This week we look at the central role of Scripture and the importance that was placed on teaching in the early church and what that means for the church today.

To kick off the new year at The Upper Room we consider the topic of repentance. We do so with a sense of this being something of a foundational message for our community for the year ahead.

“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”) – Matthew 1:23

“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” – Matthew 1:21

In this early Christmas message, we consider how the two themes represented by the names Immanuel (‘God with us’) and Jesus (‘The Lord is salvation’) are intertwined throughout the overarching story of Scripture.

Using the book of Acts supported by other parts of Scripture, Tim Hobson looks at four keys aspects of the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

The book of Acts is set against the backdrop of a world that is hostile to the in-breaking kingdom of God that confronts and challenges its values and priorities. Time and again throughout the chapters of Acts we see examples of the conflict that arises whenever the gospel threatens the power structures of the world, whether that be at an individual, group or societal level.

Two thousand years later, the challenge still stands for those of us who profess to “believe in the Lord Jesus” to reject the ways of the world and to ‘repent’ – to turn away from a self-focused life to a life focused on God and others, and in so doing to enter fully into the kingdom of God.

“Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity” (1 John 2:15-17. The Message

Three brief ‘sermonettes’ based on Acts 16:1-15. (The video below relates to the third of these.)

Andrew Baartz interviews Michael Laverty about his remarkable life journey from apartheid South Africa to managing director of Tropfest, the international short film festival.

At the end of chapter 15, we come to perhaps one of the saddest moments in the book of Acts with the apostles Paul and Barnabas, who up to now have been a formidable partnership for the cause of Jesus, having a major disagreement that results in them going their separate ways.

The book of The Acts of the Apostles is of importance to the church of today not just as a matter of historical interest (i.e. how all this got started), but also because it’s in the pages of Acts that we can discern much of what makes up the true essence of ‘church’. As we consider the episode in Acts 15 commonly referred to as the ‘Council of Jerusalem’, we remind ourselves that the (true) church was something conceived in the mind of God. As such, it is incumbent on those of us who would seek to be followers of Jesus to embrace and pursue God’s vision of church and to reject all cheap imitations.