Talks

Having spent last week speaking about Vision – this week Matt speaks about Culture.  If we want anything to grow the environment has to be right.  It’s true in nature and true in our lives.  How do we develop and maintain a healthy environment?
If you consider yourself part of our Church Family – Matt encourages us all to be Guardians of our Culture! 
Matt reminds us that every people group has a culture. Whether it’s a school, a business, a football club or even our family units – they all have their own culture based around the things people value most.  Culture can be formed by design or by default.  If the culture we operate in isn’t healthy, it might be time to get out – but if that’s not possible (or if we feel called to make a difference) with God’s help we can be a positive impact on the culture.  (Shining Bright!)

What do we value and therefore want to Guard in OUR Culture?  We have 6 building blocks: Welcome, Growing, Relational, Jesus-centred, Outward looking and Spirit and the Word. How can you help to Guard our Culture?

To understand in more detail what these values mean to us, you can read our “Vision and Values” booklet and listen to Matt’s talk.

Do you remember our vision “Stepping Out” for 2023? Can you say that you have stepped out in the first 8 months of the year? What stepping out is God calling you to do now?

Matt helps us to take a good look the Ashwood Church landscape from a birds eye:
What is our overall vision? To be a spiritually healthy and growing church for all ages!
How do we do that? What does this look like for us? Below are just a few examples:
- Apprentices to Jesus
- Healthy LifeGroups
- Healthy Sunday Gatherings
- Healthy Earthshakers
- Healthy Elevate Youth
- Transformed Worship
- Touching Heaven
- Freedom in Christ Course
- Marriage Course
- and so much more!
For 2023 we have a more specific vision that links in with the overall vision
“Stepping out in faith in the power of the spirit!!”
We do that in four ways:
- Stepping out in the Spirit: “Walk by the Spirit” (Gal 5:16) and “Keep in step with the Spirit” like a ballroom dancer (Gal 5:25).
- Stepping out together: All tuned to Jesus like an orchestra is tuned to a tuning fork.
- Stepping out in faith: “We live by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7)
- Stepping out, shining bright: Don’t put your light under a basket, but on a stand! (Mtth5;15-16)
Matt challenges us to Step out, Stretch out and to Spread out!

Perrianne encourages us to discover our very own gifts, to be ourselves, not to copy others. If all of us do that, we can be a very colourful and multi-skilled church, which is exactly what God had in mind when he created us.

Paul continues explaining why we as Ashwood need to be intense (focussed), authentic (being real) and optimistic (spreading hope). 
We live in a world that is in conflict and chaos, we need to be people who walk by faith (part of our theme for the year) and then we can see God’s victory in our lives. “Victory can only be gained if there is a battle! A testimony can only be told after a test!”

Paul finishes his message with some poems:

“Today we can’t afford to be afraid of what we fear” (Bono, “Red Flag Day”)

“May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer,
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.”
(John O’Donahue “A Morning Offering”)

“Fear is not my future / You are
Sickness is not my story / You are
Heartbreak’s not my home / You are
Death is not the end / You are
Hello, peace; Hello, joy; Hello, love;
Hello, strength; Hello, hope,
It’s a new horizon”
(Brandon Lake/Maverick City)

Matt summarises for us what we have heard over the last few weeks about stepping out in 2023:

What does it look like for you to step out in the Spirit?
Walk by the Spirit
Be Led by the Spirit
Live by the Spirit
Keep in step with the Spirit
What does it look like for you to step out in faith?
Maybe there are some disappointments to overcome, maybe it means trusting God in a specific circumstance.
Remember Jesus said “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible!”

What does it look like for you to step out and shine bright?
We are called to be different, to reflect Jesus and to share His Light – in a world that desperately needs it.

What does it look like for you to step out together?
The Christian life requires us all to take responsibility for our own relationship with Jesus.  BUT we were never meant to do it alone.
Let’s tune our heart to Jesus - just like an orchestra tunes their instruments to one note on a tuning fork.

Don’t just be an observer, let Matt challenge you too to reflect on the question: What does it mean for ME to step out in 2023? What are MY next steps?
We got very practical on Sunday too!  We gave out “handouts” so everyone could write down what it looked like for them to “Step out in 2023”

In the next part in our Vision 2023 Series Zoe encourages us to step out TOGETHER, based on Galatians 5.13-26. This passage explains how we can love, serve and interact with each other positively and warns us of the negative impacts when we don’t. 
Eugene Peterson says:
“One of the immediate changes that the gospel makes is grammatical:
we instead of I; our instead of my; us instead of me.”
 
We need to be together in order to be in step with the Spirit. 

Zoe reminds us of the tuning fork that the orchestra use : We need to tune ourselves to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, not to each other. If He is the “tuning fork” we each adjust our “tune” to, we can be in harmony together. 

Being “together” is not always easy! The wonderful thing about God’s church is that it’s the only place where such different and diverse people (us!) can be together. Unlike many “groups” we don’t gather because we have the same likes or dislikes, or because we are the same age or have the same experience of life.  We gather because we love Jesus (the tuning fork) and we want to follow His way of loving others as well.  It’s possible (even necessary!) to love people we don’t naturally “like” – and that’s the choice we make.
 
The meeting finishes with taking communion together, including an older tradition called “passing the peace”. Christians would take time in their gatherings to think about the importance of right relationships and if necessary “make peace” (or restore relationships) before taking the communion bread and wine (juice):  A focus on building strong relationships together.

Part 3 in our Vision 2023 Series – Stepping out Shining Bright

Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labour in vain. Philippians 2 : 12-16

Bob speaks to us about what it means to step out reflecting Jesus – the source of light and illuminating our world.

He reminds us of the words of Jesus – “In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”  As people around look at us, and the way we live our lives – we will be pointing them towards God.

Called to be different >> To reflect Jesus and share His light.

In the next part of our vision series - Claire challenges us to step out in Faith, using the story of Peter stepping out of the boat to walk on water in Matthew 14:24-32.
Claire also tells us the story of a blindfolded tightrope walker that was challenged to walk on a tightrope over the Niagara Falls, pushing a wheelbarrow! After he’d walked it one way, he asked the challenger if he now believed he could do it! The challenger said “Of course I believe it now!  I’ve seen you do it with my own eyes!!!”  “Great!” replied the tightrope walker “Now will you get in the wheelbarrow and come back with me then!?”
Thinking we believe something is one thing, but believing it enough to take a measure of risk is quite another! Could 2023 be the year of mountain-moving, storm-calming, seas-splitting, ground-taking and body-raising FAITH in Ashwood?
Jesus turned to His disciples and said to them intently “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible!” Matthew 19:26
It is as if Jesus is speaking “intently” to us – “With God all things are possible.”  What are you believing God for in 2023?

Paul Bell speaks to us about “Stepping out in the Spirit”, one of the ways we envision to step out in the year 2023!

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control

Based on Galatians 5.13-26 he explains to us what it means to walk in the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit, to live by the Spirit and to keep in step with the Spirit.

First we need to understand that there are two ways to live: in the Flesh and in the Spirit.
The Flesh is basically everything that is driven by a sinful self-interest that is at odds with the Spirit. There is a war in us between the two and it is by our fruit that we can see which of the two is victorious!

But fruit takes time to grow and needs to stay attached to the tree to keep doing so. Likewise we need to stay close to God by the Spirit and be patient to advance at His pace, not ours. In everyday desicions, big and small, keep in step with the Spirit.
What does it look like for yout o walk and be led by the Holy Spirit?

Matt introduces us to the Ashwood Church Vision for 2023
If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.  (Proverbs 29, Message)
Matt says it’s important that we have a vision for our lives too!  What does God see for us and do we have the same view?

Our overall Church Vision is the same:  “To become a Spiritually Healthy Church for all ages” and our Mission “to help people find and follow Jesus”.  Our vision for 2023 helps us see specifically for this year.

In November 2022 our Senior Leadership Team and part of our Ashwood Church Vision Team went away to pray and seek God for Ashwood Church for 2023:

In 2023 God invites us to be STEPPING OUT.

Stepping out in the Spirit:  (Galatians. 5:25)
Walking with the Spirit
Living by the Spirit
In step with the Spirit
Stepping out together:
We don’t do life on our own! Just like all the instruments in an orchestra tune to one note (a tuning fork!) we want to tune our lives to Jesus. Jesus at the Centre!
Stepping out shining:
God will show himself to the cold and dark world through us! (Isaiah Chapter 60)
Stepping out in faith:
We live by faith - not by sight (2 Corinthians. Chapter 5 verse 7). We don’t know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future!
Is this also the year for our New Home for Ashwood?

Please accept our apologies for some technical issues in recording this service.