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.
Tag: preaching
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Wycliffe College Preaching Day
Wycliffe College will be hosting their annual Preaching Day on Monday, February 26, 2018. Wycliffe always manages to put together an excellent program featuring keynote speakers that are among some of the most theologically insightful preachers and teachers of our day. This year’s conference looks to be no exception to the rule as Wycliffe welcomes Jason Byassee to speak on the theme of “Christ Meets Us in the Psalms.” (more…)
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Back by Popular Demand
Those who missed my presentation at last year’s Wycliffe College Preaching Day will have an additional opportunity to join me in reflecting upon the realities of preaching with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I will be leading a workshop at the upcoming Tyndale Preaching Conference on March 6 on the theme “Confessing Christ in Troubled Times: Bonhoeffer as a Resource for Preachers.” You can find more information about the conference and how to register here. (more…)
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When a Hallmark Christmas Isn’t Good Enough
A Guest Post by Paul Johansen
This is the seventeenth in a series of posts engaging with the sermons in Leaps of Faith: Sermons from the Edge. This post is a reflection upon a Christmas Eve sermon entitled “When a Hallmark Christmas Isn’t Good Enough” (pp. 78-84). The Scriptural text for the sermon was Luke 2:1-20. (more…)
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The Song of the Son
With the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) appearing as a potential reading in the lectionary last Sunday and again this coming Sunday and with the Annunciation to Mary (Luke 1:26-38) standing as the Gospel reading for the fourth Sunday of Advent, it seems timely to share an excerpt from a sermon entitled, “Let Heav’n and Nature Sing!” from my book Leaps of Faith: (more…)
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“Judgement”: A Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent
The following is the text of a sermon I preached at Fallingbrook Presbyterian Church in Scarborough on the first Sunday of Advent. The Scripture readings were Psalm 98 and Revelation 19:1-9.
Advent is my favourite season of the Christian year, but it seems like the observation of the season of Advent is becoming an increasingly counter-cultural activity. While Starbucks has been serving its Christmas blend in its signature Christmas cups for over a month and Swiss Chalet has been offering its festive meal for almost as long, Advent tells us we are still waiting. While the music blaring in malls and on radios announces that it is the most wonderful time of the year, Advent says to us “Not yet.” (more…)
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“On the Mountain with Jesus”: A Sermon from Wycliffe College
On November 2, I had the privilege of preaching at Morning Prayer at Wycliffe College in the faculty preaching series, entitled “The Word is Near You: Seeds of Reformation.” It was a privilege to join the distinguished faculty of Wycliffe College in this Reformation-themed preaching series and to preach from a pulpit that has, over the years, welcomed an impressive collection of archbishops, leading preachers, and distinguished theologians. My assigned text was Matthew 28: 16-20. You can listen to a recording of the sermon here. For those not familiar with Wycliffe, in the first few sentences of the sermon I am riffing on the titles of books written by members of the Wycliffe faculty.
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95 at 500
The following is an extract from a sermon I preached this past Sunday at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Scarborough. The service made use of some of the liturgical resources prepared conjointly by the Presbyterian Church in Canada and the Christian Reformed Church to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. It is not a scholarly treatment, nor does it exhaustively treat the complex and often ambiguous legacy of the Reformation. Rather, it simply attempts to acquaint people with the person of Martin Luther and some of the early developments associated with the beginning of the Reformation in Germany. (more…)
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Newbigin on the Challenge of Preaching Christ Today
In the 18th Joseph Smith Memorial Lecture delivered at Overdale College in Birmingham, England in 1979, published as a pamphlet under the title “Preaching Christ Today”, Lesslie Newbigin suggested that the crucial issue facing preachers today is discerning the proper relationship between Law and Gospel. (Interestingly, this was also a pressing concern for Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his seminarians in the mid-30s.) (more…)
