What do you are you looking for? It’s a fundamental question. What is it that you really, deep down, under all the surface nonsense and trivia of your life, long for?
Category: sermons
For a lot of people, Christmas is an ambivalent time. Emotionally complex. It holds a lot of stuff – both good and bad. For some, it is easy to enter into the spirit of it, perhaps reclaiming that childish delight. For others, it is marred by grief or difficult family relationships. As children we might […]
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Joseph and the Kingdom
Joseph went to bed that night with a lot on his mind. If it wasn’t enough that the Romans were propping up that blasphemous charlatan Herod, his own fiancee, Mary, was pregnant – and not to him. What on earth was God up to? My sermon on Matthew 1:18-25 from Preston High Street UCA A […]
What does the resurrection of Jesus mean? What is it to “believe” in the resurrection? Ultimately, does it, or anything, really matter?
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Preparation
What’s the most precious thing you own? Would you give it up? Would you give it to the man who saved your brother’s life?
A broken, inarticulate sermon preached in the immediate aftermath of the Christchurch Mosque shootings. The world can seem like a very dark place some days, and it is hard to preach a message of hope. Nonetheless, this is what I am called to do.
Jesus, led by the Spirit, was tempted in the wilderness for forty days. It’s all very well for him – he is, after all, God’s son. But what does it mean for us?
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Jesus Christ and the Meaningful Universe
The story of Jesus’ transfiguration is, even by Scriptural standards, pretty mysterious. What does it mean for the disciples to see Jesus’ “glory”? Why did his face shine? Why were Moses and Elijah there? And, most of all, why were they terrified when the cloud came down?
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Love Your Enemies
Jesus tells us to love our enemies, do good to those who hurt us, not to judge, to do to other people what we would have them do to us. Is that possible? Is it even desirable?
After a long night of unsuccessful fishing, Simon sits on the shore and reflects on his weird week. Little does he know that what he is about to see will change him forever.
Alister Pate 