Riverside Church Hoddesdon

Jesus was asked by the Pharisee's what the greatest commandment was. His response was to love God with all your heart, soul and mind and the second was to love our neighbour as ourselves. In the second part of his Worship Is message Jamie explores who our neighbour is and how we can learn to love them and introduce them to Jesus.

Jesus was asked by the Pharisee's what the greatest commandment was. His response was to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. The greatest act of our worship, the greatest decision we make, the greatest thought we can conceive is loving God. In this message Pastor Jamie explores what it means to love God with all your heart, soul and mind.

Psalm 84 is a Psalm about living with the presence of God. Pastor Jamie shared about how worship is at the heart of us dwelling, seeking and trusting the presence of God.

Leigh Culf delivered a very powerful and significant word about relationships and how to keep them healthy. In this message Leigh gives very practical insights based on biblical principles that will help every person grow in the relationship they have in life.

During our family service Pastor Jamie built upon the kids talk with this adult talk looking at the faith of Abraham.

We are all wired to worship. But the question is what are we worshipping? In a tropical jungle a man bows before a crude stick figure; in a fantastic Asian temple another burns incense before a richly decorated Buddha. A small group of people meets in an unobtrusive house in a small town to sing and pray together. A man in an affluent suburb spends the entire morning meticulously washing and waxing his foreign-made sports car. A teenage girl listens adoringly to her favorite rock star in her poster-plastered bedroom. All of these people are worshiping. In some cases, the worship is formal and easy to recognize. In others, most people would hesitate to call it worship at all. But everyone worships something or someone, and what you worship has a great influence on what you are. In this message Pastor Jamie begins a season reflecting on worship.

Pastor Dominique John joined with us to bringing an inspiring message and talk to us about going to plant a new Elim church in Koln, Germany. In this message he explores what it takes to bring people to Jesus.

After Jesus is raised from the dead He meets His disciples in an upper room. Showing them His scars and then commissioning them to go He breathes upon them saying 'receive the Holy Spirit.' This was the beginning of new creation, of God breathed living. In this message Pastor Jamie reminds us of the life we have in Christ and how it is easy to lose the vibrancy of it but we can get it back.

Bitesize 15th March - Invest, Sacrifice & Trust. Last Sunday was mothers day and as part of that service we looked at three mothers in the Bible explored how they as mothers invest, sacrifice and trust God. Whether we are parents or not we all can take these three steps with others around us but in particular we can take these steps by helping a mother through Compassion's child sponsorship program.

When we feel ground down and exhausted, Jesus makes us an astonishing offer: a light yoke and an easy burden. And He really means it! It seems a paradox, but genuinely fruitful ministry that will have value for eternity comes only when we enter into that rest through the gateway of brokenness and learn to depend completely on Him.

In the Old Testament, God gave His people the Law. When Jesus came, He stated plainly that He had not come to do away with the Law but to fulfil it. If we understand how this works, we will resist the temptation to set ourselves up as nit-picking “guardians of the truth” but will be guided by the Law that is now written on our hearts. We will humble ourselves before God and before each other.

Our God is an awesome God. But His children can come boldly into His presence without being afraid — we are absolutely secure and safe. And if this God is for us, who can be against us? We need fear no one and nothing except God Himself, and the fear of God is not a cringing mistrust but a deep awe of His great majesty and holiness.

Past experiences, what others say and our struggles to break free of sin can leave us feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong with us. The truth is that we have become completely new people who can break the cycle of returning time and again to the same old sin issue. In Christ we have become completely new creations at the core of our being!

Many of God’s people struggle with a low-grade fever of guilt which makes us “act like we think a Christian should act”. Understanding that we have been declared not guilty once and for all brings us back to a real relationship with God where we can be ourselves and do what we do purely out of love. In Christ we measure up in full to God’s righteous demands!

We all know that we are saved by grace through faith alone. Yet when it comes to living out our Christian lives, it’s easy to slip into thinking that it comes down to obeying a set of rules or living up to certain standards. But God is not looking for slaves who obey because they have to — instead, He wants to free us to rest in His grace so that we serve Him because we really want to.

As we begin a centenary year as a movement Pastor Jamie reflects on Elim's history and then Moses encounter with God. During this encounter God reveals Himself as God of the past (Abraham, Issac, Jacob) and God of the future (I will rescue you and bring you to the promised land). But even more important He is God of the moment, the present. I Am who I Am. It is the present moments, and having the courage to move forward, that determine our future.

Jesus gave many people invitations. Invites to dinner, to follow Him, to trust Him but all of these to invite people to Himself in salvation. Jesus' invitations had power and they changed people. Why do we find it so difficult. In this message Pastor Jamie explores how we can give powerful invitations to people.

Sowing and reaping is a principle throughout scripture and especially in regard to finance. Both Jesus and Paul use grain, seed or marketplace metaphors to describe this principle. When we give we worship and we sow into the kingdom for which God will bless us. Pastor Jamie explore this further in this message.

Discipling children is solely the role of the church or children ministry but primarily it is about us as parents. We are the people who teach and model a Christ centred life and what salvation is and so we need to do it well. In this message Pastor Jamie explores how we can raise kingdom kids.

Godly leadership is key to a healthy, spiritual and strong church. Jesus picked good apostles, when churches where planted Paul sought leaders as quickly as possible. One such church is Ephesus. In his final meeting with the Ephesian elders we find some valuable insights into features of church leadership. Later when Paul sends Timothy to Ephesus he send him a letter and from this we find more insights into character of leaders and a little of the dynamic of team leadership. Jamie explores all these themes in this message.