https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM0z-JwqpsI&feature=youtu.be

Westcity Church

Love God | Love People | Follow Jesus

WESTCITY HUB

WE ARE A GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO ARE ALL ABOUT JESUS

(Well, what did you expect from a church?)

We are old people and young, artists, people with disabilities, lawyers and plumbers, activists and accountants who have been captured by, and caught up in God’s Dream for the world and God’s purpose for our lives, that we see revealed in this Jesus.

Maybe we are a church for those who don’t like ‘church’. A church for those who don’t want to play religious games or be entertained  but on a good day, desire to live the love that God has shown us.

 

WEEKLY UPDATE – August 3

To all members and visitors of the Westcity community

A few updates to keep you in the loop on what is happening and changing at Westcity……

Sunday Services
We are meeting together at our Nanson Street building at 9:55am (5 minutes earlier for extended worship) for church services. Although there a limited numbers, we would love you to register and reconnect with others over the coming weeks. Please go to the links below or The Hub to register your group. We would love to see you there!

Register for Sunday August 9th 

Register for Sunday August 16th

Register for Sunday August 23rd
 

Sunday Media Team
Due to our commitment to continue livestreaming our weekend service, we have set up a lean but mean recording strategy. It includes sound and camera operators in addition to our regular multimedia members – so we need others to get involved! The aim is to create a monthly roster that ensures we maintain good quality but not burn people in the process.
Please consider joining the team then have a chat with Josh to better understand the different roles and commitment. Send an email to Josh Fernandes:  av@westcity.church or call him on 0479 167 015

Acts: Being Church in a Different World
Over the next three months, we will journey with the early apostles up until Paul arrives in Corinth in Acts 18, and “stopover” so-to-speak in Philippi and Corinth as Paul reflects back on key aspects of living the way of Jesus in these earliest of church communities. We will be looking for missional moments, situations and “ways of being” that we can emulate in our own small, and maybe not so small ways.

Peace and blessings,

Phil and the Westcity Team

SUNDAY SERVICE

10am @ 63 Nanson St Wembley, Perth, Western Australia

Our desire as the Westcity community is to find God’s story in our stories and our stories in God’s story. Each week, we explore scripture so that it might capture our imaginations that we would be open to the Holy Spirit’s transforming work and be equipped to live God’s love. We often give a gentle opportunity for those who haven’t said yes to God’s love to do that and to explore baptism.

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CHILDREN’S CHURCH

10am Children’s Program at Nanson Street 

Godly Play is a great opportunity for adults and all ages to listen, wonder and respond.

Listen to the story, stop and wonder about the questions, then respond by doing your own work – each person can do their work differently.

Parents, if you wish to view the recording from home, please email children.westcitychurchgmail.com.

It would be lovely if you can sit down and watch this video with your children. Pause the video after each wondering question, and share your thoughts with one another. Set aside time to “do your work” – you might draw, or paint, or make, or play, or read, or write … each person can do their work differently.

Please share your thoughts and work in the “Westcity Community” Facebook group if you wish.

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CURRENT SERMON SERIES

Acts: ‘Being Church in a Different World’

Acts 10:38
Then Jesus arrived from Nazareth, anointed by God with the Holy Spirit, ready for action. He went through the country helping people and healing everyone who was beaten down by the Devil. He was able to do all this because God was with him.

In 1952, the founder of the Iona Church Community asserted,
“I simply argue that the Cross be raised again at the centre of the market-place as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town garbage-heap; at a crossroad so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek (or shall we say in English, in Bantu and in Afrikaans?); at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where he died. And that is what he died about. And that is where church…...should be and what churchmanship should be about.” (George Macleod)

Jesus promised to build the church into a new community that would change the cultural face of the earth, beginning in Jerusalem and branching out across the world. From the day of Pentecost, the church began to live a life of doing good, of showing in word and deed that the way of the “kingdom of God” is a better way to live, especially for people who normally miss out. It would be brilliant if the post-Covid-19 world was also a place where the church could reset and show again how love and peace and light can forge a positive community culture. And even more than that, it would be magnificent if the church could be like the first church when it comes to making spaces where people can encounter the presence of the risen Christ. In that kind of place anything, including miracles, are possible. Acts tells the early part of that story and Paul’s letters often explore what it meant to be church in a different world a few years on.

So, we will journey with the early apostles up until Paul arrives in Corinth in Acts 18, and “stopover” so-to-speak in Philippi and Corinth as Paul reflects back on key aspects of living the way of Jesus in these earliest of church communities. We will be looking for missional moments, situations and “ways of being” that we can emulate in our own small, and maybe not so small ways.

PODCAST

RESOURCES

Home Study Notes – August 2

Acts: Being Church in a Different World | Miracles and Healings Happen Today | Phil Stevenson
Livestream Sunday Sermon

Key Scripture: Acts 2:42-47

Notes:

  1. Example: Phil Learning to Dance – Need: Experience and practice
  2. Phil’s Healing Testimony – experience
  3. Acts 2:42-47 – what can we learn from the early church in this time.
  4. Zechariah and Elizabeth and the angel’s news about their son John being born. – Luke 1
  5. Peter was released from prison by the angel. Rhoda and the disciples response. – Acts 12:13-15
  6. The disciples prayer after being threatened and then released by the authorities. – Acts 4:29-32

 Questions:

  1. Phil mentioned a time when he saw God move. What examples do you have that you personally can share? (Maybe it’s a time when you personally received healing, or when someone you know was healed or a miracle happened.) Share with the group.
  2. Phil gave three bible examples of people praying to God for help. What was the point being made by Phil from these three stories?
  3. What attributes listed in Acts 2:42-47 are you believing that God will do more of for our community?
  4. What are you believing for God to do in our community or for yourself?
  5. Keep in mind that all the above stories involved people believing for more and inviting God into their space. How will you approach God in prayer this week in light of this?

Group Activity

Set some time aside to pray for each other as a group. Be open to hear from the Spirit for each other.

Richard Kerridge – Home Churches & Building Healthy Communities

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Pastoral Note – August 4

Morning and evening, waking and sleeping: one good day to be.

“I have but one passion: It is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.”
Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf
Zinzendorf was the leader of the Moravian movement, that transformed what it meant to be missional. And that was in the 1700s! The Moravians were famous then, and down through the ages since, because they went in solidarity to leper colonies when they would almost certainly be infected themselves, and even made themselves available to be sold as slaves so they could bring the hope that only Christ can bring.
But, why would they do this? I think the quote above probably goes some way to explaining the motivation. Zinzendorf’s surrender of who he was and all he would be to Jesus was bedrock for everything else, and from that baseline a passionate love for others grew. I really do believe that we are now journeying in a different world, where followers of Jesus can reset in a similar way.
Easier said than done, for me at least!
So, what I have learned to do over the years is to break it down to a daily intention. It seems to me that God is looking for authenticity, a willingness to be intentional and honest each day with all our mixed motives and flawed plans. Each morning I willingly surrender all and remind myself that I am not my own. I was redeemed by my real owner! I focus on the one day, waking and sleeping, morning and evening, a bit like the Genesis pattern.
Luke 9:23
To everybody he said, ‘Anyone who wants to be a follower of mine must renounce self; day after day he must take up his cross, and follow me.
Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
Evening came, and morning came, the third day… and God saw that it was good.

Chiz (Neil Chisholm) – Teaching Pastor – Spiritual Formation & Discipleship

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Welcome Home Date

You can’t say we haven’t given this our best shot! We have been prepared to host a community lunch and celebration – and we have stayed flexible! Yet despite our best intentions, the date for opening up of phase 5 keeps changing. Knowing that, we have decided to wait on announcing the next Welcome Home date until the Government gives the final all clear.

Please be on the lookout for this announcement over the coming weeks.

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CONNECT

Whether you're young or old, Christian or non-Christian, we welcome you at our church and we have a place for you to connect, be loved and in turn learn how to love God, love people, and follow Jesus.

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Care

Carry each other’s burdens and in this way you will obey the law of Christ. Gal.6.2

We all have seasons when we need people to stand with us in prayer, by sharing your prayer need, the Westcity prayer network will do just that. You can email your prayer request by clicking the button below. Or to talk with one of our prayer team email westcitychurch@gmail.com

Grace produces gratitude and gratitude gives gladly.

2 Corinthians 8:7 (NIV)

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