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 […]
Christian leaders go wrong. We should talk about it. A few unstructured thoughts from a Cafechurch session.
What is the Gospel in our age of anxiety?
What does the resurrection of Jesus mean? What is it to “believe” in the resurrection? Ultimately, does it, or anything, really matter?
Who is this Jesus person? And what does a parade held on the other side of the world two thousand years ago have to do with us?
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.
Someone asked me once “why does God need us to tell Him how wonderful He is? Does He have some sort of ego problem?” Apart from the regrettable use of gendered language for God, it is a fair point. If God is a personal, as Christians like to insist, then it’s a bit weird. Surely […]
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?
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?
Alister Pate