New Kid on the Blog

Today's sermon had a lot of reaction, and because our usual podcaster is out of commission for a while I thought it might be helpful to post it on the New Kid Deep Stuff blog - so here's a taster, and you might want to go off and visit following the link at the end of this bit :-) Comments, as always, welcome - join the conversation here or at the original post.. . Readings The Conversion of St Paul (2015) Year B RCL Principal To Be Converted, or continued, or both… Today is, as you may have guessed, the festival of the Conversion of St Paul.  So I am going to begin by asking - as one should to an Anglican audience - "how many of you have been converted…?!??!" No, not really. I could tell you my conversion story, though… imagine a tubby little boy who looks just like me but without a beard, oh and mousey browny-blond hair.  This little lad is in a small chapel tent in a field of tents in a place called Polzeath (or Polzeth as many call it) and he’s chatti...

Now I am not saying anything I have not said before, in fact I have even used some of the illustrations before - eg the Ray Harryhausen reference - but why this sermon for The Presentation of Christ has felt so difficult to write is a surprise to me.  Perhaps it is the way I've felt the need to put lots of things I have discussed over years into one place.  Also, I seem to be 'outing' myself as an uber liberal - but I am not too concerned about that... The Presentation of Christ Presentation (20 14 ) Year A RCL Principal Malachi 3.1-5 Hebrews 2.14-18 Luke 2.22-40 A Sword Will Pierce your Own Heart also God is here! You’ve already heard that phrase a few times this morning.   That bold proclamation which is the foundation of today’s Gospel reading – when Anna and Simeon encounter the baby Jesus and proclaim ‘God is here’ – both in word and in action.   Simeon through the words we have come to know as the Nunc Dimitus, Anna with words of p...

We use words, titles, images and ideas in our Christian lingo that perhaps don't mean what we think they mean.  Or what they used to mean.  Or what we want them to mean.  Or what we are afraid they mean. This Sunday is the festival of  'The Reign of Christ', at least that is how it is known in the Anglican Church of Canada. In other traditions it is know as the 'Festival of Christ the King'.  The idea of calling God 'King' is fraught with difficulty, as is the use of so many of the images that many of us who have been immersed in Christian culture for some while tend to use. So I felt the need to preach on some of the difficulties with the image of Christ as King, to touch on the issues of gender and power that come with such a title, to consider exactly what type of ruler we might consider Christ to be, and to respond to a conversation (some might even call it an argument) that has been taking place on my Facebook page following a status I posted a fe...

Here is the sermon for Palm Sunday - it has been a while since I posted anything to the New Kid Deep Stuff Blog, though I have a load of sermons I have been thinking of sharing! I know that parts of this sermon I have recycled, but it was extensively rewritten for our shared service for Anglicans and Baptists here in Kilmington. Sometimes the core of an idea is worth using again and adapting for a particular situation! I have a second sermon preached on that day which I may post sometime.... Year C Palm Sunday 2010 What did they think they were doing? As we hear again the familiar story of the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, as we imagine the crowds pressing against him, the shouts, the palm trees being stripped of leaves, cloaks laid on the ground. As we imagine the air ringing with the sound of acclamation ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’. As we see this rag tag collection of ordinary people, along with prostitutes, tax-collectors, fishermen, labourers, fanatics, religious t...

Some conversations I have had lately, along with some listening I have been doing to the Mars Hill Bible Church podcast (the cool Mars Hill with Rob Bell, not the other one) whilst driving around, mainly to Exeter, over the past week or so has got me thinking again about a perennial problem for both ministers and the Church in general. Well, not necessarily a perennial problem, perhaps more of an ongoing issue. What do people think of us? I have an image problem, by which I mean I worry too much over what people think about me. I am one of those aware enough of my own insecurities to know that I like to be liked. I worry that people might not like me, or that I might offend people. There are good reasons and bad for this - the good reasons are that I don't want to be a barrier to people finding out about faith, or that I might skew perceptions of the Church by the way I present myself and share the Gospel. The bad reasons are all tied up with when I feel insecure in myself an...

There are various reasons why I've not been blogging for a couple of weeks, but just to keep you all in suspense, the likelihood is that I won't be doing much for the next few days either, sorry. Something has cropped up that is preoccupying me, but that I can't quite say anything about yet. When the time comes I suspect you won't be able to shut me up, but for now I am afraid that this all consuming thought isn't for general consumption... So, here's sermons that I should have posted before... One from last Sunday, now I must confess this to be a rewrite, I was poorly last week, and didn't have time or energy to write a full sermon, so used the shape of a previous one and built on it. Easter 5 (2009) Year B RCL Principal John 15.1-8 Pruning & Growing As anyone who has talked to me about growing, sowing, weeding and reaping will know, I am not a gardener – and one of the attractions of moving to the Five Alive Mission Community was a generous offer by...

This was the sermon I gave at our excellent Mission Community service last Sunday, a wonderful event which was extremely well attended and a great reminder of the joy of being together in Christ! As usual, this is just a taster with the full text available on New Kid Deep Stuff . Lent 5 Passion Sunday (2009) Year B RCL Principal Jeremiah 31.31-34 Psalm 51.1-13 Hebrews 5.5-10 John 12.20-33 Living with PASSION I don’t know what sort of things you are passionate about. When I say passionate I mean that you feel grasped by them, unable to let them go – you want to spend lots of time doing something that excites and inspires you. Perhaps your passion is Music? Movies? TV Soaps is a very popular choice! I am passionate about a number of things, one of them being my wife and children, you may have got the idea that I am passionate about guitar playing (whether or not I am terribly good at it) – but something that has become a passion of mine is motorcycling. I love riding my motorcycle, I li...

As promised, the catch up continues Epiphany (2008) Come to the king, whoever you are… I don’t know if you remember the Christmas publicity campaign from a few years ago, one which caused some controversy at the time, but being broad minded myself I rather liked it. It had a cartoon picture of three outrageous faces with a caption which went something like this: You’re in a stable, you’ve just given birth and now three kings have turned up with presents for the baby – talk about a bad hair day.... Of course, it’s trying to get us to think about the familiar story of the arrival of the wise men in a different way, which most of us who are responsible for preaching and teaching during our major Christian festivals are always trying to do! I think that, and the fact that ‘bad hair day’ is one of my favourite modern phrases, means that this ad really appealed to me, despite the fact that various green ink users in Tonbridge Wells got very excited about the whole campaign. [more]

I thought I would share my first sermon in these new parishes, preached a couple of weeks ago it was something of a nerve racking experience! As always, it starts here and is carried on at New Kid Deep Stuff Zephaniah 1.7,12-18 1 Thessalonians 5.1-11 Matthew 25.14-30 2 before Advent (2008) Year A RCL Principal Risking our Talents It’s somewhat nerve racking to be preaching a first sermon anywhere – but especially in one’s new parishes. This is the point where people could start thinking ‘oh my goodness, what kind of Vicar do we have?’ – Which may or may not be a good thing! And it doesn’t help that the reading set for today, the Parable of the Talents, is one of the more difficult parables we could encounter! It’s not difficult to understand, the two servants who were willing to take a risk with the talents they were left with are rewarded, the one who lost his bottle and buried his talent in the back garden is punished. That’s clear enough, it’s what it might mean for us that might m...

A longer talk, part of a series on parables, as always continued on New Kid Deep Stuff Luke 15 Coming home – the parable of the lost son Jesus was a consummate storyteller. It may seem obvious to us now, but the way he used parables was, though not unusual in the ancient world, certainly striking and filled with a depth and meaning upon meaning that even now through the ages resonates with us as we try and know him more and seek his will and the Kingdom of God that he proclaims. And today we are faced with one of the most striking and, in some ways to the leaders of his day, disturbing parables that he told. The parable of the prodigal son, as it is known, or perhaps more accurately the prodigal father or the lost son (as it is headed in the New International Version that we have here). Of course, like most Biblical passages, it helps to have a bit of background, a bit of context to add to our understanding and, whilst we could probably never know the definitive meaning of any parable ...

It's time for another sermon... This one was written for my interview on Thursday, or at least the basis of it was (preaching a sermon at the start of an interview is definitely a first for me, and I was more nervous than i have ever been at the start of a sermon! And during!) I fleshed it out a bit for Sunday, and extrapolated more as I went along, but here's the basic text, or rather (as always) an introduction with more to be found at New Kid Deep Stuf f... Matthew 11.16-19, 25-30 Tricky Jesus In my wife’s room as she was growing up there was a picture of Jesus surrounded by animals and children – a wonderful example of Victorian Kitsch, all soft focus and shiny blonde Jesus – around it was a line from a well known hymn which said ‘all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all...’ It was a meant to be a comfort, a picture of a Jesus who welcomed the vulnerable and who projected an aura of love and acceptance. It didn’t possess any particular artistic merit, but w...

Last Sunday of the Easter Season... Time for another sermon, this one is a rewrite of a previously preached sermon (something I rarely do, but i wanted to ground the opening in my own experience!). In its preached form is contained a fair amount of ad lib around the script - particularly around the fact that Jesus was so difficult to pin down when people asked questions he tended to respond with another question, or a parable, or a challenge. Anyway, here's the introduction, with more at New Kid Deep Stuff (click on [more]) Oh, and one of the hearers said that they liked this, worth noting because that's something like a 100% improval rate in terms of how many usually comment on sermons after the service... That might not be strictly true, but I sometimes wonder if people listen to sermons in the same way that I do - not very well :-) Easter 6 (2008) Year A RCL Euch Acts 17.22-31 John 14.15-21 Keep my commandments One of my favourite cities is York, we have great friends t...

A sermon for Palm Sunday, as promised! Year A Palm Sunday 2008 Matthew 21.1-11 What did they think they were doing? As we hear again the familiar story of the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, as we imagine the crowds pressing against him, the shouts, the palm trees being stripped of leaves, cloaks laid on the ground. As we imagine the air ringing with the sound of acclamation ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’. As we see this rag tag collection of ordinary people, along with prostitutes, tax-collectors, fishermen, labourers, fanatics, religious types following this odd figure seated upon a donkey, a beast of burden. As we wonder at the adulation of the crowd and the song of people we should ask ourselves – what did they think they were doing? Jesus came into Jerusalem, we are told, on this wave of popular support. But they were an odd group to have considered taking on an occupying army, if that is indeed what they expected to do. I mean, if they were declaring Jesus king, as the inference of...

Here, only a few days late, is the sermon I preached at my early service on Sunday Lent 1 (2008) Year A RCL Principal Genesis 2.15-17; 3.1-7 Romans 5.12-19 Matthew 4.1-11 Short Cuts The great thing about living somewhere for any length of time is that you get to know the area, and you find your way around it in such a way that you learn all the short cuts. Having lived in London on and off for twelve or so years I used to be quite adept at find the back routes to places which avoided the traffic – or at least, may have taken us a little out of the way, but meant we did not have to sit behind a row of cars for ages. I am just getting to the stage now where I am getting the hang of where to go and when during the day to avoid traffic. Though I have to say that riding the motorbike has made me lazy, as I rarely find myself stuck behind anything when I can nip around the side. [more]

Sunday's talk for our Evening Worship.... Team Evening Worship 3rd Feb 2008 Exodus 13.17-14.en d Discipleship: To be a Pilgrim I can remember a day my life changed – after a few hours of delay (something for which my wife is still struggling to find complete forgiveness) I found myself driving at a slightly faster speed than I am used to up the road past Wood Green to Hinchinbrooke Hospital, where I rushed through the corridors with a very pregnant, very ‘in labour’ wife and voila – well, not really ‘voila’ there was a fair amount of pushing, breathing, pushing and even some shouting involved – just under an hour later (yes, I had left it a bit late) a little person appeared who (along with her brother) has never let life be the same again. [more]