Gathering together for worship last Sunday was breathtaking in it’s beauty. What we tasted was Church as it is meant to be – the hope of the whole world. Worship that honoured Christ and declared the sovereignty of God; heartfelt confession and exhortation to encounter Jesus in His word again from Voitek; rallying round, crying, prophecying and calling on God for healing of cancer; welcoming visitors; the challenge of the wake up call that has happened to Voitek to spur people to come back to Christ and then the passionate, stirring, prophetic plea to be like Jesus from my mate Andy Richards. The fact that Christ, in His greatest hour of pain and need on the cross, cared for others will stay with me and guide the rest of my life. And the challenge to “focus on other’s needs even when our is greater” will be one to go for!

Let’s not allow last Sunday be a ceiling we want to climb to or gaze at – let’s make it the floor on which we stand on. Being Church like that, really is the hope of the whole world – renewing hearts and minds of seekers and believers alike, strengthening families, transforming our town and eventually changing the world! To help us work out how to put Andy’s sermon into practice, my small group went through many of the “one anothering” verses in the New Testament. Those are apostolic commands and exhortations to be like Jesus, caring for each other. It would be well worth an hour of your time, pondering these verses in their context and asking The Spirit to help you live them out in practice – John 15:12,17; Rom 12:10;12:16; 14:13; 15:5; 15:7; 15:14; 1 Cor 6:7; 11:33; 12:25; 16:20; 2 Cor 10:12; 13:11; Gal 5:13; 5:15; 5:26; 6:2; Eph 4:2; 4:32; 5:19; 5:21; Col 3:9; 3:13; 3:16; 1 Thess 3:12; 4:9; 4:18; 5:11: 5:15; 2 Thess 1:3; Heb 3:13: 10:24; 10:35; James 4:11; 5:9; 5:16; 1 Pet 1:22; 4:8; 4:9; 4:10; 5:5; 5:14; 1 John 1:7; 3:11; 3:23; 5:47; 4:11; 4:12; 2 John 1:5.