Sermon: Why Bother Being Holy?
Sermon preached at St Luke’s Liverpool on Sunday 13/11/2011 as part of our “You Asked For It” series, where congregation members suggested the sermon topics.
“Why Bother Being Holy?” If we are saved by grace, what’s the point of doing good things?
Moneyball (2011)
Moneyball
Rated M
Starring Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman
A movie about sport is always going to be a tough sell for me. While I love strapping on the boots and running onto the field, sitting down to watch a game of rugby really isn’t my thing. I’m not much of a spectator. A sport movie about Baseball, a sport I really only know about from watching American movies and TV? You’re really going to struggle to get my attention. On top of that, make the movie about Baseball statistics? I mean really? A movie about baseball and math and you expect me to want to sit down in a cinema for two hours and watch? The only way a movie like that could be watchable was if it had a great cast and an entertaining script.
Fortunately for Moneyball, it has all of the above and more.
Comic of the Week: OMAC #3
A few years ago, I stopped by monthly comics. There were a number of reasons for this. I was finding it difficult to store all those individual issues and preferred to have the collected editions that sat nicely on my bookshelf. I no longer worked in the city, so regularly getting to a comic shop to pick up my order was increasingly difficult. And frankly, most monthly comics were just losing my interest. I still loved comics, but the collections were where it was at for me.
That was until three months ago. DC Comics, in a bold move, relaunched their entire comic line, sending everything back to #1. And on top of that, they began to release all of their titles digitally through the Comixology app the same day the print versions hit the store. And now I’ve got the comic bug again. First thing I do on a Thursday morning is to fire up the iPad and see what comics have been released. And the fact that I can get them cheaper digitally than I can in print is a big bonus. Since DC got the ball rolling, more and more books are released on the same day digitally as they are in stores.
To give you an idea of what comics are grabbing my attention, check out my favourite book of this week – OMAC #3.
Preaching From The iPad
I bought myself an iPad. I could try to pretend that I bought it for ministry use or to increase my productivity. But the real reason I bought the iPad was to read comic books. DC Comics announced that they were releasing all their comics digitally on the day they came out in stores. The digital price of comics is cheaper than what I can get them for in the store and I don’t have to worry about where I’m going to store them. And so far I’m loving reading my comics on the thing.
One of the first questions people asked me when they heard I had an iPad was if I was going to preach from it. That seems to be what all the cool preachers are doing these days. So I gave it a shot. And I liked it. I thought it might be helpful to talk through my experience and how I went about preparing.
Sermon: Born This Way
Sermon preached at St Luke’s Liverpool on Sunday 6/11/2011 as part of our “You Asked For It” series, where congregation members suggested the sermon topics.
“Born This Way” looking at the Christian view of homosexuality.
Pop Culture Christ 
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