Sermonising

At one hour and five minutes, I am embarrassed to say that I have now taken the record for the longest sermon ever by an indigenous preacher at St Silas' (we once had a man from New Zealand who went to one-and-a-half hours). This takes Mitchum Bock's crown by some considerable margin! This is in spite of me telling myself not to go down 'rabbit holes' and working hard on structure. I was preaching from a Powerpoint Handout without any other notes, which tends to flexibility, but also length. I apologise to the easily bored, but it felt like important stuff that needed to be said. I hope that Community was strengthened by it and that people turn up next week for 'Encountering God' (there was a bit of a mix up on titles for these sermons - see Simon's blog for details). The Lord also gave several people prophetic pictures which were shared. It's so encouraging that we seem to be getting that balance of 'Word and Spirit' a little better.

The morning sermon was a toughie - 1 Corinthians 11. Many preachers would either avoid, or dismiss altogether, the first part of this chapter, and no wonder, as it's an hermeneutical minefield with much disagreement, even amongst more conservative scholars, as to how it can be applied today! It reminds us that equality and submission go together, we need to be careful how we present ourselves to the surrounding culture, and that there is a created order to things that should overflow into how we do community.

Feeling a little 'preached out' today, so the plan is to tidy the study (Again!  Who makes all this mess? That'll be me.......), and some visiting later in the day.

In other exciting news, the Indianapolis Colts beat the Chicago Bears 29-17 in Super Bowl XLI last night (it was on terrestrial TV here too) and the sun is shining again in Glasgow.   

Comments

[Simon Varwell]

And a very useful and challenging sermon it was. I agree, sometimes you need to take time to make a point when it is felt to be important.

Sorry I missed this morning, I must have a listen to it online.

[Chris Leman]

Really that long? I had no idea, although I was starving by the end as I hadn't had dinner before the service. Keep on preaching those tough sermons. I find them interesting, relevent and (to be honest) quite entertaining. Is it a bad thing to take pleasure out of watching the preacher squirm?

[Mike Goss]

Now we know which preacher some of the St Silasites are avoiding ;-)

[m0ok]

Roll on Superbowl XLII!