Despite our almost idolatrous attachment to social structures like traditional family and monarchy, God wants us to live up to our calling to be a radically egalitarian community of prayerful shared responsibility.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons on Leadership
Following Jesus in ministering among the needs around us is not a call to do everything ourselves.
Jesus comes to break us free from oppressive understandings of God and of God’s expectations of us.
Our unwitting abusive treatment of the Royal family is a symptom of our entanglement in systemic persecution.
In baptism we are anointed to reign with Christ over a new creation, but it is a reign of suffering servanthood, not of reckless force.
If you’re looking for wisdom, healing, practical solutions, look to Jesus, because church leaders constantly fail when they do any more than point to Jesus.
In a world dominated by arrogant and exploitative leaders, Jesus models a gentle shepherding leadership that prioritises the reintegration of the broken over the drive for “success” and “efficiency”.
Self-interested leaders will frequently manufacture frightening images of an angry dangerous God to silence opposition and maintain their grip on power, but Jesus opens our eyes to these abuses and to the reality of a God of incorruptible love.
The abusive use of anger to manipulate other people’s behaviour is, Jesus says, on the same spectrum as physical violence, and Jesus calls this preacher to repent of it.
Whatever the future may hold, in rough places AND in smooth, in dark valleys and on sunlit hillsides, the Lord is our shepherd, and will lead us finally to green pastures and still waters.
Jesus calls us to follow his lead in bringing healing, hope and positive leadership to others, and not to be too worried about anxious and vexatious criticism.
The culture of God’s beloved Son is born at the cross and takes root amidst a hostile world, spreading forgiveness and hospitality.
The task of being changed into what God calls us to be involves a radical break with the established norms of our world.
In the face of a politics grounded in nationalist arrogance and fake news, Jesus proclaims a ‘kingdom’ grounded in shared humanity and truth.
The things that make Jesus the perfect leader to lead us into new life are probably the same things that would make us turn our backs on him and seek to follow others.
God is most likely and able to work through those who accept their own weakness and don’t try to forcefully assert their own power and influence.
We all have different roles within the ongoing ministry of Christ, but that ministry is ultimately not dependent on the success of individual leaders.
Jesus does not burden us with crippling moral expectations, but humbly takes our burdens on himself and frees us to relax into the life of God.
A sermon on Psalm 23
Though we get caught up in violent rivalries like Herod, God breaks through with the promise of a new kingdom where all are honoured.