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Good News of Great Joy (Luke 2:10-14) (St. Margaret’s Carol Service, December...
Have you ever noticed what a strange sign the angel gave to the shepherds in Luke’s Christmas story? The shepherds are standing on a hillside hiding their eyes from the extraordinary light streaming...
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The Great Miracle (a sermon for Christmas Eve)
Tonight we come here to celebrate a great miracle – the Great Miracle, actually: the greatest miracle that has ever happened in the history of planet earth. John the Evangelist describes this miracle...
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A Different Kind of King (a sermon for Christmas Day on Isaiah 9.2-7 and Luke...
In our Old Testament reading for this morning, from the book of Isaiah, we heard these words: ‘For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders’ (Isaiah 9:6). Or,...
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A New Beginning (sermon for January 11th on Mark 1:9-11)
Question: how many of you here today have actually read Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings? I don’t mean ‘how many of you have watched the movies?’ – I mean actually read the book – all three volumes of...
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A Ladder Between Earth and Heaven (sermon on John 1:43-51)
I wonder if you know the famous Old Testament story of Jacob’s ladder? Let me tell you the story as it appears in the Book of Genesis. Isaac was the son of Abraham and was married to Rebekah, and they...
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Preliminary sermon reflections on Mark 1.14-20
Note that this is not a sermon; this is just my preliminary thought son the gospel passage for this coming Sunday. I still have to check the commentaries and then actually prepare a sermon. What does...
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It’s Time to Make a Decision (a sermon for January 25th on Mark 1.14-20)
I see from my notes that the last time I preached on this gospel passage was nine years ago, the day before the 2006 federal election in which Stephen Harper first became the prime minister of Canada....
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Preliminary sermon thoughts on Mark 1:21-28
This is not a sermon; this is simply my study notes as I have been engaging with the Biblical text today. Hopefully they might be useful to other preachers as we meditate on scripture in preparation...
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Who Is This? (sermon on Mark 1.21-28)
Tom Wright begins his commentary on today’s gospel with this story: Not long ago there was a great disaster at sea. A tourist boat, loaded with cars and holidaymakers, had failed to shut its doors...
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Preliminary sermon thoughts on Mark 9.2-9
This is not a sermon; this is simply my study notes as I have been engaging with the Biblical text today. Hopefully they might be useful to other preachers as we meditate on scripture in preparation...
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‘Listen to Him’ (a sermon on Mark 9.2-9)
There’s a well-known story about a man who fell off a cliff. On the way down he managed to grab a branch, and there he was, suspended a thousand feet above a gorge, with only the branch preserving him...
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This Joyful Eastertide
My favourite Easter hymn. Christ is risen! Happy Easter, everyone!
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Remember the Gospel
Surely one of the most frightening and disorienting experiences we can have as human beings is to begin to be aware that we are losing our memory. How do I know who I am, if I’m not sure where I’ve...
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‘The Victory that Conquers the World’ (a sermon on 1 John 5:3-5)
I want to talk to you for a few minutes this morning about a strange phrase that appears in our second reading: ‘the victory that conquers the world’. To put it in context, let’s look again at 1 John...
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Back to Basics (a sermon on 1 John 5:13-21)
A great English writer once said, “People don’t need to be instructed as much as they need to be reminded’, and I think that’s true. As I get older, there are no doubt new things that I need to learn,...
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People deciding to talk
Today’s post was inspired by this post on Seth Godin’s blog. In fact, it is intentionally structured after that post. Today, most churches that are steadily and successfully spreading the good news and...
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Let’s repeat that lesson
I don’t know about you, but I’m more than a little slow to learn things, and I often have to go through lessons more than once. One of the lessons I often find myself repeating is the lesson not to...
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Three models of church – and they’re all true.
This week the clergy of our Diocese of Edmonton have been enjoying a clergy conference with Doug Pagitt as our theme speaker. I think it’s safe to say that Doug was provocative! I liked some of what he...
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We do Jesus and we do prayer
In a recent interview in ‘Christianity Today’ magazine, Dr. George Wood, General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God in the USA, talks about a conversation he had with a Chinese Pentecostal pastor...
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Why am I a Christian – Part 2
Yesterday I answered the question ‘Why am I a Christian?’ in terms of the process by which I became a Christian, outlining very briefly the story of my conversion as a young teenager. This is a very...
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