How are we winning?

Dear Oaks,

I have noticed how increasingly the church tries to attract people to its services. We add to the fact that we come to worship God and encounter Him, all sorts of other “goodies”. Food is an obvious one but we might add visual stimulation and good music and of course friendship.

On surveying my previous church as to why they came on a Sunday the result was: 1 Friendship 2 The worship 3 The sermons! (oh well at least a bronze medal!)

I believe all of those things are important but every now and then I do have to ask if we are really communicating that God is not a big enough attraction in Himself?

A W Tozer called this approach to presenting the faith as “The striped-candy technique”. He said that we justify it on the grounds that it gets people in to church and under the sound of the gospel, but to what are we really winning them too?

Is it to true discipleship? cross carrying? To holy living? To total commitment to Christ both as Saviour and Lord?

Well just in case you are worried I have no desire to stop trying to attract people to Oak Tree and for the totality of their experience being a good one. Indeed in our new building I intend there to be more opportunities to practice hospitality and to enjoy life with one another.

But Tozer has a very valid point. Are some Christians bored with God? And before you say that you are not or that it is the church that makes God seem boring, remember you are the church. Please feel free to come to church so overflowing with his life that the presence of God spills out through prophetic words, healings of the sick and the winning of the lost.

Let us go on seeking to carry the presence of God wherever we go in such a way as to be a holy contagious people. Even this Sunday let us join together in proclaiming to one another and to any visitors that God is certainly not a boring God but rather the most dynamic being you could ever wish to meet.

And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Luke 24:52f

Every blessing,

Mark

We see hope in Acton

WE SEE HOPE IN ACTON

because God sees hope in you.

Have you ever seen something and thought, who would say something like that? What do they mean?!

We see hope in Acton because we have experienced something in our lives that has overcome our disillusionment with life.

We see hope in Acton because we believe in the God who sent his son into a specific situation at a specific time.

This son did not come putting his hopes into politics or money, he planted his hope in human beings; and not just any human beings…it was the down and outs, the rough and ready, the taxman, the prostitute, the fisherman.

Our experience is that he is far better than society, far better than any substance, far greater than any addiction, not phased by any illness or death, he is Jesus.

We think that Jesus is the loudest way God could say to you and me; “I see hope in you!”

Isn’t it worth trying to meet the one whose whole life is given to you (yes you!) so you could know who made you?

Isn’t it worth trying to ask the one whose life was taken for you, what hope could I bring to the world?

As a local church in Acton we want to ask these kinds of questions.

We want to open a space where you can ask God about the hope he promises.

We see hope in Acton, because God sees hope in you.

From February 6th 2011 you can find us at

216 High Street,

Acton W3, London.

(where the banner is pinned!)

You can also find us NOW each Sunday, 4.30pm at Twyford School or

every Saturday 10-2pm at Acton Market serving free tea and coffee.

Christmas

19 December 2010

4:30pm Carol Service at 216 Acton High Street.

25 December 2010

Christmas Breakfast with carols at 216 Acton Street

All welcome to come and celebrate!

Market Christmas

18 December 2010

Oak Tree starts a weekend celebrating the wonder and the joy of Jesus being born with a Christmas celebration market!

Come and join us on the Mount in Acton outside Morrisons supermarket.

Market Team Training

22 November 2010

8pm upstairs bar of the King’s Head Pub, Acton High Street.

Come and share stories and be encouraged and equipped to serve the people of Acton with the power and love of Jesus!

Guest Speaker – Andy Johnson

7 November 2010

Our guest speaker at our Sunday service is Andy Johnson. Andy leads Acton Green Church with his wife Andrea. Andy and Andrea used to be be members of Oak Tree and Andy was on staff as our administrator.

They were invited to take a small team to help lead Acton Green a number of years ago and they have faithfully served their local area ever since.

Guest Speaker – Nigel Juckes

10 October 2010

We have Nigel Juckes coming to sepak to us at our Sunday service. He heads up New Wine in South Africa!

Nigel is well respected as a superb church leader and as Bruce Collins (New Wine UK) says leads “one of the healthiest churches he has ever seen.” He is passionate about developing church into every member ministry, believes that God’s heart is to touch the whole world with His life by the Holy Spirit and has operated in both city and provincial settings. Nigel leads St Agnes, Kloof, which is a large, vibrant and growing church as well as New Wine South Africa.

Autumn 2010

It is only the Holy Spirit who can truly transform our lives and bring radical changes in our communities. As Holy Spirit he manifests himself most fully in the lives of those not only holy because of Jesus work and death on the cross but in those working out what it means to be set apart (holy) for God in 21st century London.

God is deeply impressing on me the need to kill off my idols (anything more important to me than God – usually very subtle things), and to declare over every part of my life that Jesus is Lord!  The promise of Joshua 3:5 is what he gave me in the summer for myself and Oak Tree to focus on at this time.  “Consecrate yourselves, and tomorrow I will do amazing things amongst you.” It is a promise based on a condition.  Dealing with the condition is what our teaching shall explore this term.

Mark Aldridge

download programme card here

Market this week… 18th Sept 2010

mb

Rev. Mark Bishop

Out there and Curate Oaktree,

Acton.

Going further up and further in

Dear Oaks,

God appeared to Solomon one night (2 Chronicles 1:7) and said “ask for whatever you want me to give you.”

Solomon asked not for riches, power, good looks or even for Bristol Rovers to get in to the Premier League (my choice left to the flesh!). He asks for wisdom and knowledge to lead the people (verse 10).

In fact God gives him even more than he asks for. To discover something of Gods enormous generosity read verses 11 and 12!

My question to you, dear Oak, is what would be the one thing you would ask of God?

Like Oliver Twist my answer would be “More”. In The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis we read ‘Don’t stop! Further up and further in,’ called Farsight…Jewel also cried out: ‘Don’t stop. Further up and further in! Take it in your stride.’

Later on we read ‘they all found they were swimming straight for the waterfall itself.’

Simon Ponsonby has written “if we could hear the angels, we would hear them crying ‘Don’t stop! Further up and further in!’ and if we could hear the voice of God, we would hear him bid us come -’Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls’ (psalm 42:7).

I would ask for more intimacy with God. More power to impart salvation in all its forms. More Christ likeness, more love, more holiness, more, more, more of him!

Is that selfish? Absolutely not! God loves us to ask for more of him.

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil (compared with the holiness of God), know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

On Wednesday evening it is our next Church Central (everyone welcome at Acton Green Church, Cunnington Street, W4 at 8pm). We shall discover ways to go further up and further in to the life and ministry of Jesus.

In the Fathers love,

Mark

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