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Romans: It’s a tough book with some big ideas e.g. justification, sanctification, glorification. These ideas come from a big God and are at the heart of our faith. If you can grasp Romans you will have a massive understanding of the Christian faith. Remember that this book was written for a church and for people just like us.

There are some fantastic resources on Romans;
Romans by RC Sproul in Focus on the Bible series published by CFP
The Message of Romans by John Stott, published by IVP in The Bible Speaks Today series
The Power of God by James Philip, published by Gray – quite rare but outstanding
Third Millennium Ministries is thoroughly excellent for all bible resources
The Gospel Coalition website is also outstanding!

The RBT community group question sheet and also the outline for Romans can be found on the downloads page.

RBT (Reading the Bible Together) was launched at the beginning of September. It is such a simple idea: the whole congregation read the same part of the bible at the same time and talk about it! There really is nothing more to it.

The aim is to facilitate a culture in which the Bible is spoken about naturally in all church groups and when we meet informally and ‘accidentally’ during the week. If we listen to God speaking to us through the Bible then we will be changed as individuals and the church at Smithton will change.

We will do some things to help:

• Set the Bible book, e.g. September is Matthew, October is Romans
• Give an outline of the book each month
• Supply a sheet each month with 7 questions which we ask ourselves

These questions are:

Through God speaking to you through the Bible:

1. What did you learn about Jesus? (Luke 24:45-47)

2. What did you learn about yourself? (James 1:23, 2 Tim 3:16-17)

3. How were you corrected and rebuked and how do you feel you need to change to be the woman/man of God, thoroughly equipped for every good work? (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

4. What did you learn from the scripture that will help you to endure and be encouraged? (Romans 15:4)

5.What did you learn that will teach you to do works of service to build up Smithton church? (Ephesians 4:11-16)

6. What have you learned that helps you to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind? (Matthew 22:37–40)

7. What has helped you to love your neighbour as yourself? (Matthew 22:37-40)

Preach from a passage in the book on the first Sunday of each month (when possible).

Focus community group teaching and discussion on the relevant book

Dedicate a community group to listening to what God has said to us all through the scriptures that month.

Simple really!

You can download the questions from the download page of the website.

Ruth Box, the Scottish Mobiliser for AIM, is coming to speak to us on Wednesday 26th September. She will be giving an update on Marsali Campbell’s work at Dwelling Places in Uganda, as well as speaking on the wider ministry of AIM in the continent of Africa. She will also show how people can pray, give and go to serve with AIM.

We have a number of our congregation who are housebound due to illness or old age and they are delighted to benefit from a Meetupcall telephone conference service which connects them to two live services each Sunday.

The Meetupcall conference allows those folks to participate in worship and to connect with our church family and is not limited geographically.

Anyone that would like to make use of this service should please contact Ali, either by phone or email or by using the contact form here on the website.

We were pleased to have Argyris Petrou visit us recently and now have a new newsletters from him. Argyris is a professor at the Greek Bible College in Athens and as well as lecturing and mentoring Bible students at the college, Argyris also does itinerant preaching to churches with no pastors;

News from Argyris in Athens

We have partnered with our friends at 10 of Those to provide our very own online church bookstore. The strap line of 10 of Those tells it all, ‘Trusted resources at great prices.’ They will not sell anything which isn’t decent so we can trust them implicitly. We have started with a selection of various books covering different topics, as well as giving help in the current Smithton sermon series on the Gospel of John and also Jonah.

Good, trusted and spiritually building books are now only a click away.
Clicking the image below will take you to the Smithton page on 10 of Those;