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Transforming Preaching - The word of God
Transforming Preaching - The word of God
by SPCK - David Heywood
1 Why preach? The word of God Written words, spoken words Since the invention of the printing press over 500 years ago the printed word has been the world’s dominant form of communication. Once the privilege of a few, reading and writing have become a universal gateway to a world…
Transforming Preaching - Remembering
Transforming Preaching - Remembering
by SPCK - David Heywood
2 The sermon as a learning event Remembering Since both listening and memory are elements in the way our minds work to take in, store and use information, remembering shares many characteristics with listening. Like listening, it is an active process, deeply affected by our value…
Transforming Preaching - Learning
Transforming Preaching - Learning
by SPCK - David Heywood
2 The sermon as a learning event Learning We have looked at two of the specific ‘components’ of the learning process, listening and remembering. We have seen that listening is an active process; it requires a decision to pay attention to some new information or situation, whether…
Four Gospels, One Jesus - He rides again
Four Gospels, One Jesus - He rides again
by SPCK - Richard A Burridge
He rides again The Resurrection, Luke 24 A good ending to a story ties up the various threads; the best sort of ending opens up new horizons. Mark’s gospel ended with the enigma of the empty tomb and an absent Jesus; Matthew had the supernatural happenings and the Teacher commiss…
Four Gospels, One Jesus - Biography, faith and worship
Four Gospels, One Jesus - Biography, faith and worship
by SPCK - Richard A Burridge
Biography, faith and worship This book has attempted a symbolic reading of the narratives of the gospels as biographies of Jesus. Biography is a form of story, and human beings find their identity through stories, which brings a community dimension to interpretation. There is an …
Four Gospels, One Jesus - The Powerful Ox
Four Gospels, One Jesus - The Powerful Ox
by SPCK - Richard A Burridge
The powerful ox Symbolism and meaning After the human face of God in Matthew’s Teacher of Israel and the bounding lion of Mark, the next symbol for Jesus might seem odd: to us, the ox seems somewhat slow and stupid – and, indeed, some commentators have been known to call Luke, wi…
Online Mission and Ministry - Techno Christianity
Online Mission and Ministry - Techno Christianity
by SPCK - Pam Smith
Techno Christianity In the beginning . . . I started to go online in the 1990s, shortly after the world wide web became available to people with home computers. I was teaching in a college which had a suite of computers connected to the internet, and having tried it out there I b…
Four Gospels, One Jesus - Four Gospels,... Four Portraits
Four Gospels, One Jesus - Four Gospels,... Four Portraits
by SPCK - Richard A Burridge
Four Gospels,… Four portraits Deep in the heart of the Kent countryside, perched on the side of a gentle hill sloping from the Downs to the flat plain of the Kentish Weald, is a large country house. Chartwell, as it is known, was the country home of Sir Winston Churchill from 192…
Four Gospels, One Jesus - What are the gospels?
Four Gospels, One Jesus - What are the gospels?
by SPCK - Richard A Burridge
What are the Gospels? Genre First, we need to ascertain what kind of creature we are about to encounter. If we were to treat a cartoon featuring Churchill as though it were a photograph, we would soon make mistakes in its interpretation. Similarly, one does not listen to a fairy …
Online Mission and Ministry - Building an online community
Online Mission and Ministry - Building an online community
by SPCK - Pam Smith
Building an online community Even if your vision is for a project run solely by yourself, it is worth thinking about community. The online world is full of abandoned Christian sites, sadly forsaken and clogged up with adverts and spam posts which say nothing about the Christian m…
Online Mission and Ministry - Looking after yourself and your team
Online Mission and Ministry - Looking after yourself and your team
by SPCK - Pam Smith
Looking after yourself and your team Why is it that so many movements and organisations spring up within the Church and within society form a noble and generous purpose, attract intelligent and conscientious people, flourish briefly, then become so preoccupied with questions of i…
Four Gospels, One Jesus - From Jerome to the Book of Kells
Four Gospels, One Jesus - From Jerome to the Book of Kells
by SPCK - Richard A Burridge
From Jerome to the Book of Kells The illuminated gospels Jerome’s translation quickly became the ‘Vulgate’, which means ‘Common’ version. The canonical order of Matthew– Mark–Luke–John applied to Ezekiel’s sequence was fairly standard and the four symbols can be found in frescoes…
Transforming Preaching - Involving the congregation
Transforming Preaching - Involving the congregation
by SPCK - David Heywood
4 Involving the congregation Interactive preaching Tim Stratford tells of the time he preached to a new congregation for the first time. To help give him confidence, he had chosen an existing sermon which had gone well on a previous occasion. But in the new church it met only gla…
Transforming Preaching - The varieties of structure
Transforming Preaching - The varieties of structure
by SPCK - David Heywood
3 A step-by-step guide to sermon preparation The varieties of structure In the previous section we looked at the use of structure as the skeleton of your sermon, providing an outline that keeps all the component parts in their proper place without drawing attention to itself. We …
Transforming Preaching - Using visual images
Transforming Preaching - Using visual images
by SPCK - David Heywood
3 A step-by-step guide to sermon preparation Using visual images The first two vital ingredients in any sermon are the message and the structure, deciding what God is calling you to say and planning how you want to say it. The third ingredient provides the vital spark that makes …
Transforming Preaching - Language to listen to
Transforming Preaching - Language to listen to
by SPCK - David Heywood
3 A step-by-step guide to sermon preparation Language to listen to A sermon is a spoken event. The ‘sermon’ is not the script, even where that script is available to take away and read, but the event in which the sermon is delivered and the congregation responds. That event takes…
Online Mission and Ministry - Theological understandings
Online Mission and Ministry - Theological understandings
by SPCK - Pam Smith
Theological understandings Christians who become actively involved in online ministry can usually articulate a clear sense of being called by God to mission in the context of digital space. Of course, the personal conviction of being called to a particular role does not, in itsel…
Online Mission and Ministry - Where do I start?