SPCK

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Psalms for Everyone - There Is No God Here

by SPCK - John Goldingay

There Is No God Here Psalm 53 Yesterday, my wife and I walked through crowds of people whose faces seemed to say, “There is no God here.” They were crowds walking up and down the pier at Santa Monica among the stands selling ice cream and sunhats and hotdogs. They should have bee…

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Psalms for Everyone - How to Stand Tall-I

by SPCK - John Goldingay

How to Stand Tall-I Psalm 52 The dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial was scheduled this weekend in Washington (but a threatened hurricane has caused a delay in this event). Inevitably, perhaps, there’s some difference of opinion about whether it is the right sort of…

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Psalms for Everyone - Teach Me to Repent

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Teach Me to Repent Psalm 51 John Donne was a seventeenth-century priest, love poet, and member of parliament. He also wrote a series of “Holy Sonnets” (found in The Oxford Book of English Verse, ed. Christopher Ricks [New York: Oxford University Press, 1999], 117). In one he imag…

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Psalms for Everyone - Keep It Simple

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Keep It Simple Psalm 50 It’s kind of complicated being a church. It was brought home to me yesterday when for the first time I took the bunch of church keys that I recently inherited to go for a meeting with a couple whose baby we are going to baptize. There are fifteen keys. I n…

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Psalms for Everyone - Death Cathches You When You Don't Expect It To

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Death Catches You When You Don’t Expect It To Psalm 49 We recently buried the second-oldest member of our congregation, who until she faded away quickly at the end had regularly attended church. We drove quite a way to the cemetery, and I wondered why, until I discovered that her…

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Times and Seasons - Full Service - First Sunday after Christmas - Year A

by Andrew Pratt and Marjorie Dobson

Full Service First Sunday after Christmas Year A Order of Service contains: Call to Worship Opening Hymn Prayer- God of our future Hymn Reading - Isaiah 63:7-9 Reading - Psalm 148 Hymn Reading - Hebrews 2:10-18 Reading - Matthew 2:13-23 Sermon Idea One - Flight into Egypt Sermon …

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Psalms for Everyone - Is This the City?

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Is This the City? Psalm 48 When my first wife and I moved to the United States, people would ask what I would miss about England, to which I would answer not fish and chips or even Indian food but proximity to France and to Israel. Since the move I haven’t been to Israel, partly …

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Psalms for Everyone - The Outrageous Confession

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The Outrageous Confession Psalm 47 In church yesterday we made our usual outrageous confessions, such as the declaration that Jesus is Lord. They are outrageous because the day’s news seems to belie them. Dozens of people have died in an attack on a mosque in Pakistan. Car bombs …

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Psalms for Everyone - Be Still and Know That I am God

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Be Still and Know That I Am God Psalm 46 For nearly a thousand years, most of what is now Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and other areas comprised the Holy Roman Empire. It had a legislative assembly confusingly called a diet, which in 1521 met at a Germ…

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Psalms for Everyone - The Marriage Challenge

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The Marriage Challenge Psalm 45 When you’re young and you get married, you have to get your parents’ approval, but when you’re old and you get married, you have to get your children’s approval. So I was nervous about telling my sons that I was getting married again eighteen month…

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Psalms for Everyone - Wake Up, God!

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Wake Up, God! Psalm 44 In connection with Psalm 20 I’ve mentioned that our church has just had to accept that we could no longer afford to pay the salary of a pastor. I mentioned this to one of my sons in England, who expressed surprise that such a thing could happen, surmising t…

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Psalms for Everyone - When Life Continues to Be Darkness

by SPCK - John Goldingay

When Life Continues to Be Darkness Psalm 43 I’ve just been reading a Darfuri refugee’s account of how he came to be in a camp in Chad. As a farmer in Sudan he was tortured by the application of a clothes iron to his back, his legs, his hands, and his head because the members of o…

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Psalms for Everyone - Where Is Your God?

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Where Is Your God? Psalm 42 There is a poignant movie called James’ Journey to Jerusalem about a young Zulu who has been designated to be his village’s next pastor. If it were the West he would be sent to seminary, but the village decides that the best way to prepare him for his …

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Psalms for Everyone - How to Learn from the Poor

by SPCK - John Goldingay

How to Learn from the Poor Psalm 41: 1-12 As we arrived at church on Sunday, a homeless man named Alex who sometimes comes to church was sitting in the shade of the parish hall, drawing on a cigarette as he waited for the time of the service. During the service we read the story …

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Psalms for Everyone - Praise and Thanksgiving as a Key to Prayer-II

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Praise and Thanksgiving as a Key to Prayer-II Psalm 40 As usual we had a time of sharing praise and prayer concerns in church yesterday, and as usual I had more success getting people to share prayer concerns than to share reasons for thanksgiving. As far as I remember the only t…

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Psalms for Everyone - I Am Going to Die

by SPCK - John Goldingay

I Am Going to Die Psalm 39 I didn’t think much about dying until my grandson was born, and then the thought came to me that I could die now; I had done my job for the human race’s future by fathering a son who had himself fathered a son. I thought about it again three or four yea…

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Psalms for Everyone - Did You Have Your Eyes Shut, Then?

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Did You Have Your Eyes Shut, Then? Psalm 37: 21-40 There’s a poem by Jacqueline Osherow in which she imagines a Jewish boy who has learned the Psalms by heart saying them at Auschwitz and puzzling over Psalm 37 (“Psalm 37 at Auschwitz,” in Dead Men’s Praise [New York: Grove Press…

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Psalms for Everyone - When Suffering Links to Sin

by SPCK - John Goldingay

When Suffering Links to Sin Psalm 38 A friend of mine recently gave me a moving description of the Alcoholics Anonymous group to which he belongs. People go to meetings because they are desperate. They know they cannot kick their habit on their own. It’s more like a disease. They…

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