaven will give us success in other words he says this is i'm not just doing this on my own i'm doing what god has called me to do and god's gracious god's love is on you god's gracious hand is on you and therefore you can operate at the pace of grace and as the psalmist says unless the lord builds the house those who labor labor in vain but if god is behind it if god's gracious hand is on you you can operate at the pace of grace wonderful uh african-american pastor mike todd came to speak some of you may have been there at the leadership conference at the royal avatar the last one we were able to do there in 2019 and he talked on the pace of grace and i remember thinking at the time what a great talk yeah that's really good now i realized it is absolutely essential that we operate at the pace of grace for our physical emotional spiritual help as i say i got close to exhaustion i you know i i even got professional help and i want to encourage you if and if you feel that you need that that's that's that's a good thing to do and what i learned was that i had i was operating at an unsustainable pace in my life i think with a pandemic i kind of thought i had less on because we weren't traveling we weren't doing the meetings that we were doing but actually we were doing more and my routines had gone some of my routines key routines for me so for me i was like before the pandemic like i had this routine where i would go i would i would work hard till 2 30 then i'd get on my bike i'd go to the gym i'd play squash i talk to my friends outside the church i just relax for a period in the day and then i come back and i feel great again and on fridays in the prayer room all these kind of routines they just went and i found that my day was just absolutely damn full i started cutting my days in seconds like you've got i've got 30 seconds to clean my teeth i have one and a half minutes to shave i have eight minutes to get that breakfast down quickly oh no the there's a ring at the doorbell that's that's an amazon package arriving that's going to be another 15 seconds which i haven't calculated for so i'm going to be late for the next meeting and i just got into this routine that i was going at a thousand miles an hour and uh and the other thing that i did was i broke one of the commandments you're all guessing which one it was it was the fourth commandment you're supposed to take a day off and although sometimes i took a day off sometimes there were like alpha weekends online or there and then when the lockdown was going on there were weddings there were memorial services and it went and i didn't realize how great an impact that was having so now i have resolved i'm going to take a day off every week right yes 24 hours i've started doing it it's so wonderful we went on friday we went to richmond park it was bliss i did no work for 24 hours i just i've forgotten how wonderful it is not to work for 24 hours you feel totally different so if i'm working on saturday i'm going to take a friday off or if i can't take the friday i'm going to take a monday off but i'm going to operate at the pace of grace and i want to encourage all of you to operate at the pace of grace because some of you have far busier lives than i have you have huge demands on you and i just want to encourage you that some people have lost the we lost it when we were just watching things online on sunday because the churches were closed and some people it's easy to get back into that pattern and just watch online if any of you are watching online that's wonderful that you're watching but come and join us come and worship with us because it's one thing watching online it's another thing being in the room being in an atmosphere of worship being in community with one another that does something for your soul and we need that we and i would encourage you to get back into every sunday take all of sunday off don't work worship come into community refresh your soul operate at the pace of grace and for me one of the things that jesus was never in a hurry do you even notice that look what he accomplished in three years without any hurry and jesus says that we need to put down these foundations like the the things that people can't see like are giving are praying that's where you you you for me it's like the bible i just love to the the bible in one year i've done it for 30 years but some gregory the great said this scripture grows with those who read it so every time i read the same passages that god speaks in a different way and there's something amazing about meditating on the words of god the apostle paul says that that that god's word it's theo nustos which means god inspired all these words are inspired by god that god speaking but there's another translation of their museos which is also true it means god breathes so these are the words god's speaking but as you read it god breathes god god breathes into your soul he refreshes your soul and as you meditate on it you you kind of break up the words and you you chew over them and then you digest them and it satisfies your spiritual hunger in your heart i i had to just on holiday i just love not being in any rush just reading it and and hearing god hearing god's guidance what am i supposed to be doing please give me wisdom will you oh you're speaking to me through your word it satisfies this spiritual hunger that we all have you know we all have this deep spiritual hunger which can only be satisfied by jesus can only be satisfied by our relationship with jesus and however much other stuff you try and put into it good things some of them you know your job your friends netflix whatever it is we try and put into this it always leaves us with this vague feeling of unfulfillment because we have a god-shaped gap that can own our spiritual hunger which can only be satisfied by hearing by this relationship with jesus nikki lee nikki and cilla lee were out in japan uh many years ago and they were they were teaching out there and they met a japanese woman and nikki was talking about the fact that jesus said i am the bread of life i'm the one who can satisfy this hunger that is inside and this japanese woman said in japan it's as if we have two stomachs we have one for ordinary food like fish meat vegetables and we have another for rice and unless we eat rice we never feel satisfied and i guess if jesus had been speaking to her he just said i'm the rice of life i'm the one person who can satisfy this other stomach that can't be satisfied by the ordinary things of life so that's the first thing we need to operate at the pace of grace the second thing from this passage and from what i've learned first the pace of grace secondly the price of rice because this relationship with jesus is actually free he invites us into this relationship but there's a price to be paid in following jesus there's a price to be paid as we see in the book of nehemiah in rebuilding the walls it wasn't easy it required resilience and it's tough there's you know there's a spiritual battle out there i love the title of louis giglio's book that don't give the devil a place at the table because there's a battle out there and nehemiah that they're tough things he felt sadness of heart when he saw what was happening he he said i was very much afraid and there's this we're in a society that is has so much of our societies turned away from jesus and now from god's values and there is a sadness that certainly i feel about that and it's just like what's going on this disordered world and even fear nelson mandela said courage is not the absence of fear it's the triumph over it and they were mocked and ridiculed these mockers said what they said what are you doing are you rebelling against the king they they said why are you bothering trying later on in acts 4 they some ballot got really angry with them and he ridiculed them and said what are these feeble jews doing what's the point it's like oh isn't the church just sort of in decline isn't it just going to die out isn't it yeah what's the point in going to church what's the point in in praying what's the point why don't you just give up that's what the devil's always trying to say to just give up what's the point and anger as well they've got there's so much anger in the world there's an increase in road rage there's anger it's just so much anger on social media even sometimes infecting the church i should never come into the church that but this is this is the opposition no blessing goes uncontested and if you're facing difficulties in your life sometimes you face difficulties in life not because you're doing something wrong but because you're doing something right and the storm of the pandemic has blown some people away it's blown some some sort of like people who maybe used to go to church it's blown them away jesus said it's like two lives look exactly the same two houses look exactly the same but they're different actually one of them is built on the sand it's got no foundation another is built on rock it's got solid foundation and when the storm comes when the winds blow when there's a pandemic or whatever it is some people's houses are blown away but some people are built on rock and the storm comes and you can see how strong they are at the end because they are still standing in spite of the storm and you know what every one of you is still standing because you're here today every one of you watching online you're still standing because you wouldn't be watching this if you weren't standing but in this pandemic some people have sadly been blown away but other people have started exploring faith that's what's so exciting it was so exciting to be here on wednesday i didn't know you know we we haven't run alpha in person here since march like 18 months ago it's all been online but on wednesday we were here in person in the church alpha started again here isn't that exciting yeah it is to me anyway and i arrived they were queuing all the way around the church and not only that there were uh i think 150 others doing it online at hdb paper night so we i came over here at seven o'clock see what was happening at 7 30 we went into our online group amazing group absolutely riveting i literally cannot wait till next wednesday this is my 94th alpha small group in the in in a row and like all the others this is the best it's just amazing it's so exciting people exploring faith and they everybody needs jesus desperately we need to hold out jesus because you know if you don't if you don't fill this stomach with the rice of life what are you going to fill it with so many people are filling their stomach with idols idols is anything you put before god anything that becomes a priority in your life it could be it could be good things it could be relationships it could be music it could be politics or it could be tinder it could be drugs you know what the thing about idols is this to be at first they offer you everything and they don't ask anything of you and in the end they cost you everything and they don't offer you anything and jesus said i am the bread of life i'm he's the rice of life and that we have the opportunity to offer people this rice we have a sp a spiritual vocabulary and an ultimate love story with a happy ending that everybody needs and our task is to rebuild the church jesus is the key the rice of life but there's a price to be paid it's not going to be easy but you know what the the price we pay is nothing compared to the price jesus paid to offer us free rice free bread he died on the cross for you and for me so that we could be forgiven so that we could have eternal life as a free gift so the pace of grace we learn from nehemiah the price of rice and then the peace of geese what do i mean by that we could only do this together i my pattern of is i like to do the bible in one year as i say and then i like to go for a walk around the park to pray i get very distracted but i love god's creation i find god's creation so inspiring and one of the things is watching the birds fly and i've been trying to capture the geese flying and put it out on instagram but my uh instagram is not a great success and my photography is not a great and i never managed to capture these are some my attempts to get to get get this but this is the photo that i was trying to get that and isn't that a that is geese flying in formation and that is a picture of community it's what we are meant to be this is what i read about it when geese fly in formation they create their own unique form of teamwork that's what we need each bird flaps its wings it creates uplift for the bird immediately following by flying in a v by flying together they fly 71 faster and i love this the geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed and when it this has been so true in the in the pandemic when a goose falls out of formation it suddenly feels the drag have you felt the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird in front when the lead goose gets tired it rotates back in the v and another grease flies point our lead goose never gets tired jesus is the lead jesus is the one that we're following when a goose gets sick or is wounded and falls out of formation two other geese fall out with their companion i love this and follow it down to lend help and protection they stay with the fallen goose until it's able to fly or until it dies and only then do they launch up on their own and with another formation to catch up with the group and scientists have fitted a heart monitor to the birds and what they've found is that the birds at the back have the lowest heart rate they're at peace because they're in the formation and they're being helped by all the others and they're following what is the equivalent of jesus that's the piece of geese and this is what we see in the book of nehemiah how did they do it they did it together they worked if you read chapter three you'll see they worked shoulder to shoulder supporting each other everyone played their part together in the community it's why community is so important we need one another i as i said we we we're on our 94th alpha small group we always do an alpha small group every term we have done for over 30 years but our little small group our sort of group that we used to meet with had kind of slightly you know we did in theory meet but then it would be like once a month or once every six months or once a year or once a decade and we'd slip but with the when groups live started trisha neal who's amazing at organizing stuff uh nikki lee said that she's the our group which nikki lee is also in is probably the best organized group for 2000 years and we meet every week we've been doing it since we like we've every every week since then we've been meeting and i realize how much i meet we have so much fun we laugh together we cry together we pray for one another we support one another everyone needs a group like that if you're not a group like that i'd encourage you wherever you are here or online get in a group like that because this community is so important on wednesday i joined online a group led by david and dear rehearst they have been meeting every other week for 40 years they had their 40th anniversary hundreds of people have been through that group but community is working at this together supporting one another loving one another being there for each other is absolutely vital people are desperate for community that's why at worst they join gangs and at best they join clubs or organizations but the church is far more than just an organization it's a family where you belong where you're together with people who will support you when you drop and when you need help and get around you and we need one another desperately at this time and that's why church is so important because it's a community of love that's why part of our vision is to play our part we we don't want to see we want to see a church in every village in every town right across this nation we don't want to see any churches close please no more churches closed every church filled with people worshiping jesus don't we want that that's why we started this together with the bishop of london we started at melisa's theological college because we wanted every church to have a focal minister every church in the country to have an ordained minister to look up to care for the flock to look after them and even just this year they've got nearly 300 or they've had a thousand people now through it and they've got this this year 107 new students starting that's why we plant churches why do we plant churches because there are churches that would have been closed unless a group had gone and brought life to that church again and even in the pandemic through the network we have planted 21 new churches that have stopped being closed [Applause] and we want to play our part it's not we don't do this alone we do it together with other churches in the church of england but not just the church of england we want to work shoulder to shoulder with the catholic church and the orthodox church and the pentecostal church and the salvation army and every other part of the church because we do this together in formation working together unity is absolutely key and what are we doing with these plants a group came down one that we just planted in the pandemic in blackpool team came from blackpool and they said look in blackpool we're desperate this city is in ruins people don't have jobs people don't have food and these church plants are like a construction team that are going to rebuild the ruined cities that's the vision and it this is to bring love to bring god's love this is all about love this whole thing is about love jesus jesus is the supreme example of love that's why we started love your neighbor tom and sarah jackson started love your neighbor here and it's grown again working shoulder to shoulder with other churches across the country in since march last year love your neighbor starting over there in church house has produced 14 million meals isn't that amazing this christmas with your help love christmas which we started last year we're hoping to deliver one million boxes of hope and kindness to people many of whom won't get any other christmas present this christmas this is love that's what it's about this is what the church is about this is what jesus is about it's about loving the refugees thanks to your generosity we've been able to welcome hundreds of refuge afghan refugees who've come to live in our area in in this parish and we've been able to get them food and it's not sorry clothes of the the the government are providing with homes and food but we've been able to get them clothes they've just arrived with bin bags get them clothes and toiletries and prams and all kinds of things that they they need and i've got permission to tell you this story from all the people involved so don't don't worry about that mohammed tawfiq fled kabul with his wife and two sons after two weeks in quarantine and quarantined in the uk they were relocated to a hotel in our parish for resettlement on the saturday the 11th of september i love your love your neighbor team that's you guys welcomed them off the coach helped carry luggage to their rooms provided urgent supplies many refugees simply had a dustbin bag carrying all their possessions one of the volunteers met muhammad and his 16 year old son eeham e ham was a member of the afghan under 16 national football team and he also played for one of the top five clubs in kabul e ham had tragically witnessed this one of his friends from his football club was so desperate to get out of afghanistan that when the plane took off he tried to hold on to the plane and you may have read about it in the papers he he fell and was killed moved by his story and noticing this teenager only had a pair of sandals one of our volunteers managed to organize for two tickets to the chelsea aston villa football match this this 16 year old boy his dream had been to go to stanford bridge and watch chelsea and they brought him a pair of new trainers we have a photo of the father and son at stanford bridge father yeah that amazing the father was deeply moved by this act of kindness tearfully saying last month my son lost everything and you have fulfilled a dream for him to visit chelsea and see a match what kindness this family along with hundreds of others this is what sarah jackson writes are facing the prospect of having to rebuild their lives and the kindness of a stranger from church gave them a small ray of hope in the midst of their suffering each of us can help others rebuild their lives our communities our nation through small acts of love and kindness do you know the exile was one of the most creative periods in israel's history most a lot of the old testament was written in the sixth century the temple was rebuilt and then what seemed impossible happened the rebuilding of the walls that nehemiah set out to do it happened in 52 days what people thought was impossible god made possible and you'd be maybe going through a tough time you may not think anything's possible right for you right now the church and the nation are certainly going through a hard time but even if the church were to become a small persecuted minority jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against it and we've had a prophetic word that a phoenix will arise out of the ashes jesus came to declare the end of exile a phoenix arising out of the acid symbolizes resurrection life after death emerging from the ashes stronger smarter more powerful imagine what could happen imagine what could happen in formation if we as a community all of you joining us online all of us shoulder to shoulder with other churches across this nation operating at the pace of grace offering this world the rice which jesus offers whatever the cost whatever the price and having that peace that the geese have knowing they're not alone they're part of an amazing community and they're following jesus we really could see play our part in the evangelization of this nation revitalization of the church transformation of our nation so let's start rebuilding in jesus name amen [Applause] let's pray lord would you send your spirit right now on everyone here on everyone online and i believe the holy spirit wants to minister to every person here and remind you that the gracious hand of god is on you and you can operate at the pace of his grace in your life he wants you to to receive again the rice that fills that other stomach to know that jesus is the only way that stomach will be filled and to be willing to play your part in holding that out rebuilding the church through jesus and he wants to give you his peace knowing that you're not alone in this you may feel you've been all alone but you're not alone you're in a community who loves you where you're welcomed accepted the family of god and jesus is leading you jesus is leading the way and lord i pray you would show each person here each person online what you're asking us to do in this season what part you want us to play in rebuilding our lives our church and our nation in jesus name amen i'm going to hand it over now to catherine chow he's the associate vicar here and the service pastor he's going to talk about some of the practical ways and i'd love to encourage you don't just think oh that's that this is how allow the holy spirit to show you because one thing is sure all of us have a part to play and there's a role for you there's a role for every one of you watching online so i'm going to hand over would you give a warm welcome to catherine chow our associate vicar thank you so much nikki it is time to rebuild together and it's so exciting and i just can't wait to see what god is going to do in this new season i know every single person has a phone so i want you to get your phone out and one of the practical ways that you can get involved is to go straight to www.htb.org forward slash join a team and there is an amazing online form you click on the button join a team and on that form there'll be all of these descriptions of all the different roles some of you are like i don't want to do life on my own i want to get involved i want to see how i might want to rebuild my life maybe it's tri-alpha maybe it's joining a group maybe you want to rebuild the church community i think there are people who are passionate about the next generation i would not be here today without a kids worker without a youth worker who invested in my life when i was this high there are so many roles and things going on in the life of that church that you can get involved in in your seats there will be this form how to join a team and if you're a bit old school you like to fill it out by pen and paper you can fill this out and give this to anyone on the team and we would love to get in touch with you during the week to find out how you might be able to help how you might be to play your part and what your role might be as we rebuild our church and our community you might want to think i'm passionate about rebuilding this nation i want to be part of the construction team that rebuilds there's there's roles and love your neighbor love christmas is happening the refugee outreach vulnerable women people who are homeless there are so many things that you can get involved in so please fill out the form speak to someone on the team there is no pressure you're not filling out a form and being like i'm signing my life away you're just saying hey i'm open to you god i want to know what it is that you're calling me to do in this season and actually our service giving our time coming to help is all part of our worship this is a part of our worship so we're going to continue in a time of worship and as we sing as we pray as we respond to everything that we've heard this morning i just pray that we would be open to seeing how god might be speaking to us how we might want to play our part in this massive rebuilding project it is an exciting time and we know that god is on the move and he's doing new things so we pray in jesus name that you would be speaking to every single person here that we would want to play our part and we believe that you're going to do something new in our midst in jesus name amen amen would you like to stand in worship [Music] there [Music] of the is robe as he walks into the room where people pray when we hear praises [Music] [Applause] [Music] is faith [Music] come fill our hearts with faith [Music] sing his praise [Applause] [Music] [Music] praise [Music] [Music] and there's a sound that changes the sound of its people on many is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] okay [Music] sing his praise sing his praises [Music] his praise [Music] give us faith to [Music] [Applause] oh you are we make a miracle work promise keep light in the darkness my god that [Music] a is work promise keeper light in the darkness my god that is [Music] darkness [Music] darkness [Music] is [Applause] darkness [Music] [Music] is [Music] you [Applause] [Music] oh you're the light in the darkness [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] lord thank you that you are a waymaker you're a miracle worker and it worked whatever we're facing at the moment whether there's breakthroughs that we need in our lives in the church or personally that you're struggling with maybe it's the voices you've got some some balance in your life the lord is at work now he it will find a way lord would you silence the voices and would you find a way in the darkness would your kingdom come would you empire your church and bless your people in jesus name amen amen would you like to sit for that blessing just before the blessing i filled out my form join a team my details nicholas gumble email nikki gumble oh anyway that's that um all services all and then i've take evening alpha conferences and events love christmas refugee outreach http shelter prisons and other wherever i can be useful and i thought am i going to be operated at the pace of grace if i do all those things what have you filled out pips at the moment i've only only got alpha but i'm going to fill in a few more than that i'm going at the pace of grace [Music] so the blessing this is not just as you know it's not just words this is god's blessing pronouncing god's blessing on you god is pleased with you god is pleased that you've come to church today he's his favor is on he's pleased that you're watching this online you paid a price you made a sacrifice of your time to come here to watch online you paid a price but god is honoring you those who honor him he will honor and god's blessing is on you and i want to pronounce in the name of jesus god's blessing on you on your family on your friends on your workplace tomorrow morning that you'll go in knowing that you are anointed by god that the gracious hand of god is on you the people will see the gracious hand the god of heaven will give you success in whatever it is you're doing in your workplace this week and god's blessing would be on your health on your physical health on your emotional health on your spiritual health the blessing of god almighty the father who loves you so much the son who died for you who paid the ultimate price so that you could enjoy all his blessings and the holy spirit who fills you anoints you empires you breathe his life into you the blessing of god almighty the father the son the holy spirit be upon you and remain with you always amen what a powerful service and an incredible invitation to join a team as well but before we talk about that if you have been affected by anything in today's service and you would like to receive further support then you can do that by heading to hdb.org forward slash further support um but alternatively if you would like someone to pray with you right now then you can do that by following the link that will be appearing on the screen and one of our team online can pray with you wherever you are absolutely guys it's so good to have you with us and uh as nikki and catherine has been encouraging us and inviting us this morning we'd love to invite you to play your part and to join the team and so right now we encourage you to head to hcb.org join a team um and we'd love to encourage you um if you're part of this online community to um select hdb live stream on the form or you can select other and one of our online team would love to get a hold of you and encourage you in ways that you can get involved yeah it's definitely not just for people that have been coming along in person it's for um our online community too so yeah super easy pick up your phone take a picture of the qr code or head to http.org forward slash joining come get involved what a great service great service i actually loved nikki's pictures of geese yeah i think they were really good but if you've joined us throughout the service then my name is jess and my name is lewis and if you're new um to heb maybe you've chanced across across this live stream and then we want to encourage you to uh scan the qr code and head to http.org forward slash welcome and we'd love to connect with you and love to get to know you yeah and as you heard throughout the service alpha started last week and it's the second week this week and if you're thinking i've missed my chance you have not missed a chance to join week two is the best week to join and also if you think you've missed a chance to invite someone to join definitely not we can all be still inviting our friends to start alpha this week absolutely come get involved and also we want to invite you on tuesday to groups live um all you have to do is search on youtube hdb groups and we're going to join together for worship for amazing teaching as we look at the book of haggai from the old testament and then we're encouraging everyone to jump into their small group so if you're not part of a small group yet all you need to do is head to hp.org forward slash groups and we'd love for you to join a team or uh or start one yeah and why don't you subscribe to the http groups youtube channel and subscribe to our channel hit the bell ding thanks there it is hit the bell and you can get notified um notified i was going for the word alerted but notified came out that'll do you'll be notified whenever we go live and um whenever we release videos so it's always a great thing to do um but we're so pleased that you joined us this evening this evening it feels like this evening i was very tired thank you for joining us this morning at htb and we will be back same time same place next week have a wonderful week [Music] 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Channel: HTB Church

Views: 8,350

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: 9xEVJPX0aPY

Length: 89min 58sec (5398 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021