One of the things I’ve enjoyed about going along to an Anglican church this year is knowing that in every service, every week, we’ll hear from the breadth of Scripture before anyone even gets up to preach. There’s always a Psalm, an Old Testament reading, an epistle, and then the capstone, a Gospel reading. Every [...]
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brett jones – preparation: prepared and revealed
The dichotomy between careful preparation and spontaneous delivery in preaching has consumed many a congregation as they pursue authentic revelation. For some, the discipline and detail of extended preparation offers due recognition to the great responsibility of preaching. Other times it has seemed that the voices promoting the spontaneity of the Spirit’s inspiration have been [...]
rod thompson – living in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation
Miroslav Volf contends that God’s people in current times and places must choose to live “against the tide” – a tide characterised by the inner pull toward self-absorption and away from care for others, impelled by what he calls a “culture stripped of grace” (Volf, Against the Tide (Eerdmans, 2010) xi-xii). In different ways, in [...]
geoff new – the rising cost of electricity
I wonder how many sermons could still be preached this week if the national power grid failed early Sunday morning. I wonder how many preachers would be wailing and gnashing their teeth because their sermon depended upon PowerPoint, YouTube or that must-see-movie-clip? But now there is no data-projector which means there is no multi-media which [...]
miriam bier – handle with care
I believe in biblical preaching. I believe, I think, in biblical preaching from the entire Bible. I believe that God can, and does, in some mysterious manner, Speak through Scripture and its faithful exposition. And yet, there is all sorts of muck in there that – perhaps appropriately? – seldom rates a mention in weekly [...]
andrea mcdougall – preaching from the difficult texts.
How does the church help people to read the difficult parts of the Psalms? I come from a church tradition which regularly has 3 (or 4) Bible readings every Sunday in church – but many of the more difficult texts never come up for reading in church, and consequently are never preached on, as they’re [...]
