Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was written for our service on April 16th 2023; the second Sunday of Easter. The Gospel was  John 20:19-31 . I hope you enjoy reading it! My little girl, Miriam loves a bedtime story. I think, if we’re honest, we all do, don’t we? Mine - to be honest - are often televised, and Isaac and Jen both have Kindles, which I’m not sure either of them would ever want to live without again. For Miriam, though, it’s a picture book. Two of her favourites are by the same author. When I say her name, many of you will know of her. But, even if you don’t recognise her name, I’m sure you’ll know of her books. The author is  Jill Murphy . She wrote ' The Worst Witch' books, which Miriam is a bit too young for, but I’m sure will love reading in a few years. She also wrote two series of books about animal families; a family of elephants called Large, and a family of bears - called (either unimaginitively, or very cleverly) Mr Bear, Mrs Bear and Baby Bear. Miriam’s favourite books are...

This sermon was given at our Sunday morning service on Sunday 19th March, when we celebrated Mothering Sunday. The Old Testament reading was  Exodus 2:1-10  and the Gospel was  John 19:25-27 . Did you know that today is not, in fact, Mother’s Day? That sounds like the start of a sermon from someone who forgot to buy a card for their mum today, doesn’t it? Thankfully, I remembered, and my kids remembered, so I don’t need to try to cover up anyone’s forgetfulness with a technicality – I’m really not sure it would go down well at all, and I would not recommend trying it! But, it is true though. Today is Mothering Sunday – not Mother’s Day – and from the perspective of the Church, there is a difference. Mother’s Day started in the US in the early 1900s, and it was originally a day for mothers to stand together and ask that their sons and husbands would no longer be killed in war. The day took off in popularity, transforming into a day to celebrate and be thankful for moth...

This sermon was given at our Sunday morning service on 19th February 2023, the last Sunday before Lent. I hope you enjoy reading it, and don't find the puns (too!) cringe-worthy! The gospel reading was Matthew 17:1-9 . The astute amongst you may well have spotted a theme running through our readings today.   All of our readings, from the Old Testament, to our Gospel and the other New Testament reading from 2 Peter mentioned one thing. If we had read out today’s psalm as well, we’d have heard that that theme in the psalm too. That theme is ‘mountains’. And mountains have certainly given me ‘ summit’ to think about in preparing my sermon today.   Oh – sorry, were you not ‘ inclined’ to find that joke funny? I thought it was the ‘ peak’ of humour, myself but maybe you’re just not appreciating how hill- arious I actually am? I guess I’d better leave the mountain jokes here, and ‘ ev-a-rest ’.   I’m so sorry. Feel free to come at me after the service today with ...

This sermon was written for our Sunday morning service on 22nd January. In the news headlines recently had been much talk of strike action across various industries in the UK . It was also the Sunday within the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity . The previous Sunday, we had had a guest speaker come to talk to us about the Inclusive Church movement. The Gospel that Sunday was Matthew 4:12-23 . I hope you enjoy reading the sermon! If you’ve been paying any attention to the news at all over recent months, you will have heard of strikes across many and various trade unions across our country. There has been worker-led disruption across many industries for the last six months or so; some taking up more headlines than others: transport strikes, barristers, and the postal service; other high profile strikes across our healthcare system; and schools and universities – but there have also been strikes across local government, the refuse industry, the financial conduct authority, and my own ...