"The wild beasts and angels in the wilderness with Jesus and Satan give us an insight into the nature of Jesus’ ministry as it will unfold over the coming years, as an apocalyptic battle between good and evil, with him coming to the world to cast out evil, and to bring release from those powers that oppress and distort humanity." - Simon Woodman preaching at Bloomsbury, 29 December 2019. Read more

The move from priesthood to prophecy is the move from ritual to action. Faith will no longer be based upon the remembrance of what God has done in times gone by, but upon what God is doing by his grace in the present. Read more

At our Carol Celebration on Friday (the day the election result was announced) Simon gave a short sermon on Herod. Read more

"The comfort proclaimed by Isaiah to the exiles in Babylon was no shallow Pollyanna-ish message of hope. Rather, it was a comfort based on the faithfulness of God. Because even if God’s people are unfaithful to God, God remains Faithful to them." - Simon Woodman. Read more

Within the Christian story, the hope of Jeremiah is fulfilled in Jesus, who embodies God’s righteousness and justice, bringing hope to all those whose lives are lost in despair. Read more

"John invites his readers to see themselves as citizens of the new Jerusalem, as citizens of the dawning kingdom of God.He invites them to become participants with Christ in bringing this new city into being. New Jerusalem only becomes a reality when we live it into being, one day, one choice at a time." Read more

"The emphasis in Jesus’ parable is not on the pearl itself, it is on the act of seeking. The metaphor for the Kingdom here is not an object, but an action. The kingdom here is experienced through seeking, and finding, and sacrificing, and acting decisively." Read more

"John uses the metaphor of the millennium to provide his audience with the perspective they need to understand the relationship between martyrdom and victory in Christ. Death is not the end, death is not defeat, the martyrs are not lost to God, they reign with Christ. And every unjust death of martyr and victim is another nail in the eternal coffin of the beast." Simon Woodman preaching for Remembrance Sunday at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church. Read more

"While questions of justice remain unanswered, God will challenge us to reflect on social and ecclesiastical structures that fall short of the insight that we all, without exception, bear God's image."  The Revd Dr Karl Rutlidge, preaching at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church on 3rd November 2019. Read more

"I have had challenges reconciling my Christian faith with my sexuality, and many people have believed that it was not possible for me to be a citizen of heaven because of my sexuality, and indeed the colour of my skin... But I just stick with Christ! "We have to stand for justice, for the value and importance of all people. Let us be the generation that brings about the end of discrimination of all kinds." - Revd Jide Macauley, preaching at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, 27 October 2019 Read more

The Kingdom of Heaven is not a narrative of victimhood leading to policies of exclusion. It’s not a story of us-and-them. It’s not a story of us being good, and them being evil. Rather, it is a story of inclusion, of radical and disruptive intervention in the global ecosystems of violence. The Kingdom of Heaven is not the few faithful fish caught in someone else’s nasty net; it is the net itself, trawling the world and gathering everything in its path. Read more

"What is real madness? Perhaps it is when we declare that someone filled with the Spirit of God is fundamentally bad, mad, or disordered. Perhaps this is the unforgivable sin, and perhaps we commit it every time someone vulnerable or wounded is declared disordered." Read more

"It is in amplifying and advocating for the voiceless in our community that our part in being transformational good news for the poor really lies." - Lynne Cullens, preaching at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church as part of our series on 'Inclusive Church' Read more

"We are called to be good stewards of the grace of God. The gifts we have been given are to be given out.... again and again... be they physical, emotional or spiritual." - Luke Dowding Read more

"Do we have the bravery and humility to be followers as well as to lead? Where is God calling us to next?" - Dawn Cole-Savidge Read more

"To reduce Christ's life, teaching, death, and resurrection to the 'Great Commission', is to dismiss what the gospels are trying to teach us about how to be and make disciples." - Revd Dawn Cole-Savidge, preaching at Bloomsbury on 15th September 2019 Read more

'Redemption is not about going back to before the fallen world began, it is about realising that we are invited to share in the re-patterning of our world...' Read more

"The Book of Revelation gives us an image of empire as a self-destructive entity, that brings upon itself the fitting judgement for its idolatrous activities. How can we hear this warning for the empires of our time?" - Simon Woodman. Read more

"On occasions, churches have been tempted to pursue what is safe rather than what is right..." Read more

"What do we need to let go to obtain the joy of the kingdom of heaven? What are we carrying that saps the joy of life?" Read more

'The environmental devastation in the Book of Revelation is not personally targeted punishment aimed at those who have denied the lordship of Christ, neither is it God punishing the earth for its opposition to the kingdom of Christ. Rather, it is a warning to the nations of the effects of their ongoing investment in empire, in the hope that the nations of the earth will ‘repent’ and turn from their exploitative and destructive practices.' - Simon Woodman Read more

"We must include everybody, there is no opt out clause... because we are being shaped into the likeness of Christ's body" - Revd Glen Graham, preaching at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church on Inclusion and Disability, 4 August 2019 Read more

"The blood that flows from the wine-press represents the very real and bloody human consequences of humanity’s infatuation with the beast. This isn’t a picture of God doing violence to humans, it’s a picture of God’s judgement on the violence humans do to one another." - Simon Woodman Read more

"The kingdom of heaven is like a virus, which spreads throughout the body and against which even antivirals don’t work." - Simon Woodman preaching at the Bloomsbury Church Anniversary Service Read more

'I don’t want to call into question the historicity of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but the Book of Revelation offers a slightly different take on the ark’s location.' - Simon Woodman Read more

"This is a story about God, about cake, about giving up, about being, about running away, about running out of ourselves, and about listening..." - Andy Fitchet Read more

"You don't have to be afraid, because God is not angry" - Dawn Cole-Savidge. What is your heart filled with? Read more

The kingdom of heaven is like a strand of DNA, so tiny only electron microscopes can see it; but it gives shape to all the glories of nature from the eye to the brain, from the rose to the mighty oak. Read more

"We have exchanged the ethic of the Spirit for laws set in stone, and in so doing have missed the fact that God has long gone on ahead of us, out there into the world beyond us, drawing all kinds of people to himself, and pouring out his Spirit again and again on all flesh." - Simon Woodman preaching at #BloomsburyBaptist Read more

As part of our series exploring what it means for us to be members of Inclusive Church, we were delighted to welcome as our guest preacher Rosemarie Davidson-Gotobed, National Minority Ethnic Vocations Officer for the Church of England. Read more

"Our prayers are ushering in the kingdom of God, one life at a time. A world in which a prayer to God has been offered, is a world in which a prayer to the Emperor has been denied. And if we can learn to turn our eyes from the lures of the empire in our world, with all its seductions an coercions, then we are also learning to turn our lives from the violence that the empire generates, and are bringing into being the peaceable kingdom of Christ for which we pray." - Simon Woodman. Read more

"With all of the scientific evidence mounting up, why is it so difficult for us to realise that we are facing an environmental crisis? We have to grapple with that sense of privilege that we believe we have, as human beings, over the rest of creation. We have to learn to see ourselves as part of this creation in a new way, and we have to learn to bring the language of community into our relationship with the created order in the same way that we live in community with one another. We need to learn what it means to live in community with the whole of creation." - Paul Martin Read more

"What if the good news of the gospel is that everyone is in? What if all things, all people, all creatures under heaven, fall within the universal, redeeming, and forgiving love of God? Read more

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"‘And your religion’s gone wrong too’, says God. ‘You think I want solemn assemblies, offerings and incense? You’re wrong! The worship I want is that you do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed... but you are failing in that, sinful nation! … What a useless vineyard, cut it down! Read more

"When we come to read Revelation today, we may find it helpful to do with John’s text what he did with his own scriptures. That is, to bring our own world to the world of the text, submitting our lives to its imaginative and transformatory effects, learning to see the world the way John saw it, and in so doing gaining heaven’s perspective on our own earthly situations." - Simon Woodman Read more

“Who we are is remembered by God, and held fast eternally by God as part of God’s creative, dynamic being. God remembers us, and everyone who has ever lived has a place in God’s mind. Nothing is lost, everything is redeemed, all sins are forgiven, and eternity is ours.” - Simon Woodman Read more

"All too often we live as though the 'good news' Jesus proclaimed was a message of middle class guilt and mild self-loathing, rather than one of triumph in the face of death, and joy in the face of sorrow. But there is good news to be found on Palm Sunday, and there is joy to be found in following Jesus as he marches with his followers to bring about a new world." - Simon Woodman, preaching at Bloomsbury on Palm Sunday Read more

'The journey to inclusion starts when we realise that the image of the black Christ, the female Christ, the gay or trans Christ, the homeless or disabled Christ, are not idolatrous perversions, but actually are authentic representations of the diversity of the body of Christ.' - Simon Woodman. Read more

"Many times when we love, we love other people in ways in which we like to be loved ourselves.[...] Love is never centered in me and what I want to do, it’s centered in the other." Read more

"There are no cultural barriers that render God accessible only to white middle aged men aged 18 to 55. Just a door that will be opened." Read more

"We can change this world through love. And that is the voice of God." Read more

"Where justice principles are applied, as in the case of a Jubilee, there remains the opportunity for human flourishing" Read more

"When we get who Jesus really is and what he really did and what that means for us to be together, then we can deal with the provovation. We can provoke each other. We can share honestly what's going on in our lives" Read more

"So perhaps the author of Proverbs is referring not to the path planning of spreasheets, agendas and 5 year plans, but perhaps of the authentic millennial who chooses values above paychecks, authenticity above ease" Read more

"It's difficult when a Victoria sponge becomes your weapon of hope, doesn't it really?" Read more

"We now live by the story of 'my right', 'my freedom to choose' - that's the most significant thing about my person - 'I choose therefore I am'" Read more

“The God who is interested only is supplying needs is a rather stingy God” Read more

“These and many, many more are our opportunities for glimpses and echoes, catching a sense of God” Read more

"These epiphanies don't happen in isolation, they happen in community with other people." Read more

"Does our belief in one God of all the earth rule out the possibility that others might know and worship the true God in ways that seem very alien, or even unacceptable, to us?" Read more