Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was preached at our Sunday morning service on Sunday 9th July. The Gospel was Matthew 11:16-19,25-30 . I hope you enjoy reading it! The other week, Miriam had a play date with one of her friends from nursery. They were both so excited beforehand and really looking forward to playing together, and it gave Jen and I the opportunity to sit and talk to another couple about grown-up things rather than Fireman Sam, Ninjago or unicorn-riding mermaids. Now, any of you who have been parents to small children, or been small children yourselves will not be surprised to learn things did not go exactly to plan! Whilst Jen and I and the other couple were happily taking about work, or cars, or the situation in Ukraine (...actually, come to think of it, children might  be better at choosing conversation topics than adults after all), we heard wailing from two different corners of the house. Duly, I investigated. The problem, as it turned out, was down to the choice of game. Miriam want...

This sermon was given at our evensong service on Sunday 18th March. The New Testament reading was  Romans 5:12-21   During the week leading up to the service, both  Ken Dodd  and  Stephen Hawking  passed away. Whenever I prepare to preach a sermon, I look at the readings, and first of all try to find something that strikes me as odd or unusual to preach on. Sometimes, I’ll find that when I’m looking at the readings, that there’s one which is hard to understand, or I need to read several times and do quite a bit of research on to really get what is being said. When that happens, I know that that is what I should be preaching on – if I find it hard to understand, then others might too, and spending my sermon unpacking that difficult reading could be really helpful to at least some of the people who are listening (I hope!). And so, you can imagine how thrilled I was – the sheer joy of the inner voice in my head when I saw that today’s New Testament readi...