City Temple Cardiff

In my former book Theophilus I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach…” Acts 1:1

Our new Sunday morning teaching series on the book of Acts has the broad theme of “The Church on the Move”. During 2010 we will be grounding much of our preaching in this amazing and dynamic Bible book. Acts is not just of historical interest but of practical relevance to our lives today.

Acts tells the story of what Jesus continued to do after His ascension through the believers who became His witnesses to the world they lived in. Empowered by the Holy Spirit those ordinary men and women changed from being a dispirited and fearful few to becoming world changers. They continued the ministry of Jesus in words, works and wonders. They spoke openly and boldly about Him, healed the sick in His name and spread out into surrounding towns, villages, cities and nations with the full gospel of the Kingdom of God.

Acts is then “the continuing story”. What’s more, many have observed that as it ends in Chapter 28 mid action, it is a story that still continues today. The Holy Spirit works in and through us to continue the ministry of Jesus. We are part of the story!

Against all the odds, those first believers proclaimed Christ in a hostile culture and climate. God worked with them and within just 30 years, they had reached the ends of the earth with the good news and whole cities and regions had been transformed.

Acts will give us faith for our culture and climate to be similarly impacted and reveal to us the keys to living the dynamic, overcoming Kingdom life that will enable us to serve Christ to the fullest in our time and place.

We are praising God for a wonderful conference with Bill Johnson and team. The church was packed and there was a tremendous atmosphere of expectancy and a spirit of worship and praise throughout the 3 days. Many testimonies of healing were recorded and a number were healed and touched by God in hotels and restaurants when witnessed to by people at the conference.

Bill encouraged us to press into all that God has promised and all that He has for us. We were reminded that we are carriers of Jesus’ presence into the world not just His message, and that He wants us to go into each situation looking for opportunities to share His words, His works and to expect wonders to follow.

We are carriers of hope. As followers of Christ, we are the very people who are to have hope for ourselves and for one another and to carry that hope to the world. People are looking for hope. As we carry the hope found in Christ to each person we meet we can ask God to open hearts and lead us to people ready for a real message of hope. God will do the rest. Let’s pray and work so that we begin to fill the city with hope - in hundreds of different ways, because Jesus is the Hope for Cardiff.

Order the Conference CDs Here:

Feedback on the event, including testimonies will be available here soon, but if you'd like to hear the messages again or indeed for the first time, you can order them here by downloading the booking forms in either Word or PDF format:

Heaven to Earth Wales - Box Set Order Form [MS WORD]

Heaven to Earth Wales - Box Set Order Form [PDF]

They say the British are obsessed with the weather but after the past few weeks its no wonder. For a small island we experience such a huge range of weather conditions that long term forecasting is virtually impossible. These weeks of snow, ice and record low temperatures were labelled more than  ‘cold snap’ and more of a ‘cold spell’ - whatever that means.

On a global scale the experts are still debating the impact of climate change - certainly a harsh winter will do nothing to convince those sceptical of global warming. Yet, climate changes have significant impact on our world.

Jesus took the climate conditions as the basis for a key lesson in spiritual principles. He observed the peoples concern with the seasons and their ability to forecast the weather yet rebuked them that they did not know how to read and interpret the times. He was teaching them that there is a spiritual as well as a natural climate and there are spiritual signs of the times which those who seek the Lord will be able to understand.

We live in a climate that is spiritually challenging at best luke warm (the Laodicea church) but in many ways  cold and hostile to the gospel. Yet, God is moving by His  Spirit through His people to warm up the climate. We are called to believe for and to live for spiritual climate change where we increasingly warm up our world to the good news of Christ. Remember, however cold it may seem, He is “the God who changes times and seasons” (Daniel 2)

Advanced notice for Soul Survivor 2010. The youth are going to Soul Survivor B, this year from 11-16th August. To book in online today use the reference B2K10-13726. For those who wish to pay in monthly installments please start the installments as soon as possible. Contact Matt Gregor for more information about arrangements for the event.

Please see: http://www.soulsurvivor.com/uk/ss2010/weekbc/index.html for more information about Soul Survivor week B about the event and to book.