Personal Preaching!

I’ve been thinking about preaching today.  Not about actually doing it, you understand, as preaching isn’t something I usually do on a Saturday but about what goes into a sermon.

Thinking about preaching is actually something I do quite a lot of.  As a Probationer Presbyter in the Methodist Church I do a lot of preaching and write at least one new sermon every week.  This means I’m not only thinking about the last sermon I wrote but starting to think about the next one I will write too.

Actually ‘write’ is a loaded word; since not all the sermons that are preached use words.  Many people who know me will never hear the words I preach in church on a Sunday because, at the moment, they would never dream about setting foot inside a church.  The only ‘sermon’ they ever get from me and others whom they know to be Christians is the sermon of our lives, the way we live, the things we say, the way we treat other people. If you are a Christian, what is the ‘sermon’ of your life saying to others?

But there are the sermons that are prepared and sometimes written down and preached in churches all over the world.  There are some poor sermons, some average ones, some good ones and the occasional brilliant sermon.

What makes the difference?

Is it length?  Not especially.  I have been bored by a five minute homily and entranced by a sermon that lasted a good hour!

I think it’s actually the personal involvement of the preacher in his or her sermon.  A good sermon isn’t just a sound exposition of the Scriptures, made possible by use of good commentaries.  It isn’t even one that has lots of good, relevant, amusing or thought provoking illustrations.  A good sermon is, I think, one that comes from the heart, one that comes from the spiritual experience of the preacher; a message that is in one way intensely personal and that at the same time contains profound truths about God and about being a Christian disciple.  Preaching such a sermon will lead the preacher utterly exhausted because they have given a part of themselves in that sermon.

Of course there is more to a good sermon than this.  A good sermon is one that is inspired by God through the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit; who also inspires the minds and hearts of those who hear the sermon.  A sermon without the Holy Spirit is just a speech!

Preaching from the heart and giving of oneself in a sermon is costly, but it is genuine honest preaching; it is preaching that has integrity and that reaches the hearts of others.  It is the kind of preaching I long to hear and it is the kind of preaching that, guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit, I hope I do.

A Place to Pray

In theory a Christian can pray anywhere, anytime and in any circumstances; walking down the street, with others in church, in various rooms in the house, in the garden.... the list is endless.

I think most Christians, though, have a special place where they especially like to pray.  When I was studying in Durham as a Student Minister I used to love going to a particular side chapel in Durham Cathedral to pray.  Somehow, in that particular space, I felt the presence of God very powerfully in a way that I didn't in the rest of that beautiful building.  Of course God was and is present in the whole of that prayer soaked building, but he seemed especially present to me in that side chapel.

Since leaving Durham and moving to Bramhope I've been looking for a place near me where I can find that same closeness and powerful presence of God; I've been looking for a place to pray.  I've found two.

The first is a local nature reserve at Golden Acre Park on the outskirts of Leeds.  As I walk through that place in a morning, often alone save for the animals and birds, I find that I can talk freely with God and listen for his still small voice.  Inspiration for sermons comes often as I walk in this place.  The drawback is, of course, that it isn't suitable in all weathers and with winter approaching I needed an alternative.

A colleague of mine provided the answer.  He has built a prayer shed in his Manse garden, made out of scrap wood.  In it he has created somewhere he can go intentionally to pray and meet with God.

Now my DIY skills aren't really up to building a shed.  The result wouldn't be a place to pray so much as a death trap!  Neither are my finances healthy enough to buy a shed!

My alternative is a dedicated prayer room in the Manse I live in.  I'm lucky to have a small bedroom I don't need for any other purpose and so I'm in the process of turning it into a prayer room.  It has a couple of comfy seats, candles and a cross.  I'm looking for pictures to help create a very special space.  I'm already praying in there, using a mixture of quiet listening prayer and the orders for Morning and Evening Prayer and Compline from the Methodist Sacramental Fellowship.  Already that room is becoming a special place where I meet with God in a powerful way and I look forward to those times of the day when I go into my Prayer Room, close the door and pray to my God.

Sermon: Lost & Found

I’m sure most of you read the Bramhope Village Newsletter.  You may remember reading the following in the Spring 2013 edition:

“We attended the Methodist Sunday School at first, but one day the Superintendent, Mr Miller, saw my father coming out of the Fox and Hounds and promptly told him that this was not the expected behaviour of a parent of children at his Sunday School.  My6 sister and I promptly moved to St Giles’ Sunday School.”

That superintendent would certainly disapprove of your current minister as I have been seen in the Fox and Hounds on more than one occasion!

When I started to think about our passage this morning I was reminded of this story.  I immediately thought of the Superintendent as being very like a Pharisee!  The Pharisees and teachers of the law were condemning Jesus for eating with those they considered out casts and sinners: I imagine that the Superintendent in the story was condemning that father for similar reasons!

In the opening verses of chapter 15 we have a sharp contrast between two groups in 1^st century Jewish society.  On the one hand we have the Pharisees and teachers of the law who prided themselves on their religious purity and observance of the law.  On the other hand we have what the Good News Bible calls ‘outcasts’ and the NRSV calls ‘sinners’; the people in that society who were looked down upon by many because they were careless about keeping the religious laws.

There was a complete barrier between the Pharisees and those they called ‘sinners’.  They were forbidden to have sinners as their guests, to have any business dealings with them or to buy from them or sell to them. The Pharisees deliberately avoided contact with those they called sinners because the feared that they might be polluted by their sin.  They refused to teach them.  They certainly would never have shared a meal with them.

To share food with somebody at that time wasn’t just seen as associating with them; it was seen as welcoming them and treating them as equals.  No wonder that Jesus was condemned by the Pharisees and teachers of the law; in their eyes he was doing the unthinkable!

Jesus told them two parables to try to explain why he “welcomes outcasts and even eats with them”; the parables of The Lost Sheep and The Lost Coin.  This morning I want to concentrate on The Lost Sheep and on four particular words: lost, seek, until and joy.

The word lost tells us who Jesus is concerned about; it is another word for ‘outcast’ or ‘sinner’.  The sheep of the parable is lost because it has wandered away from the flock.  Sheep do this because they are concentrating so much on what they are eating, on moving on to the next good bit of grass without thinking about where they are going.

It is often the same with people.  We become so concerned with the day to day things of life;   with making money so that we can buy all the material things we desire, with pursuing our own personal happiness and goals, that we forget to consider the needs of others and forget the God who created us and loves us.  We move away from the close, intimate relationship with God that is possible for every human being not deliberately, but because we are distracted and we often don’t even realise we are lost.

I remember as a young child being lost in one of the big shops in Blackpool.  Actually I didn’t know I was lost.  I had seen some very interesting toys I wanted to look at and gone to look at them.  It was only when my mother grabbed me ten minutes later, with a frantic look on her face that I realised that as far as she was concerned I had been lost.

Just as my mother looked for me until she found me, so the shepherd in the parable seeks the sheep that is lost.  I didn’t know I was lost but my mum came looking for me.  The sheep in the parable didn’t know it was lost but the shepherd came looking for her.  We human beings don’t know that we are lost when Jesus comes seeking us.

I’m sure many of you have heard the phrase ‘man’s search for God’ but it is a falsehood.  Human beings do not search for God; instead God pursues us and seeks us out to bring us back into close and intimate relationship with God.

Many people are either unaware of the spiritual dimension of life altogether or are unaware that they have lost their way and moved out of that intimate relationship with God by being distracted by their own needs and desires.  Even before we realise we are lost God is seeking to bring us back to him.

The whole purpose of Jesus coming to earth was to seek the lost!  The irony is that the Pharisees and teachers of the law who condemned Jesus for eating with sinners were, in their own way, just as lost, as separated from that intimate relationship with God that all human beings need; because they were more interested in following rules and regulations than they were in loving others.

The idea of seeking, of the initiative being God’s, doesn’t just speak of Jesus seeking individuals but of God sending Jesus to earth.  It is a statement of the gospel itself, the good news that Jesus came to help us to remember that we are spiritual beings whose relationship with God is broken and needs mending.

The seeking carries on until:  my mum carried on looking for me in that shop until she found me, the shepherd in the parable continued looking for the sheep until he found her and Jesus keeps on seeking us out until we turn again to God and seek again that intimate relationship with him.

The message is that Jesus never, ever, gives up on us.  Never.  No matter what we have done, no matter how badly we think we have failed God, Jesus seeks us out when we are lost to bring us back to God.  Jesus does this because he loves and cares for us.  Just as a shepherd in first century Judea was willing to give his life for his sheep if they were attacked and was, indeed willing to risk his life to go out into the wilderness and find a lost sheep; so Jesus was willing to give his life on the cross so that each one of us can be drawn back to intimate relationship with our God.

Indeed it is through Jesus’ death on the cross that we are able to come back to God, that we are able to move from being lost to being found and are able to experience the joy of life with God.

How does Jesus death on the cross bring us back to God?  When we are lost in our state of sin, lost in our own selfishness and greed, we cannot see God.  Our sin separates us from God, forming an impenetrable barrier.  Jesus’ death on the cross shatters that barrier and enables us to know and experience God in the most intimate terms, as our true Heavenly Father and Mother.

Our final word is joy.  I remember somebody saying to me at last year’s Bramhope Village Show that there should be joy in the church and they were quite right.  There is joy in coming here on a Sunday morning to worship God together, to hear his word for our lives and to enjoy friendship and fellowship!  There is joy in singing hymns of praise and in praying to our Creator.  When we join together on a Sunday we should feel joy.

But all the joy we feel is as nothing compared to the joy that is felt in heaven when a lost soul turns from their sin and returns to intimate relationship with God.  As Jesus said, “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety nine people who do not need to repent.”  A minister friend of mine once put it this way: the angels throw a big celebration party!

That is why Jesus ate with outcasts, with sinners, because he knew they needed him, he knew that they were lost and that they needed him to lead them back into right relationship with God.  So did the Pharisees and teachers of the law.  The difference is that the sinners would be willing to recognise that they were lost, whereas the Pharisees wouldn’t have even admitted that.

We were all once lost sheep, but Jesus came an found us and brought us back to God.  If we ever stray again he will seek us out and bring us back again.

As Jesus disciples we too are called to seek out the lost and bring them back to God.  Just as Jesus went to them, in the place they were and ate with them so we too must be willing to seek out the lost outcasts and sinners, to welcome them into our lives and treat them as equals.

I leave you with two questions to ponder.  Who are the lost sheep ion our community and society?  Where can we go to seek them out?

First Easter - Reflections of a Year In Full Time Ministry

This is the third and final brief reflection on my first year as a Methodist Probationer Presbyter.

I discovered that Easter is something I really should have started thinking about early in the new year.  I returned to Circuit after a short post-Christmas break thinking that I had ages until Lent and Easter hove into view.  One or two people at my churches mentioned a Lent course and I said that of course I’d organise one, thinking it was something I’d do in a few weeks’ time.

I’d overlooked something fairly crucial: the fact that Easter was early this year which meant, of course, that Lent started early!  All of a sudden there was a week to go until Lent and, you’ve guessed it, I hadn’t even begun to think about a Lent course.  This was a recipe for disaster, or at least for having to use the “I’m a Probationer and I slipped up” card!

Then came a flash of inspiration.  I decided that instead of having a weekly Lent course we’d hold a weekly prayer meeting over the six Mondays of Lent.  I proposed this to the church stewards and they thought it was an excellent idea.  We met to pray together for six weeks and it was a time of great blessing; so much so in fact that we decided to continue to meet every so often to pray together for our churches through the rest of the year!

The “I’m a Probationer and I slipped up” card is something you can get away with using occasionally through your first year as a Probationer.  It should not be used too often or it will quickly become invalid; but if you do slip up with something because of lack of knowledge and/or experience people are very forgiving.  Anyway, back to Easter…

I found Easter itself a time of great blessing.

Maundy Thursday was very different from the service I’d been used to in my old Circuit.  The church was opened an hour before the start of the service for people to have quiet space for prayer and reflection.  Then we all gathered around a table together and shared in a simple service of Holy Communion.  It was very different, very holy and very sacred.

Good Friday was different for one of my churches.  They actually had a Good Friday service for the first time in many years, because I insisted on doing one – the only time so far I have insisted on my own way!  There was a good turn out too!

Easter Day was fantastic but utterly exhausting!  First service was a 6.30am service on the top of the Chevin (a big hill that looms over Otley) by the forty foot cross that is erected every Easter.  Then a 10:00am service followed by a 2:30pm service.  Completely wonderful and spiritually uplifting but physically and mentally exhausting!   When I got back to the Manse I collapsed in my armchair and slept for four hours!

I now know why many Methodist minister are off the week after Easter.  I was one of them and I was ready for the break!

Reflections on a Year In Full Time Ministry – First Easter

This is the third and final brief reflection on my first year as a Methodist Probationer Presbyter.

I discovered that Easter is something I really should have started thinking about early in the new year.  I returned to Circuit after a short post-Christmas break thinking that I had ages until Lent and Easter hove into view.  One or two people at my churches mentioned a Lent course and I said that of course I’d organise one, thinking it was something I’d do in a few weeks’ time.

I’d overlooked something fairly crucial: the fact that Easter was early this year which meant, of course, that Lent started early!  All of a sudden there was a week to go until Lent and, you’ve guessed it, I hadn’t even begun to think about a Lent course.  This was a recipe for disaster, or at least for having to use the “I’m a Probationer and I slipped up” card!

Then came a flash of inspiration.  I decided that instead of having a weekly Lent course we’d hold a weekly prayer meeting over the six Mondays of Lent.  I proposed this to the church stewards and they thought it was an excellent idea.  We met to pray together for six weeks and it was a time of great blessing; so much so in fact that we decided to continue to meet every so often to pray together for our churches through the rest of the year!

The “I’m a Probationer and I slipped up” card is something you can get away with using occasionally through your first year as a Probationer.  It should not be used too often or it will quickly become invalid; but if you do slip up with something because of lack of knowledge and/or experience people are very forgiving.  Anyway, back to Easter…

I found Easter itself a time of great blessing.

Maundy Thursday was very different from the service I’d been used to in my old Circuit.  The church was opened an hour before the start of the service for people to have quiet space for prayer and reflection.  Then we all gathered around a table together and shared in a simple service of Holy Communion.  It was very different, very holy and very sacred.

Good Friday was different for one of my churches.  They actually had a Good Friday service for the first time in many years, because I insisted on doing one – the only time so far I have insisted on my own way!  There was a good turn out too!

Easter Day was fantastic but utterly exhausting!  First service was a 6.30am service on the top of the Chevin (a big hill that looms over Otley) by the forty foot cross that is erected every Easter.  Then a 10:00am service followed by a 2:30pm service.  Completely wonderful and spiritually uplifting but physically and mentally exhausting!   When I got back to the Manse I collapsed in my armchair and slept for four hours!

I now know why many Methodist minister are off the week after Easter.  I was one of them and I was ready for the break!

Reflections On A Year In Full Time Ministry – First Christmas!

Why am I reflecting on my first Christmas as a Probationer Presbyter in the Methodist Church in September?  Surely Christmas is months away!

Well, it is and it isn’t.  I know that some of you who read yesterday’s blog are just starting in Circuit today and thinking that Christmas is a long way off, but it isn’t, it really, really isn’t.

Depending on when you Circuit Plan is made it may be that before the end of September you will have to decide what Christmas services you are taking, where and at what times. Unless you are one of those rare Presbyters blessed with pastoral oversight of only one church then this will involve some very careful juggling or somebody is going to be offended.

The actual Christmas services aren’t all you will have to consider.  Some of the church groups will want you to join them for Christmas meals and socials.  There is Advent to consider – are you going to run an Advent Course or prepare people spiritually for Christmas in some way that is in addition to the regular Sunday services?  Do any of your churches send out Christmas cards to the community?  What about nativity plays?  Shoebox Sunday?

I may be a Methodist Presbyter but I’m also a typical man.  For me the preparations for Christmas usually begin around 20^th December.  That’s when I generally go out to buy cards and presents, write said cards in a blur of frenzied activity that ensures the handwriting in most of them is virtually illegible and wrestle with wrapping paper and selloptape to produce something that bears a passing resemblance to a wrapped present.

As a Presbyter I don’t have the luxury of waiting until Christmas is nearly upon us.  I was surprised by how rapidly Christmas came upon me right at the beginning in Circuit.  By the middle of September I was already being asked about the design and content of the Christmas card on of the churches sends to each house in the village.

By the end of September I had to sort out my plan dates for the Christmas services; which led to a frantic round of phone calls as I tried to discover what my churches wanted and/or expected of me.  It didn’t help that two churches both expected me to be with them on the same day at the same time for two completely different types of service.  Eventually it was all sorted out, but I have already begun the consultations to find out the expectations for this year; which may not necessarily be the same.

I thought it was all sorted out.  The cards were ordered, the plan dates submitted and calm had descended upon my study.  Surely that was it.

Suddenly, in the middle of November, one of the churches I serve was asking me when the Advent Course started.  What Advent Course?  The churches I have attended before beginning my training had never had anything like that in Advent.  Why hadn’t I been told of this sooner?  The truth is that I was ignorant of the idea of an Advent course and the church just assumed I would be organising and leading one!  A valuable lesson was learnt about communication!  I should have thought to check if there was anything the church was expecting that I was unaware of; the church probably should have mentioned it sooner.

Advent flew by swiftly; a round of Christmas Fayres, Christmas Tree Festivals, meals and parties and plenty of preaching and worship to help people prepare for the coming of Christmas.

Then the joys of Christmas itself.  Two carol services on the Sunday before Christmas bringing with them a chance to bring the gospel to those who perhaps don’t normally come to church – an opportunity not to be missed!

My favourite service of the year has always been Christmas Eve midnight Holy Communion and I had spent my first few months looking forward to leading it for the first time.  It did not disappoint!  There was what can only be described as a holy atmosphere in church, a profound sense of the sacred and divine, of the very presence of God that left me reeling!

My first Christmas Day service too, as a Probationer Presbyter, is one that will long live in my mind.  The joy of gathering with the church family and leading them in Christmas worship is hard to put into words; but I will treasure the memories of that day for many years to come.

Despite the rush towards my first Christmas as a Probationer Presbyter it was a very rewarding, spiritually uplifting and special time for me.  I pray that if you are a Probationer approaching your first Christmas with your new church(es) that you will be as blessed as I was.  I pray too that if you are in a church with a new Presbyter, whether a Probationer or experienced minister of many years’ standing that you will remember that they don’t know everything you expect of them for this coming Christmas and that you will help and guide them for their sake and yours.

In my next post I will reflect upon my first Easter.