Not for the first time, I recently had a conversation with a preacher in which that person spoke of their practice of avoiding difficult texts and questions in their preaching. So for example, this person avoids questions of sexuality, marriage, eternal destruction, and difficult controversial moral issues. I pushed back, but with little effect. […]
I have now done 9 months “cold turkey” without preaching. I didn’t expect it to be this long. It is officially the longest I have gone without preaching since I began as a pastor in 2000. Anyway, it has been good for me to be a listener instead. On top of sermons at my local […]
John is a Scottish minister with whom I worked for three months when he was visiting Auckland about twenty years ago. He was acting as my “assistant,” even though he was a lot more experienced than me, and he handled the situation with grace and wisdom. I learned a lot from John, and we have […]
I don’t like the bible, oh no . . . Let’s preach the Bible, big, mouthfuls of body building, stamina inducing, breath taking chunks. Let’s climb steep heights of dizzying proportions and challenging ascents of tricky terrain. Let’s take whole books and whole testaments and even the whole thing in single bite sermons. Let’s preach […]
In a New Testament Introductory course, we recently looked at Phil 1:3-11 – Paul’s prayer for the ekklesia. As we considered Paul’s language and ideas we noticed him shift the believer’s eyes beyond their present challenges to the eschaton where they will stand complete (v.6), and be pure and blameless (v.10), having produced a harvest […]
I recently heard Dr Ian Paul speak on the subject “Has Preaching Had its Day?”. It’s a really interesting listen, and I recommend you take a bit of time to listen and consider it. In his presentation, Ian presents seven objections to the preaching as we know it. He then responded to them. The first […]
Everyone’s got an opinion. Whether it’s climate change, Trump, Israel, or just about any hot potato of an issue, our social interactions are coloured by the positions we take. Social media has only made us more adept at publishing our opinions for the world to see, and I’m certainly not immune to that. All of […]
(A version of this blog first appeared on Candour) Allow me several lead-ins to the one topic. I am still collecting my thoughts on the subject and so to help clarify my thoughts, I need to meander through some doorways. The first is from Jeremiah 4:16: This is what the Lord says: ‘Stand at the […]
Earlier this year I officiated the funeral service of a young woman in our church who had committed suicide. She was in her 20s and had a young family—a husband, a 7-month old daughter and a 2-yr old son. After the birth of both her children she had severe post-natal depression, with the second time […]
We’ve just moved to a new church. After 6 years of being the “main preacher” it’s been interesting to enter a church as the new family, and not the new pastor. Firstly, that has meant I can now take my turn in the creche, meaning I hear half as many sermons as are preached. Secondly, […]
