David Garland’s excellent commentary on Mark tells this helpful story:

“My wife has compared making a marriage to a making a quilt. She thought it would be a fun winter project that would fill a blank kitchen wall that begged for something. Though she had never made a quilt before, she envisioned something beautiful, unlike anything her foremothers had made. How hard was it to cut out simple shapes and sew them together? She plunged into the task by borrowing the children’s colored pencils and sketching out a design that picked up the design of the area rug under the table. As she worked on it, she soon realized that the quilt would depart from the original plan. She mismeasured some middle pieces, and the small mistakes in the middle multiplied as she added layer on layer to the edges. She had to patch in extra pieces and change the design to fit the mistakes. The mistakes and midcourse corrections became part of the design. After eight months and far more work than originally anticipated, the quilt was finished and hanging on the wall. It only remotely resembled the original sketch. It refused to hang flat against the wall, and one side was longer than the other. No one will mistake it for a factory-made quilt. Nevertheless, we like it.
In the process of adding more stitches and hoping to persuade it to hang straight, it dawned on her how the quilt was like a good marriage. We start out with a dream that we can make a better marriage than the imperfect one we may think our parents had. We sketch our plans for the future, far underestimating the work it may take to quilt two lives into one pattern. As we busily shape and stitch our lives day by day, we make mistakes and cause hurts. The marriage quilt becomes flawed since it is quilted by two sinful people. We can get discouraged since the pieces do not all fit together as we thought they would. Compromises and patching up have to take place. The original design must be altered, or we will give up and throw it all away. If we persevere, however, we allow God’s love to work in and through us. The marriage takes on a unique beauty as love and grace turn flaws into redemption. The hurts and wrongs may not be beautiful, but the love that shapes them into the larger design of God’s work can turn them into pictures for the world to see the healing power of God’s love.”

We’re praying for you and your marriage.

What’s the best news you’ve ever heard?

Christianity Explored is an informal course to consider who Jesus is, what he’s done and what that means for us. There will be chance to discuss and ask questions but you won’t be put on the spot, asked to pray, sing or read out loud.

Sessions start at 6pm on Sunday 2nd June at the Chapel. Contact Matt to find out more or visit this link.

These are the Tim Keller tips mentioned on Sunday morning:

1. Let people around you know you are a Christian (in a natural, unforced way)
2. Ask friends about their faith – and just listen!
3. Listen to your friends problems – maybe offer to pray for them
4. Share your problems with others – testify to how your faith helps you
5. Give them a book to read
6. Share your story
7. Answer objections and questions
8. Invite them to a church event
9. Offer to read the Bible with them
10. Take them to an explore course

Keller suggests we usually begin with 1-4. If people are interested then we might move further down the list. To speak to people at stages 8,9,10 you have to do the groundwork at 1-4.

HT: Salternlite

You can’t have escaped the news coverage over the last few weeks; heartbreaking scenes that have shocked us all. At times like this people have lots of questions and as Christians we turn to the bible for God’s wisdom.

The bible has many accounts of those forced to flee homes to avoid persecution, conflict or famine, but can we apply anything to this situation? How should we respond to the hungry or those without shelter? How were God’s people told to treat outsiders who settled among them? What hope is there of resolution to this terrible situation?

On Sunday 4th September we considered what the bible has to say and prayed for the situation.

The audio of the sermon can be found here.