27 June 2021 - 8.30am Service

After the Fire Series: Community of Believers

Over month of June we’ve been exploring what the Church looks like after Pentecost and how we can hold onto the power of the Spirit in our everyday lives.

We’ll be looking to the Bible to see what the early Church was like after this transformed experience of the gift of the Spirit. What should we look like today if the Spirit is at work in our midst as a Church?

Also - remember our 11am and 7pm services looked at the same topic and Rachel Dave Mitchell and Matt Dobson shared with us. Check it out!

DISCUSSION NOTES

INTRODUCTION

Read Acts 2:42-47 and Ephesians 4:11-13

We believe that Church is a society that exists for the benefit of its non-members! Of course that doesn’t mean we don’t care for one another, quite the opposite. To be a minister has three dimensions. A minister is a ‘servant’ literally. We minister to the Lord, to one another and to the world.

We understand some people’s ministry is more ‘Church centric’, for others it is very much in the market place. We hope that for most people ministry is ‘both and’!

The phrase ‘ministry to the Lord’ sounds a bit quaint. What does it actually mean?
I use the phrase ‘God loves to turn victims into ministers’ as I think about people in the Bible and in my experience who have been able to be used by God despite (and sometimes because of) where they have come from. Is there anything that disqualifies us from being ministers?
Ministry is for everyone but everyone should be equipped or trained as Ephesians 4 puts it. Where do you feel drawn to minister? What equipping do you need?
As we re-open Church post pandemic, there are many needs in our Church programmes for volunteers, or ‘ministers’. What needs are you aware of at Woodlands? What training programmes are you aware of? Where might you be able to serve?
Ministry can be both in practical service and more overtly spiritual realms. What does God value most? Do we over promote some aspects of ministry as a community to the detriment of others?
Do you know which Woodlands team members most champion volunteering in and out of the Church?