New Sermon Series in the Morning

In addition to our EVENING CHURCH Preaching Program (below), we are working our way through Romans in the mornings at St Philips. Martin Luther famously wrote in his Preface to Romans:

It is well worth a Christian's while not only to memorize it word for word, but also to occupy himself with it daily, as though it were the daily bread of the soul. It is impossible to read or to meditate on this letter too much or too well. The more one deals with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes.

Here is the Series:

ROMANS: Making Sense.

11 April (R 1:1-17)

Making Sense of Romans

18 April: (R 1-2)

Making Sense of Wrath and Judgement

25 April: (R 3:9-31)

Making Sense of Justice and Grace

2 May: (Speaker: Toby Neal on Matt 13:44)

Finding Happiness

9 May: (R 4:1-3, 16-25)

Making Sense of the Old Covenant

16 May: (R 5:1-11)

Making Sense of Love

23 May: (R 5:4) Pentecost Sunday

Making Sense of The Holy Spirit

30 May: (M 6:5-18) Trinity Sunday

The Ethical Implications of the Trinity

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Pic is a page from Paul's letter to the Romans from the Chester Beatty museum.

Sermon Series in Evening: Sermon on the Mount

A Friend of mine became a Christian by reading Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. He said that "Finally, someone wasn't changing the goal posts!" He said: "Reading Jesus is like looking into the eyes of God and falling in." So we are going to spend a fair amount of time just really meditating on each part of it. What do you think?

11 April: (M 5:1-12)

Looking into the Eyes of God

18 April: (M 5:13-17)

Salt of the Earth

25 April: (M 5:20-26, 43-48)

Surpassing Anger and Enemies

2 May: Speaker: Huw Jones

The Reason for Music

9 May: (M 5:27-30, 33-37)

Surpassing Lust and Lies

16 May: (M 5:31-32)

Surpassing Divorce

23 May: (M 6:1-4)

Taking Care: Poverty

30 May: (M 6:5-18)

Taking Care: Prayer

6 June: (M 6:19-24)

Taking Care: Money

13 June: (M 6:25-34)

Taking Care: Anxiety

20 June: (M 7:1-6)

Taking Care: Judgmentalism

27 June: (M 7:7-14)

Two Paths: Finding the Right One

4 July: (M 7:15-20)

Two Trees: Discovering the Nourishing One

11 July: (M 7:21-23)

Tough Words and Authenticity

18 July: (M 7:24-27)

Two Foundations: Building a Confident Foundation

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I think you need to read this Psalm...

Call me Moffatt the Prophet, but I think you need to read this Psalm:

1 My heart is not proud, O LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore.

Am I wrong?

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Pic on Flickr by Mark H (aka Bart the Gaul.)

Those African Americans know how to preach

The cleaner -- a top guy -- and I just watched this in my office -- Little Hogwarts.

Keep watching to the end.

Man -- they don't preach like this any more.

Pity.

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We are all Theologians

DugDownDeep_Carnahan.mov from Covenant Life Church on Vimeo.

H/T Nat Smith on FB.

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C.S. Lewis on Church Music

C. S. Lewis from his essay entitled ON CHURCH MUSIC:

When it (music in the church) succeeds, I think the performers are the most enviable of men; privileged while mortals to honour God like angels and, for a few golden moments, to see spirit and flesh, delight and labor, skill and worship, the natural and the supernatural, all fused into that unity they would have had before the Fall.

But I must insist that no degree of excellence in the music, simply as music, can assure us that this paradisal state has been achieved. The excellence proves 'keenness'; but men can be 'keen' for natural, or even wicked, motives.

The absence of keenness would prove that they lacked the right spirit; its presence does not prove that they have it. We must beware of the naive idea that our music can 'please' God as it would please a cultivated human hearer. That is like thinking, under the old Law, that He really needed the blood of bulls and goats.

To which an answer came, 'Mine are the cattle upon a thousand hills', and 'if I am hungry, I will not tell thee.' If God (in that sense) wanted music, He would not tell us. For all our offerings, whether of music or martyrdom, are like the intrinsically worthless present of a child, which a father values indeed, but values only for the intention.

Nice.

Thoughts?

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Pic taken by Jenny Ihn!