Last Easter Sunday I had the privilege of celebrating the resurrection with the Church of Pentecost in Winnipeg. Overseer Gabriel Addo-Asante has shared with me a recording of my sermon. In some ways, we find ourselves, just a year later, in a much different space. In other ways, though, it is the same world: God’s good creation marred by Sin, held in captivity to Death, redeemed in Christ’s cross, awaiting the final revelation of the children of God.
I had the privilege of preaching at Niverville Community Fellowship this morning. In November, I will be presenting series of seminars in their adult education program on ethical issues surrounding Medically Assisted Dying. However, from a Christian perspective, it’s impossible to ask what it might mean to die a good death, if you don’t first consider what it means to live a good life. Hence the title of my upcoming series, “Living Well, Dying Well.” In advance of that series I preached a sermon this morning that brought Psalm 8, Genesis 3:1-7 and Hebrews 2:5-18 into conversation. You can watch the sermon here. (The sermon begins around the 36 minute mark.)
I had the great privilege yesterday of celebrating Easter Sunday with the Church of Pentecost in Winnipeg. Thank you to Overseer Gabriel Addo-Asante for the invitation to share in the ministry of the Word on the Day of the Resurrection. Here are a few paragraphs from my sermon on Luke 24: Continue reading The Grammar of Resurrection: An Easter Sunday Sermon Excerpt
“That we are taught to confess our sin, particularly during Lent, is not something to which we look forward. We are not at all sure an emphasis on sin is a good idea. We are in a time of a dramatic loss in membership in mainline Protestantism. We need to attract new people. Telling people they are possessed by sin does not sound like a good church-growth strategy. Continue reading A Poor Church-Growth Strategy? (Series on “Minding the Web”)
“One of the great advantages of being a Christian is that we are in a lifetime project to discover how to confess our sins. To be able to confess our sins is a theological achievement that our baptisms have made possible. For sin, as Karl Barth maintained, is only known in the light of Christ. Thus from Barth’s perspective, our fundamental sin consists in the presumption that we can know our sin without having become a disciple of Christ. In short, to be a Christian means we must be trained to be a sinner. Continue reading A Lifetime Project (Series on “Minding the Web”)
The following sermon was preached on Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2014 at Good Shepherd Community Church in Scarborough. The Scripture readings were Genesis 3:17-19; 1 John 1:5-10; Luke 18:9-14.