Grief and suffering bring us close to the heart of the suffering God and can open us to God’s transforming and resurrecting power.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons on Formation
The world finds the message of Jesus almost incomprehensible because it seems too simplistic and unrealistic to be taken seriously.
God invites us into a journey of healing, growth and reconciliation, and values our engagement with that journey far above our individual accomplishments.
The only measure of our progress in Christian faith is our love for others, including those we are least inclined to love.
There will always be people in the church you find difficult to get on with, and it is their presence that will really enable you to grow in your ability to love.
The way of blessedness that comes through obedience and submission to God’s will, but the choice lies in our hands.
All creation waits impatiently for humanity to work and pray its way into the fullness of our identity in Christ, for only then will all creation be safe and free.
In the midst of our world, with its trials, sins, hunger, and longing for the rule of love, the prayer of Jesus leads us back to our loving God and Father.
In the culture of Jesus, the very conditions that create discomfort, struggle, suffering and even scorn, paradoxically are transformed into the essential ingredients to inherit and inhabit the kingdom of God.
Jesus leads us through the confusion of transition times, into a new space with hugely expanded horizons and lives made meaningful in a global way.
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.
Acknowledging and appreciating Jesus is relatively easy, but we find it much more difficult to transform our lives in conformity with his teaching.
Jesus models for us a willingness to listen, learn and grow rather than a domineering certainty that insists on knowing who’s right and who’s wrong.
The task of being changed into what God calls us to be involves a radical break with the established norms of our world.
Jesus calls us to choose between the old bread of hostility and death and the new bread of compassion and life.
We are not added to a particular church flock in order to be in the “right” group, but in order to learn, with Christ, to love others and lay down our lives for the world.
To grow up well, children need to be anchored to a broad community with shared values, which nevertheless allows for individual differences.
Joseph models a courageous willingness to be stripped of his sense of entitlement that he might become all God wanted him to be.
While faith is a gift, blessings come to those who are prepared to wrestle with their faith.
Jesus is the door through which we pass to receive life – life in his name – a life of authenticity, a life of freedom, a life of purpose.