The mission of the Kingdom- evangelisation invitations

This is our Sunday teaching from Senior Pastor, Tom Thompson. Recorded live at our Sunday Service in Harris Academy Purley, Croydon on Sunday 16th November, 2025.

Below you can find the full talk audio, and a summary article.  

Want to lead a connect group session on this teaching?  The notes are coming here!

Coming Home to the Father

Jesus once told a story about a man with two sons – we often call it “The Prodigal Son”. One son runs off to a distant country, blows his inheritance on wild living, and ends up hungry, alone and ashamed. The other son stays at home, works hard, keeps the rules – but inside he’s bitter, resentful and distant from his dad.

Both sons are lost. Both sons need to come home.

The younger son represents those moments we know we’ve messed up. We’ve squandered opportunities, hurt people we love, drifted far from God and discovered, “I’m not as good at running my own life as I thought.” Jesus’ good news is stunningly simple: the Father is not standing at the door with a list of your failures. He’s watching for you, running towards you, wrapping you in a robe, putting a ring on your finger and sandals on your feet. He’s not interested in giving you a bad review – He’s interested in bringing you from dead to alive, from lost to found.

But Jesus also speaks to the “older sons” – those of us who are in church, serving, giving, doing all the right things, yet quietly relating to God more as a boss than a Father. We keep score on ourselves and on others. We live as if God is mainly interested in what He can get out of us. And all the while, the Father is coming out to us too, pleading, “My child, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. Come in and enjoy me.”

There is, wonderfully, a third Son in this story: the One telling it. Jesus, the true Son of God, shows us what it looks like to live every day knowing, “I am loved by my Father.” By His Spirit, He invites us into that same relationship.

Maybe your simple prayer this week could be:

“Holy Spirit, help me know God as my Father.”

Start there. Let Him recalibrate your heart. Whether you feel like the younger son or the older one, the door is open. The Father is waiting. Come home.