Tag Archives: prayer

Praying for the City

How do you eat an elephant? A bite at a time. Now, when Nick asked me to speak on Praying for the City that is a bit what it felt like. Cities are big places and prayer is a big subject, no just one elephant, but two! You’ll be glad to hear that I’m not […]

Don’t Worry. Rejoice.

When I was last in a prison I was sorry to leave, but was also very glad that I didn’t have to stay. I’d been there as part of my work experience placement from college when I was training to be a vicar. I’d spent two weeks with the chaplains, getting a bit of a […]

That I may see

In a moment I would like us to go on a journey in our imagination to Jericho, to experience this meeting between Jesus and the blind man. Before we do that, though, I would like to fill in a bit of the background for us. The first bit of background is to do with what […]

Joy hard won

Before we look at today’s passage, let’s remind ourselves a bit about the church that Paul is writing to. It was a church that he planted in the city of Philippi. Two of the key events from the church’s early life are its roots in a prayer group that used to meet at the river, […]

Freedom

Twenty three years ago a man walked out of prison, having been locked up for twenty seven years. One of the consequences of that imprisonment was irreversible damage done to the tissue in his lungs by TB and the fine dust created by the rocks that he was set to break. That damage has been […]

The Spiritual Battle

If I’ve understood the rota that I was sent, you are going to be having two sermons on this passage, the first concentrating on the spiritual battle that we are involved in, and the second, focussed on the armour that we wear in that battle. This is an interesting way of looking at this teaching, […]

Ready to die?

Over the last few weeks the presidents of two North African countries have been deposed. There have been protests in many others. There appears to be the beginning of a civil war in Libya. There has been a huge earthquake in Christ Church, New Zealand, and another this week off the coast of Japan, both […]

A Place of Prayer

I’d like to take you on a journey this morning. As we travel we will stop off at various places, meet different people and hear what is being said. As we travel, I’d like to encourage you to think about similar journeys that you have taken, or maybe that you are on at the moment. […]

The Lord’s Prayer

I’m really glad this morning to be talking about this prayer. Over my life I’ve had a bit of a strange relationship with it. I remember an assembly I sat in when I was ten. The headmaster was defending the fact that we didn’t have much in the way of prayers in our school assemblies. […]

Hezekiah

Last week we met Hannah, a woman who was desperate for a child. A woman who, in some senses, was a symbol of the fruitless life that the people of God were living. A woman who came to the place of worship, poured out her distress to God, and received the promise of God with […]