Latest Posts
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A sermon for Y’All
Here is a sermon that I preached on Sunday. You can find the audio here. (This one is more fun to listen to than to read, I think). I have learned in the course of my travels that it sometimes takes people a few minutes to atune to the way I speak. I’ve learned that…
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The Pink List
I see that I’ve been named on the Pink List – the list of prominent LBGT people produced by the Independent on Sunday. Feel hugely honoured and humbled to be keeping company with such heros. Check them out: Pink List
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Not merely patronising
Bishop Victoria Matthews is not merely patronising, she is actually wrong. Wait, you want me to back up a bit? OK. The story so far: We’ve been considering the idea of an Anglican Covenant for years and this year the Scottish Episcopal Church decided to reject it and did so in a very clear synodical…
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Six Points for Preachers
I’m scheduled to attend a conference on preaching soon so inevitably I’m thinking about how preaching works and about how to extend my homiletic repertoire. Someone asked me a good question yesterday – “How did you improve as a preacher”. It is a good question because it is affirming and something that all preachers should…
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Is it a sin?
Is it a sin, I find myself asking rhetorically, for men and women to be treated differently by institutions? Is it a sin for women and men to have unequal access to power and privilege. My own view is that it is not merely wrong for gender to be a determining factor in what someone…
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Who we are
Right, here is a little verbatim to get you thinking. The scene is a concert given by a famous jazz musician a few weeks ago in an American cathedral. I’ve been nudged to the front to sit with the bigwigs. As we sit waiting for the music, I hear this conversation going on somewhere behind…
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Cathedral as Emergent Community
Cathedrals are doing quite well. Now, as with all generalisations and stereotypes, this is both sometimes true and sometimes not. However, it is something that quite a lot of people are talking about. The recent Grubb Institute report had some astonishing statistics suggesting that large portions of the adult population in England had entered a…
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Guest Post: How to Hear a Sermon by Rosemary Hannah
In this guest post, Rosemary Hannah reflects on how to hear a sermon. Rosemary teaches in TISEC, has just written the definitive biography of the Third Marquess of Bute and is a member of the congregation at St Mary’s. ‘I always listen to the sermon, knowing the word of God will reach me through it,’…
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The Five Marks of Mission (Useful or not?)
Following on from my diatribe about the word Missional the other week, here’s another thing. Are the Five Marks of Mission which are so very often discussed in Anglican circles as useful as people presume? Here I would have to say that I believe in them all. I think they are all lovely, vital, necessary…
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