excerpt from my sermon

"...In the end she could find no compelling reason to stay with the Church. She was disappointed with God’s people. My heart sank as she proclaimed, “It was a real turn off actually.” I wondered where she was up to in relation to the living God now.


I know there would be some that would say that Christianity needs to be more hip and relevant if it is to make significant impact in today’s society. That we need more rock bands, cool haircuts and advertising slogans to give Christianity a good name. Many of you will have taken part in the recent, Jesus! All about life! campaign in the hopes that people would begin to receive a more positive message about our saviour and our religion; that people would get the message that Christians don’t have to be associated with formality, ritual or goody two-shoes-party-pooping-Saturday-nights-in-at-Bible-Study any more. We can be as hip, cynical and trendy as the next religion, so why don’t you join us, eh?


But if an attractive veneer is all that Christianity has to offer, what makes it any different from the myriad of other “fix-your-life-for-60-dollars-a-week” schemes people engage with to make themselves happy? In a world where icons compete with one another for the attention of your average punter, where the pressure to perform is high, whether its in your job, your marriage or even at church; in a world where substantial thinking, hospitality and spiritual disciplines are untaught and in some places unheard of, what do Jesus followers have to make them any different from the next salesman?

The earliest Christians lived in just such a world and they stood out like..."

Do you think they'd let me preach it anywhere? I promise the exegesis is halfway decent! incidentally... I have just finished my exegesis course... three assignments to go. WOOP WOOP