First - an apology. It's been more than 2 weeks since my last Blog, and I do apologise to anyone who has sought out the Blog in the hope of some fresh thinking. It's been a particularly hectic time - and I'm afraid that in times of pressure, local needs have to give way - even to the Blog!One momentous event has taken place in the meantime - I've had my 41st birthday...which, so everyone tells me, means I am now on the downward slope. That will give more impetus to one of the Songs of Travel that I'm going to sing at my concert on June 23rd "I have Trod the Upward, and the Downward Slope"!
Now - for a bit of thinking stuff. Yesterday, I preached two sermons. The first was a continuation of our sermon series on "Young People of the Bible". We thought about the story of how young David (the same one that fought Goliath and eventually became King of Israel) came to be called to the court of King Saul. He was invited to become a member of the court for three reasons:
a) He could play the lyre (in other words, he had developed one of his God-given gifts to the level that it was good enough for a king)
b) He was a brave warrior (in other words he was courageous about what he believed)
c) He spoke well and was a fine looking young man (in other words he understood the importance of communicating well).
From this I developed some ideas, for our family service, which I hope were inspiring to them. They start from the idea that Christian Young people should, ideally, NOT be like Harry Enfield's character, Kevin the Teenager - but should aim to be more like young David.
If you want to read the text of this sermon - appalling jokes included - then please click here.
My second sermon of the day was at our local Baptist Church, where I tried to rise to the challenge of answering the question "What is the greatest issue facing Christians today". There's some pretty contentious stuff in this sermon - so be warned! However, if you want to try to get inside my fevered brain, please grab a Bible (because you'll need one to follow the sermon), and then click here.
Please feel free to respond to either of these sermons. I'd love to hear what you think!
Tom, just to let you know, I have been unable to access your sermons attached to this post. I'm not sure whether it is a problem my end but thought you might want to check it out just in case no one can see them! Thanks, Kate.
ReplyDeleteThanks Kate.
ReplyDeleteI've just checked the links again and they seem to be working (unlike yesterday when they definately weren't!)
The sermons are in Microsoft Word format - are you using Word? If not, I could save them in another format (like pdf) which might be more reliable.
Thanks for raising this concern!
Best wishes
Tom
how interesting......a priest that lies (and proved, i may say)and moves up in the world
ReplyDelete