In 2013 I had been Minister of Highbury Congregational Church in Cheltenham for just over twenty-two years. For the third time in my ministry there we embarked on a planning process looking forward for the next five years and more. Within a couple of years I was to have my sabbatical, and five years later I was retire. In part we were planning for a future for the church once the long ministry I had shared with my wife came to an end.
Alongside that planning, and as an integral part of it, I preached a series of sermons on Acts. Each week I put up my sermon, together with the full service notes I used that day.
These are rough and ready notes, but take us through Acts as we mapped the church of tomorrow. Though the studies that led to this book had not begun fully, as you can see, they had in many ways already begun. Indeed, I had been exploring the world of the New Testament on our doorstep in my preaching and in my teaching since Gloucester celebrated the 1900th anniversary in 1998 of its recognition by the Roman emperor Nerva as a colonia. Luke goes out of his way to explain that Philippi had that very same status (Acts 16:12).