Thursday 27 December 2012

Sermon Notes On Revelation

What to do with those days between Christmas and New Year?  Tart up the blog a bit and stick a few more sermon notes up on Scribd.

Back in 2002 I did the bible studies at the Baptist Assembly.  The theme of the assembly was Jesus in Widescreen.  The studies were on Jesus in the Book of Revelation.

As per usual the reason for making them available is that I have been asked for copies of the notes.

Here are the links: 

Tuesday 25 December 2012

Let's Hear It For Materialism At Christmas!



 Sometimes I reckon we Christians are just a bit too po-faced in our celebration of Christmas.  Too restrained. Overly refined.  Way too whispy.  We spend so long slagging off commercialism and excess that we forget that Christmas is the feast of materialism.

Wednesday 19 December 2012

Missional Ecclesiology Article and Sermons on Luke

 I've just uploaded some new stuff to Scribd. I do this form time when people ask me for copies of notes from lectures, sermons etc.  The first piece is an article on Missional Ecclesiology raising some questions about the theology and practice of missional church practitioners.  This first saw light as a lecture to a group of European Baptist theology teachers in the Ukraine back in July 2012.  It had a reincarnation as part of our 1st Tuesday series of public lectures at Luther King House in November 2012. The version here was published in the Journal of European Baptist Studies (Volume 13, Number 2).  I am grateful to the editorial board for permission to publish it in this format.

There are also notes from three sermons on Luke 4 originally preached at the Baptist Assembly in Scotland in October 21012.  The first is entitled What's He Up To? and looks at Jesus' own sense of mission; the second is entitled Which Side Is He On? and deals with Luke's presentation of Jesus' boundary busting approach to mission; number three, Who's The Daddy?, is a reminder that our participation in the ongoing mission of Jesus must include pointing to him as Son of God.  If you want you can also get an audio file of each sermon over at the Baptist Assembly in Scotland web site.

Finally there are notes for a sermon on the preaching of John the Baptist in Luke chapter three.  The sermon was preached at Luther King House chapel on December 11th, 2012.

I know this looks like nothing more than shameless self promotion which is not the case.  It is of course at least in part a bit of brass-necked-look-at-me-ism (which blog isn't?) but it is more than that, honest.  I only stick up here stuff that people seem to have appreciated.  Generally it's also stuff for which I've received requests for notes.  So really it's better to think of what I'm doing as selfless public service.

There's more than a small chance that the sermon notes won't be of much use to those who didn't hear the original.  They tend to be a bit on the sparse side, fleshed out for publication somewhat from what I actually take into the pulpit with me but nonetheless well short of a full script (apart that is for the third of the Luke 4 sermon notes which for some mysterious reason ended as the fullest notes I think I've ever used.)

Anyhow if you think they might of help click the links above or head to Scribd via the box in the side bar to the right and down a bit. If you dont' think they'll be any help you've probably stopped reading by now.

Tuesday 18 December 2012

What's Wrong With Preaching


Thought I'd pop along and try another post.  You know, just to see if I've still go it in me.  So here I am and my, it's dusty in here! 

Anyhow, about preaching …

I'm in the middle of teaching a final year undergrad course on preaching.  I'm also prepping a new Master's level module in the same subject.  So, naturally, I've been thinking quite a bit about preaching.  Here's what I thought …